> My group, Earth Treasury, is on it. The absolute minimum requirement > to run computers appropriately is electricity and Internet. We have a > wide range of renewable power technologies, including solar, wind, > water, biofuels, animal power and child power. The hand crank on the > prototype OLPC XO was removed after Kofi Annan broke one off in a > demo, but it was becoming clear that hand cranking was inefficient, > and that it was necessary to be able to use any available power > source. So users can charge XOs from anything that will charge a > 12-Volt car battery. > > WiMax is the most promising broadband technology for general use, with > an installed cost of $10 per person in whole countries, for better > than 90% coverage. On the other hand, the XO has built-in mesh > networking, with a range comparable to WiMax. It is necessary also to > consider fiber optic landing points into countries, and the > distribution system from there. Although the very first cable to > Africa was put in only a few years ago, there are now numerious fiber > optics projects springing up, including undersea cables, links > overland to land-locked countries, and countries making deals with > international companies for building up a grid to link all cities and > towns. Plans to extend this network to villages are taking shape in > some countries, often using point-to-point wireless technology. > > It would be helpful if someone would undertake to create a > co-ordinated and funded research plan to determine the best > combinations of available technologies for every inhabited terrain and > climate, out to the poorest and remote villages, considering both > available financial resources and new economic possibilities.
Thanks Edward, I did mean to write to you but got hang up on reading what yu where up to. I take it you do mean researching this on a country by country basis. It does happen quite consistantly, (probably) as yu know through a whole range of similar groups in may institutions; from the world bank (who have just funded India to take a big leap forward) to http://www.ubuntunet.net/vision_mission (who have huge cultural differences to address). > > We propose to tie all of this together with microfinance: electricity, > Internet, education, jobs and new businesses. Preliminary study > indicates that it should be possible to do all of this at a profit, if > countries themselves can fund the basic education functions. In many > countries this should be straightforward, given that XOs already cost > less than printed textbooks in many places, and we can recruit > translators locally. > > The remaining gap in the plan is then to create the digital > replacements for textbooks in every subject for every grade level. > Given the potential savings, it should be possible to get governments > to fund creation of these materials for free distribution. If humans where logical animals and technology was all that stood in our way, yes. But this is a continuum, with all sorts of beliefs and value systems which need to adapt. The primary one being, I'm a teaching institution; if you study hard yo can have a piece of paper which will get you a job. To give you some idea of how out of kilter this is; I'm reading in the local Manailan paper that 200,000 trainee nurses will graduate this year. There are a maximum of 10,000 positions available. > > To make this plan a reality requires finding the people and resources > to do it. I hope that the possibility of employment in creating a new > generation of digital teaching materials, superior in every way to > books, would interest some here, and that we can network to find > others to take part. > > For example, do we have anybody interested in creating materials to > teach village power engineering and finance, and village wireless? Do > we have anybody with access to grant writers? The US Dept, of > Education wants to hand out $44 billion in stimulus money for projects > in educational innovation. Politicians often have staffers available > to help navigate the bureaucracy. I have started that conversation, > and will have much more to say about it after I get settled in in my > new home in Indiana. It's been a while since i looked at what engineers without borders were doing. The grant writing one is one worth considering. Many of the technical projects fall over beacuse few take the longer term view of working through where an NREN (or a regional) RREN aims to be, and when. Another cutural challenge (in the developing world) is, we have this problem that the NRENs don't consider that they can be marketing arms of commercial carriers. Most of the developing NREN tend to be fairly thin islands surrounded by fatter commercial (mainly wireless) carriers. The last mile problem is common. I think the concept of using a commercial carrier as exponents of 'what is possible', and trading their (in kind) donations for exposure (advertsing/promotion) in running events = streaming back to the local NREN, and perhaps through to a local broadcast station = is natural if we can get unis to think like media sales people. I've noticed some events cropping up call TEDex ( a local take off of TED.com) which is close to the idea. To be clear; preginet have (just) enough capacity to stream out, but they have no decent connections at the event sites. They will be talking to Sprint and Globe about this (i hope). > > > I've > > set myself up an impossible enough task by attempting to get the > > content creators, many of whom are OERers, and the infrastructure > > guys, to collaborate. Or at least gain some understanding of what each > > community is doing. Their ends do coincide, if not their language and > > agendas. > > We should share resources. Thanks. I'm interested in getting people from similar global groups talking, using the fatter real time tools like