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Home > Vol.
1, No. 6 > Open Articles |
Sep 2001 | |
What is Global Learn Day?by Xenia Stanford, Editor-in-Chief, KnowMap and President, Stanford Solutions Inc.
Then in 1998 they held Global Learn Day II, in 1999 Global Learn Day III and in 2000 Global Learn Day IV. Each one saw improvements and each time more people were able to join in using tools and discussing concepts that are ground breaking today but will be common ten years from now, to a large degree due to these brave pioneers. You too can join in this year by participating in Global Learn Day V this October 2001. See our featured event this month on our issue home page or through the link given at the end of this article. The Story of Global Learn DayI enjoyed reading the story told by John Hibbs in the Welcome Remarks to Global Learn Day Four. As those wise in the knowledge management field know, storytelling is one of the ways in which we pass the knowledge, wisdom and insights of one innovative person or group into the lore or common knowledge of mankind. This story relates how University of Copenhagen students were given the following problem statement in their physics exam: Describe how to determine the height of a skyscraper with a barometer. Now I won't tell you the struggles of one student to convince the professor that there were a number of possible solutions to the problem. Nor will I tell you the simplest yet most profound answer he gave. Those can be found by reading Hibbs' remarks through the link given at the end of this article. However, it should not surprise us that the hero of the story, the one with the innovative (or as Debra M. Amidon of ENTOVATION® would call it the entovative - for knowledge innovation) ideas was Niels Bohr, who later would become the only Dane ever to win the Nobel Prize in physics. I like this story because it reminds me of my favorite tale of another hero who showed wisdom in action. I tell this story in my classes and in the articles in the Stanford Solutions Library. I will repeat it here to help you relate the concepts of breakthrough discovery due to uncommon wisdom and insight. (Isn't that what a hero does? That is, use his X-ray (unique) vision to find an original innovative solution that none of us thought of before but when we hear it say "of course - how simple, how true!") Tale of the Gordian KnotIn Greek legend, a poor peasant named Gordius rode into the town of Phrygia on an oxcart. An oracle had just informed the populace that their future king would come to town riding in a wagon. The people decided the oxcart was a wagon and crowned Gordius king. King Gordius dedicated his oxcart to Zeus and tied it with a complicated knot. An oracle foretold that he who would untie the knot would rule the entire known world. Many came to try to untie the knot but all failed until Alexander the Great rode into town and drawing his sword cut through the knot in a single blow. His unique wisdom solved a difficult problem in an unusual way. What Does This Have to Do with Global Learn Day?What we regard today as common knowledge was someone else's past wisdom. Global Learn Day is many wise people coming together today creating the future. The purpose of GLD-IV was "to showcase exceptional providers of distance education, training, tools and technology and to expand the opportunities" to a worldwide audience. The theme of the last GLD was a "Voyage of Discovery where those aboard" explored "the New World of distance education and all of its promise". The theme of Global Learn Day V to be held October, 2001 is Expanding Our Horizons. How are these themes relevant to us today and how is it building tomorrow? If you look at how the GLD are held and their topics, you will see how it will be spring-boarding into the future using both new leading edge technologies and taking further advantage of past proven technologies, like the radio, which is exactly 100 years old this year. How Is Global Learn Day Held?The various Global Learn Days are held: "By knocking on a whole lot of doors where the people we meet are the kind that Niels Bohr would like to hang out with". (Hibbs) It does this by coming to you rather than you traveling to distant cities and even countries to take advantage of global knowledge and worldwide connectivity. It is virtual meeting, handshaking and networking while at home or a nearby cyber-café using the means available to us at low or even no cost. That is because Global Learn Day is held not in one country or one city but virtually everywhere! Beginning at 00:01 Greenwich Mean Time on the Sunday of the day chosen, the Benjamin Franklin Institute of Global Education interconnects participants using chat rooms, radios, regular telephone, telephony, with streaming audio and text chat. You may participate as a presenter or panelist through either or both telephone and web chat. You may listen in and add comments as an attendee through the chat rooms and telephone connections. Then in the annual round-the-world voyage beginning in the South Pacific and traveling west through 24 time zones with two-dozen stops along the way, activities deserving of global attention are given the spotlight. The final destination is affordable and accessible education for all. Now isn't that a conference we all must attend as we create the vision of tomorrow here in the present! Case Study from GLD IVBefore we begin this tour on Global Learn Day V on October 7, 2001, we should look back at the lessons from the past. To do that we will first show you the topics and speakers involved in GLD-IV on October 8, 2000. Then we will experience the day virtually through Debra M. Amidon's tour through the Entovation Programme: Strategies for 21st Century Knowledge Leadership held during Global Learn Day IV (year 2000). She, like wise knowledge leaders, will do that through her stories - The Stories of ENTOVATION® from Global Learn Day 2000. Entovation Programme Meta Views and LeadersThese were the topics covered at the Meta level:
These were the knowledge leaders from around the globe as scheduled for the Entovation program, the theme of which was Strategies for 21st Century Knowledge Leadership: Starting 02.00 GMT
Region I: Asia/Australia (from 02.30 - 04.30 GMT)
Region II: Europe/Africa (from 10.30 - 13.30 GMT)
Region III: Central and South America (from 14.30 - 16.30 GMT)
Region IV: North America ( 18.30 - 20.30 GMT)
From here you can take several directions and we suggest the following:
Read more about Xenia Stanford.
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In
1997, the Benjamin Franklin Institute of Global Education
aided by a number of dauntless visionaries, bravely ventured forth with
a non-stop, round the world voyage in the form of an educational webcast,
called Global Learn Day - The Inaugural
or GLD-I. 
