Benjamin Franklin Institute
of Global Education

A complete introduction of the panel, including music and audio presentations from all panel members, is available for your listening pleasure.
To listen in QuickTime, click here.

Sir John Daniel - appearing by video and by voice, from the UK

http://users.voice-alert.com/gld6/6036.html
http://users.voice-alert.com/gldarchives/4047.html

Sir John earned his knighthood by changing the landscape of higher education in the United Kingdom. After a very long stint at Open University, Sir John is now serving in a leadership position at UNESCO. He is one of the most gifted speakers in education; and one of the most pleasant. At Franklin, we call him the King of the Distance Education Hill.

This video is avaiable in two formats, one suited to those with a dialup connection and one for broadband connections.
To view the video in RealPlayer with a 56K or slower modem connection, select this link.
To view the video with a T1, ISDN or Cable connection and Real Player, select this link.

Andy Pincon - Our virtual conference host, in Chicago

http://users.voice-alert.com/gld6/6014.html

While Andy will tell you he is a software engineer, in fact he is a (human being) network specialist plugged into the entire Illinois education and technology society. He leads Franklin's efforts to design and build a 40 foot van "loaded for bear" - aka Franklin's Revolutionary Innovative Enterprise Network Developer. On the outside the FRIEND van is 800 square feet of billboard advertising space. On the inside it is a beehive of e-commerce, e-training, e-education, e-medicine and e-exports. We believe this van belongs on the front lawn of every City Hall in the world.

Dr. Arun Mehta - New Delhi

http://users.voice-alert.com/gld6/6023.html

Arun may be the world's leading authority on how to merge the power of the Internet with the reach of radio. What Arun does best is to remind us that for five out of six people on the planet, the relative cost of owning a radio is the same as the cost of owning a computer. The marriage of the Net, radio and telework is a major cornerstones for the bridges that need to be built so that five out of six don't get left behind.

Arun knows how to pour the concrete.

Dr. Terry Redding - Florida, USA

http://users.voice-alert.com/gld6/6031.html

Terry has developed one of the most interesting theories in education, and in my book, one of the most important. It's called First Moment of Lasting Excitement and it's all about "high self directed learning". I agree a thousand percent with Terry that "high self directed learning' is the only goal in education that really counts.

Terry's doctoral work established that those who have a "First Moment Experience" are likely to be highly innovative, highly adaptive and very likely to hold high leadership positions. While he says that developing practices leading to high self directed learning is a "national imperative", when you learn more about his work you will say to yourself - 'no, this is not a national imperative, it's a global one.'

Eric Baber - London

http://users.voice-alert.com/gld6/6030.html

Eric is the youngest member on our Panel and might just be the smartest. He runs a company in London that teaches English over the Net - not a bad business when you know that there are more people learning English in China today than there are kids under ten in America. Not only is English the lingua franca of the planet but, -and more important for Panel discussions - it is our own conviction that those who are learning English today are the Movers and Shakers of tomorrow. For native English speakers, teaching English overseas is an experience of lifetime value. For those who wish to be Champions, it can be a transcendent experience.

Dr. Boris Sedunov - Moscow

http://users.voice-alert.com/gld6/6021.html

Boris is a scientist with a heavy background in physics and technology. He is also a gifted teacher of innovative management practices, particularly for students in countries in transition - like Russia. He offers unusual insights into the difficulties of broad cultural resistance to new ideas made worse by economic woes, bandwidth limitations and complex social problems. His work is not unlike those of others we have featured in Russia who use their strong technological capabilities to gain virtual employment from Los Angeles to London, from Tokyo to Sydney.

Dr. Alfred Bork: - California

http://users.voice-alert.com/gld6/6035.html

Dr. Bork is also a physics instructor who practices his trade at the University of California, Irvine. He and Arun Mehta have a lot in common. Both understand that affordability is the key to universal education ­ and that it is absolutely impossible to provide education to five out of six using the same old practices at work since Bologna - or Cairo.

Dr. Bork's theory is that the computer can provide Very Highly Innovative Learning for a fraction of the cost of a "real live human being". He's written a book about this; the hard part is getting him to tell his story in the time allotted.

Dr. Earl Mardle - Sydney

http://users.voice-alert.com/gld6/6025.html

Earl is, very honestly, a "global thinker". He is also the kind of person that you go to when you have a project that is "inter-generationally worthy". By giving deeply of himself and by networking all over the planet with like minded souls, Earl represents both the mental attitude and the moral spirit which seems built into the genetic code of those are part of Global Learn Day undertakings.

We are always proud that Earl is one of our first speakers when we open our October Voyage in the South Pacific - where the planet begins the new day.

Brigitte Nadeau & Steve Kesko - Vermont

http://users.voice-alert.com/gld6/6018.html
http://www.audiostrategies.com/

The wife, Brigitte, runs a firm called Audio Strategies in Vermont which helps to improve both the sound of your voice and the message you send. The husband, Steve, is a computer expert who has a lot to say about the problems of collaborative efforts, particularly the need for team members to agree, well in advance, about the software they will (collectively) use.

The C.D. we have of our panel recordings was made by Audio Strategies, about whom you can find out more at the above web sites.

Dr. Neil Hynd - Abu Dhabi

http://users.voice-alert.com/gld6/6029.html
http://www.academyweb.com/melbourne.htm

Neil is a Global Learn Day contributor from the very first in 1997, when the event in Abu Dhabi was open to the public. Free Internet access was offered by the UAE National Library and Cultural Foundation to those wishing to search for Distance Education information, and the event was covered by both Press and Radio.

He is a specialist in Vocational Education combined with Quality Assurance subjects, and has prepared a support package for Distance Education institutions interested in achieving the internationally-recognised ISO 9000 Quality Management System certification.