the accessgrid to break the ice. Most of the technical stuff is falrly simple for the NRENs. The main thing which is required are people who can run an event like my friend Pia. This approach worked well in the gov.au space. Maybe you'd consider a series of thes kinds of events as an Innovation in teaching. http://www.katelundy.com.au/2009/07/24/public-sphere-3-australian-ict-creative-industries-development/ > > > Most of the global infrastructure developments in the edu/research/gov > > domains can be seen through this euro centric > > portal.http://global.dante.net/ > > Another important source is WiserEarth.org. > Thanks. I should be clear about my intentions here. You'll notice that Dante is JUST about the technical aspects of networks funded by the EC. There are others like Gloriad (us-russia). These guys don't even consider the social networks, or even content as a collaborative thing. They are engineers not media people. So let's be clear that I'm talking cheese and you're talking to chalk. And we need to bridge the agendas of each community. Better still we need to encourage their groups to the collaborate on their strategies. > > > So far as the language in this technical space is concerned, the main > > language revolves around what is called "Middleware"; the software > > layer that helps apps talk to one another and sits above different > > operating systems. The apps are what content creators just want access > > to. We need a user name & password, usually issued by single > > institution to their version of an app and content = duplicate ad > > infinatum. This is something the OER Foundation is addressing > > fundamentally. > > > At the moment, throughout the (mainly developed) world, there is a > > push on by all NREN to create federations. Rather than going into > > great detail, let me just point you at this Aussie initiative. Take > > for granted with a bit of work i could point at a similar initiative > > in your country.http://www.aaf.edu.au/index.php/services/ > > > Long story short, we are getting to the point whare the NREN are > > reconfiguring to support global groups (taskforces/ committees) rather > > than national institutions. All the groups tend to be subject specific > > in their interests and the bandwidth, apps - in short, the 'network > > services' - which their global community will want to use. The > > middleware guys in each NREN understand that the only way they can > > satisfy these disparate needs is to try and talk to each community, > > which is a bit like herding cats on a global basis = impossible > > I have some experience in herding cats. The secret is to convince them > that where you want them to go is where they wanted to go in the first > place, and it has nothing to do with you. This requires good > listening, questioning, and translating skills, among other things. OK > > > So we have a catch 22. Communities like wikipedia and wikiedicator. > > i.e. passionate people who prefer to use one tool to produce open > > content often duplicate wonderful stuff in their attempts to acheive > > their related visions. Rarely do they have an opportunity to > > contemplate what other ICT services may be identified which could be > > shared between communities. (I noticed the Connexions Google group as > > another duplication) Â Meanwhile, the Middleware guys who must allocate > > resources, and try and figure out what service may be demanded and > > when, are simply bamboozled. > > There is no way to avoid substantial duplication of effort in > currently unconnected islands. Better connections will necessarily > arise, and most islands will join in. But compare this with the > mindless duplication of effort that we get by assinging the same > homework from the same book to every child of a certain age in a > school system. We can actually have schoolchildren work on some of our > local and global necessities, as part of their studies of particular > subject matter and of languages. Children can collect data in > otherwise inaccessible places for aggregation, analysis, mapping, and > sharing with the community. There are many other such opportunities. > > > > > OK. That the rave. I'm sorry for it. I'm sitting in Manila after > > talking to their preginet, after taking for years with the likes of > > aarnet, karen, internet2 (do a google search on NREN if yu want the > > list), and it seems like the right time and place to start looking at > > this. Let me bring it down to something concrete. If you're in the > > APac region, this is the hub of the geekly get together. > >http://www.apan.net/meetings/Sydney2010/schedule.php > > My interest is in the e-culture thread, cause the WP community has it, > > and APAN members have a clue but no experience of it. > > > I'll be be talking to terena's taskforces who look at this convergence > > and be pushing to have a VC link up between Euro sites and Sydney. It > > would be great if we could get the ice broken here to run, not just > > for a singular event, but a series of get togethers which might help > > welcome a few nearsiders to the e-culture fold, and give us an > > opportunity to see which basic tools (services) many global OER > > communities could share. > > I will be fascinated to hear what you can come up with, and I can > recommend a number of groups to bring into the discussion, many of > them listed in the EarthTreasury Web site under Replacing Textbooks. Than you edward. Let's hasten slowly. I don't know if this may be of interest to you. It's an outline of the Dutch National Strategy to do this; next year ( I believe). http://openedconference.org/archives/1069 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WikiEducator" group. To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org To visit the discussion forum: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]
