Thursday 12 June 2008

Conference Opening Thu 12 June, 0900-1100

From Alan Tait’s opening remarks, I was pleased to hear that Carl Holmberg, a long-term member of EDEN, has been appointed as the new president of ICDE, the International Council for Distance Education.

Keynote by Carlos Reis, Rector Universidade Aberta.
“How peculiar that Persians can exist” (medieval French attitude towards “the other” – other than French, other than self).
Lusophone World (8 countries outside Europe in which Portuguese is official language). Many of these are very underdeveloped.
Risk that common language can hinder recognition and even survival of cultural diversity.
Many obstacles to intercultural education in Lusophone countries of Africa – both infrastructural and also regarding respect (by us) for the identity of “the other.”

Alan Bruce, Universal Learning Systems, Ireland. “Beyond Barriers”
Reinforcing first speaker – “the visibility of the other”
Powerful image: “world is a potage of brown, yellow, red, black, and on the top, a thin white scum”
Erudite discourse regarding diversity, inclusion, recognition of the other

Joanna Nowicki, Universite Paris Est: The Man of Confluences.

No PowerPoint made it difficult to follow – needed to concentrate much harder due to absence of key text that could “anchor” the narration into our cognition.
SORRY, BATTERY RUNNING LOW, SO MUST SWITCH OFF.

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