Connecting the Dots in Distance Learning - GLD V Success Stories
Story 1. Beginning the Journey to Connect the Dots

by John Hibbs, Founder and Director, The Benjamin Franklin Institute of Global Education

[John Hibbs launches the 24-hour around the globe journey with his opening address.]

In a very few minutes we will begin to hear from GLDers from around the world - Guys like Boris in Russia and Sherif in Cairo and Neil in Abu Dhabi and Earl in Neil Zealand and Graciela in Argentina. They are each allotted three minutes to tell a very compelling story, so I encourage all of you to stay tuned…

I too have only been allocated three minutes. But since I'm the Captain and since today's my birthday, I am taking some special privileges. My story will take about eight minutes - not a good example for Sherif and Earl and Boris - but necessary - I think - to give you some idea of why I believe so deeply in Global Learn Day.

Here's why I think Story 1. Beginning the Journey to Connect the Dots is important - as much a quiz for you as it is a story by me.

- I call it Connecting the Dots

Figure 1: Dots of Light From Earth at Night

Photo courtesy of NASA - see Photo Credits

I want you to mentally picture a bunch of dots, each one of which has a special meaning. The clues I provide, next, are mostly models of other activities where someone had a vision and made it happen.

Your job, when we are finished, is to connect those dots with a global picture of how I see education and its delivery within the next decade.

Applications Dot

The first dot is an easy one. I call it the Applications Dot.

John Chambers, President of CISCO, repeatedly claims that the killer application of the Internet is education.

I doubt if there is anyone tuned in to Global Learn Day that will have much argument with that. Lots of dot coms have become dot dumbs, but not any dot edu's - at least none that I know about.

UPS Dot

Here is dot number two. I call it the UPS Dot.

Picture the founder of UPS about 70 years ago when he decided that department stores really did not want to have their own trucks and their own drivers to service their customers.

And, where it was impossible for Department Store A and Department Store B to come to cooperate together for very small shipments, the UPS founder had a vision that an independent service which could deliver small packages quickly and affordably would work very well for the American stores. And if it could work in Boston, it could work in the America. And, if it could work in the nation, it could work worldwide.

Figure 2: Connecting the World

Photo courtesy of NOAA - see Photo Credits

Truck Driver Dot

Here is the next dot. I call this one the Truck Driver Dot.

Picture here all those UPS truck drivers who twenty or thirty or forty years ago received a small number of shares in UPS just for being a reliable truck driver and a friendly delivery person. Those truck drivers also believed that reliable delivery of small important packages to the ordinary home would be a winner.

Today their UPS stock holdings are worth millions.

English Language Dot

Here is the next dot. I call this one the English Language Dot.

There are more people learning English in China today than there are kids under ten in America.

There is a huge shortage of native speaking, professionally trained English language teachers, mostly because no one has figured out how to pay them what they are worth or convinced those who could teach that the greatest reward was not the paycheck but the experience.

Figure 3: Transcendent Experience

Champions Dot

Here is the next dot. I call this one the Champions Dot.

The hint to connect this dot is to wonder what would happen if someone could organize thousands of motivated college graduates from the English speaking world that by spending one year abroad teaching English they could have a transcendent experience.

Thousands take graduate work online. Why not while abroad?

- Instead of flipping hamburgers part time, would it be not be better working overseas?
- Learning, first hand about cultural diversity and hardship?
- Looking for opportunities and overcoming barriers?

What would happen if the most ambitious of those were motivated to become truck drivers in the business of facilitating online education delivery - not responsible for what was inside the package, but only for the safe delivery of the same?

Guru/Money Dot

Here is the next dot. I call it the Guru/Money Dot.

In this dot, I want you to think about why Madison Square Garden in 1967 could not afford to stage the greatest boxing match of all times; whereas, for Mr. Marcus in Manila, the amount he paid was chump change.

With this Dot, I want you to think of the limited number of seats in a physical classroom - and the unlimited number of seats in a virtual one.

Figure 4: An Enormous View

Photo courtesy of NOAA - see Photo Credits

Big Idea/Convention Dot

Here is the next dot. I call it the Big Idea/Convention Dot.

Sam Johnson is attributed with saying that nothing concentrates the mind like a hanging.

My extrapolation of that is that nothing concentrates the mind like an event. Proof? Try Philadelphia, 1776. And don't just think about the document signing; think also about the Boston Road, constructed years and years ahead of the fireworks.

Events Dot

Here is the next dot. I call it the Events Dot.

In this Dot, think about
- The Rose Bowl Parade
- The Academy Awards
- The World Cup
- The America's Cup
- The Olympics.

Think of all the money that sponsors spend for events like this.

Then ask yourself: What would they spend if they knew they were reaching a world wide audience where what was on the stage were the Gurus and the technologists and the education truck drivers chiefly responsible for very big gains in education delivery?

