An Experiment

[simonfj]

Guys,,

I'd like to invite you to take part in an experiment which might begin
to bridge the digital divide, or at least the divide between the old
telephone system and IP networks. The main thing I'd like to think we
could acheive, in the first instance, is coming up with a telephone
(conferencing) number which we could all use to talk to one another at
the cost of a local call. The aim is to build a global collaboration
network using tools which are already there. http://evo.caltech.edu/evoGate/about.jsp

We wil want to build this from the bottom up, and in Australia this is
the bottom.
http://www.arcs.org.au/products-services/collaboration-services/video/evo/telephone-bridge-phone
You'll see (at the bottom of the page) that there are already some
'telephone bridge numbers' for different countries. I'm hoping we
might be able to add a few more, depending on your locality.

I'm pretty sure that this won't be too much of a leap for the people
in your institution which work with these kind of tools, You only need
to tell them that you'd like to tap in to an EVO meeting by dialing a
local telephone number. That's step 1. If we can get this far, and you
ask your techs to contact arcs and add your local number to the
international list, we can all get some idea of the power of WE.
(Phone Bridge doc is at the bottom of page)

From there WE'd want to have a dedicated global 24/7 conference number
which I'd suggest would be 94533 (wikied), and, if I see the list
grow, I'll stay on caltech's case untli WE have it. That's step 2.

There's a bit more work, and learning, to do for all of us in order to
take it to step 3, where we have a virtual room numbered 94533 in
which we can do all sorts of things. This sounds a bit convoluted I
know, but it gives us an opportunity to turn a few institutional heads
that are unaccustomed to building (industrial strength) solutions for
global communities. We have to start somewhere.

regards, simonfj

PS I'd also be interested to see if you have any problems registering
for ARCS 'FORUMS'. (andrew is the contact).

[Maria Droujkova]

How is it different from the functionality Skype provides?


Cheers,
MariaD

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[simonfj]

Thanks Maria,

This goes back to Wayne's strategy doc about moving towards a new
institution of learning.
http://www.wikieducator.org/Funding_proposals/Towards_open_participatory_learning_environments:_Open_textbooks,_educator_training#Improving_collaboration_and_content_interoperability_between_mainstream_OER_projects

The aim is to build tools, which regardelss of what point of
(bandwidth) evolution wikieds or wikimedians are up to, they can
always be included. Perhaps the best approach might be to watch these
three (EVO) videos from CERN.
http://it-multimedia.web.cern.ch/it-multimedia/collaborative/tutorials/

Each gives a different perspective of its use, depending on
bandwidth.
The top is an interactive TV station. The second is a web type
conference. The third, the lowest, is this first experiment. The aim
is to have one number that WE can 'dial' in, and outside, their
country, regardless of what level they are using it for. It's either a
telephone number or broadcast station ID depending on your
perspective.

This tool is fairly mature now. In NZ (wayne) for example, you can
find the research here.
http://www.bestgrid.org/index.php/EVO_in_NZ

I'm sure it would be similar in most other countries. The problem is
for all of us is that these kinds of tools are just sitting there
waiting to be discovered, if only our institutional engineers (and
librarians) understood what global communities like WE want, and how
we intend to us them, so they can be systemized.

Is that OK?
simon