There are two rules that guide all Franklin conferences.

Rule One is the KISS Rule. "Keep it Simple Stupid"

Rule Two is "Don't Forget to Fly the Airplane"

Rule One means that if you can used tried and tested tools to deliver what your speakers have to say, do that first. It also means you should stay away from almost anything brand new. Particularly untested software advertised to help Internet delivery.

Rule Two means don't forget your only purpose as a conference organizer is to give satisfaction to your audience so they go away with a favorable impression of your conference. Don't do like those Delta pilots who got so caught up with a glitch in the landing gear that they put their brand new airplane in a bog about a mile short of the New Orleans airport.

In Melbourne I plan to begin the Panel discussion by holding up for all to see these very simple tools -

• an audio cassette, inside of which is the best recording we ever made in six years of Internet Conferencing...recorded during Global Learn Day, The Inaugural. I think more people have listened to this tape in their car radio than will ever listen to it in our Net archive. It's important for both the content on it and a reminder that a good audio tape may be worth a whole lot more than a glitzy video conference where the picture of the speaker is fuzzy -- and so are his ideas.

• a VCR tape of Sir John Daniel which he video taped for guys like me - and for many others. For two decades Sir John lead England's Open University to the point where it "changed the landscape of higher education" in the U.K. Sir John would be the first to tell you of the hazards of video conferencing and the beauties of running a nice video tape off an old fashioned VCR machine.

• CD - If I had my druthers, I would be handing out cd's with both a multi media presentation with hot links to web sites and the capability to run same inside your car stereo. The advantages of a nicely printed jacket - with as may as six or eight pages - and a CD - are rarely used at physical conferences. But if you really want to make a lasting impression, this is where I would spend real money. And I would spend it with Audio Strategies.

• Overhead transparencies for projecting slides off overhead projectors. Sure, we will be able to show (power point) slides from our lap top computer. But you never know what equipment will work or if you computer will marry nicely to the equipment provided to you by the conference organizers. If all else fails, and they don't have either a projector for slides, take some black and white hard copies and be prepared to run around the corner for fast photo copying. Don't forget that hand outs on every chair in advance of the meeting may do more than fancy slides up on a big projector.

• A telephone - preferably the old fashioned land line type; but if not, a cell phone will do. Plus some prepaid long distance calling cards of a type that allows you to make a call from Anywhere to Anywhere for under 50 U.S. cents a minute.

Keep in mind The KISS RULE

All you need for your virtual speakers in real time is a telephone

At least half of our conference will be pre-recorded. Why? Because if you lean VERY hard on your panelists they will come to understand that "more is less". We make the panelists give an (audio) "elevator pitch" of not more than two minutes each. We do that for several reasons, one of which is we know that the virtual audience is very impatient and will click out of your virtual room in a nano second if it ever gets boring. We also know that radio stations are more inclined to pick up two minute recordings than they are twenty minute speeches...and if you want a big audience you should think radio more than you think Net.

I hope to demonstrate all this with a series of two minute recordings from each of our panelists, supplemented by very simple slides created with a common template.

All of the pre-recordings will be interspersed with comments from me, then followed by real time Questions and Answers by and between the audience and the virtual panelists...and the virtual audience as well.

In truth, we have all been trained wrong. We go to classes and conferences in the belief we should sit quietly while the Sage on the Stage makes his presentation. Then, like nice children, we ask a couple of questions and go quickly to the bar where the real work can begin. More work should be done in advance so that more can be accomplished in the real time we spend together.

The Net will make this so - in about twenty years. In the meantime we will stick with a practice we use in Global Learn Day and that is to devote at least half of the real time portion to interactive conversations by everyone from everywhere. It's also why we use the telephone.

The chief tool for interactive questions and answers is the telephone. Everybody has one and everybody knows how to use it. At the phsical site, you have to do some work to link your telephone equipment up to the loudspeakers and spend time to ensure that the guy at the podium repeats the comments and questions that come from either the physical audience or those asked by phone. This too will be demonstrated in Melbourne.

Obviously, we at Franklin know all the tricks of the trade to deliver voice, video and text by the Internet. And in Melbourne we will show off the easiest and most affordable platforms around.

In Melbourne we will use text chat, email and Net telephony; with the argument that text chat and telephony are, by far, the most valuable of all.

http://www.bfranklin.edu - click on Next Event.

The "trick" is that while what goes on in Melbourne and what goes on over the Net are very nearly identical, the fact is that the physical audience is seeing and hearing content delivered from very old, very reliable tools which are perfect for that setting - tape recorder; VCR; projector and slides; microphone and loudspeakers.

The virtual audience is seeing the same slides in an html format; they are getting the audio pre recorded, either over the phone or over the Net. And they can see and hear most of it in advance or from the archives...(the smart ones will only appear for the real time period...which is about half of the "show".)

A whole lot of people ask us about this and yes we could do it, and we might even have some surprises. However we just don't see a whole lot of benefit in "talking heads" - especially when you think of the camera needs and the unreliability of the Net and the narrow bandwidth which most of the world suffers with. So, while we are running our video of Sir John from a twenty year old VCR machine in Melbourne, on the Net we will be showing some still photo's of Sir John but delivering his voice only (through the telephone and by telephony). We don't think much is lost. (In fact, we actually think people listen harder to voices on the radio and on the net than they do with video. Unless and until we can get television quality and very easy delivery, you won't see "video" in Franklin conferences...unless you come physically and we have Sir John on display.)

You can also check the Franklin Institute's Master Calendar for upcoming events Franklin Institute and related events of interest.

To learn more about how these events relate to the Institute's purpose, return to Benjamin Franklin Institute of Global Education Home Page.