And those in the audience were the kind of customers they wanted to reach? Think of this Dot as an annual event, which takes place over 24 hours with interactively from all 24 time zones.

Figure 5: Connecting Zones

Photo courtesy of NOAA - see Photo Credits

Prizes Dot

Here is the next dot. I call it the Prizes Dot.

With this Dot, think of
- The Olympics
- The Academy Awards
- The Pulitzer Prize
- The Nobel Prize

Then think of all the prizes that are given in education, worldwide.

Then ask yourself if you agree with me that it is shameful that we in the education world do not have
- Our own Oscar?
- Our own Nobel?
- Our own Gold Medal?

Radio/Big Audience Dot

Here is the next dot I call it the Radio/Big Audience Dot.

Where everyone else talks about the Internet and eyeballs, we GLDers talk about earlobes and the radio… both Internet radio and conventional radio.

We ask ourselves what would happen if we could convince, say, 100 conventional radio stations, scattered throughout the world, to carry portions of Global Learn Day?

We know the secrets to do this very, very affordably, including translations. We aren't thinking any longer of a convention that reaches thousands; our goal, next year is to reach a million.

- Maybe two?
- Maybe even ten?

Figure 6: Satellite Connectivity

Photo courtesy of NOAA - see Photo Credits

Telephone/Interactivity Dot

Here is the next dot. I call it the Telephone/Interactivity Dot.

While most of the Gurus are playing around with Internet telephony, fancy video, wireless and broadband connectivity, we are thinking about free phone calls and plain old ordinary telephone.

Who says you need an expensive computer for the Small Guy to interact with the Big Guru? Who says you need a computer at all?

Innovation Dot

Here is the second to the last dot I call it the Innovation Dot.

For helpful hints about this Dot please read the story about Neils Bohr and how to use a barometer to find the height of a skyscraper.

Check out Debra Amidon and her extraordinary, extraordinary group called the ENTOVATION® Network.

Figure 7: An Innovative View

Photo courtesy of NOAA - see Photo Credits

Collaboration/Prism Dot

The last dot is this one: I call it the Collaboration/Prism Dot.

In the old days, long ago, connect the dot tests were given on an ordinary piece of white paper where the child was asked to draw lines, from dot one, to dot two, to dot three, and so forth. When finished a picture would nicely appear.

Bottom line - that's linear thinking. Pre-Web study.

Today we connect the dots in web-like fashion, where nothing is flat and very little is linear and almost all progress is both novel and very speedy. We also do it with the belief that collaboration trumps competition, every time.

Figure 8: Connecting Through Collaborative Prisms

Photo courtesy of NOAA - see Photo Credits

- You now have all the dots. But here is the last of the elevator pitch.

I would like to think a good part of Global Learn Day represents our own rather large prism where the end goal is to connect the dots in ways which will lead to reaching our the final destination we have sought since Voyage One - affordable and accessible education for all.

Join us on our next Global Learn Day. Enjoy!

Photo credits

The photographs credited to either NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) or NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) are from collections available for public use. The use here does not imply direct permission nor constitute endorsement of the contents of this page by either NASA or NOAA.

Figure 1: Original Caption Released with Image: Global city lights. The Eastern U.S., Europe, and Japan are brightly lit by their cities, while the interiors of Africa, Asia, Australia, and South America remain (for now) dark and lightly populated. Credit: Craig Mayhew and Robert Simmon, NASA GSFC. Based on data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program courtesy Christopher Elvidge, NOAA National Geophysical Data Center.

Figure 2: The worldwide satellite triangulation camera station network is shown. Image ID: geod0003, Geodesy Collection

Figure 4: A signature image for SEC, taken from the Boulder Observatory telescope of an enterprising SEC staffer and the Sun setting behind the Flatirons mountains in Boulder. Image ID: wea01038, Historic NWS Collection.

Figure 5: Shows conceptual planned method of tying a worldwide satellite triangulation network together. Image ID: geod0004, Geodesy Collection.

Figure 6: Diagram showing conceptual photographs of satellite versus star background would appear from three different locations on the surface of the earth. For best results, satellites had to be observed from three camera stations simultaneously. Image ID: geod0002, Geodesy Collection. Credit: Office of NOAA Corps Operations (ONCO).

Figure 7: This is a map of the space environment, although greatly foreshortened with the 93 million miles between Sun and Earth sacrificed to show ejections from the Sun, which hit the sweeping Magnetopause at the front edge of the Magnetosphere. The Van Allen Radiation Belts (orange) and the magnetosphere surround the Earth, half in shadow. The Milky Way stars are visible. Image ID: wea01037, Historic NWS Collection.

Figure 8: A conceptual diagram of satellite triangulation, while not a system used by Coast and Geodetic Survey, is shown. Image ID: geod0001, Geodesy Collection. Credit: Office of NOAA Corps Operations (ONCO).

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