News
Release: 1-Nov-2003
SOURCE:
Intercultural Education Alliance (IEA)
Contact: Mark
F. Arnold, (734) 429-0030
Intercultural Education Alliance (IEA) to Host Online, 3-D Intercultural Educators’ Summit Meeting, Highlighted by Presentation from Noted Author, Historian, and PBS Host/Producer James Burke
ANN ARBOR—November 1, 2003—The Intercultural Education
Alliance (IEA) will host, via 3-D chat, an international education summit
meeting highlighted by James Burke, of PBS “Connections” fame on November 21,
2003. The summit, which will take
place in a 3-D chat environment on the Internet, will be held in conjunction
with, and broadcasted during the National Conference of the Society for
Intercultural Education, Training and Research (SIETAR), at the University of
Texas at Austin. Live from Paris, Burke
will deliver a keynote address on the importance of emerging technologies in
global communication and research.
Burke’s online figure, or avatar, will appear in a specially created
educational “universe” and Burke’s voice will be transmitted via voice-over
chat software. His speech will be
viewed and heard in over twenty countries worldwide. Conference participants include faculty and researchers from
Cornell; Harvard; University of California, Santa Cruz; University of Houston, Hame Polytechnic, Finland; Haags Montessori
Lyceum, Netherlands; Fachhochschule
Kaiserslautern Standort Zweibrücken, Germany; Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen,
Netherlands; Mitthogskolan, Department of Informational Technology, Sweden; Universidade Católica De Pelotas, Brasil;
Universidade Comunitária do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil; Universita Degli Studi Di Milano, Italy;
University College London, United Kingdom;
University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong; Universidad Nacional de la Plata,
Argentina; Universidad Blas Pascal, Argentina; and Universidad De Las Americas,
Mexico, among others.
About the IEA and SIETAR
The
Intercultural Education Alliance (IEA) is a global gathering of educational
institutions and agencies. Its primary function is to increase partnership opportunities
by establishing formal links between distant universities and educational
entities. The IEA utilizes collaborative technologies to bridge barriers
that have limited the potential significance of working with culturally diverse
teams. As it helps construct these bridges, the IEA will foster new educational
opportunities for students and educators around the globe, uniting the riches
of mind and culture. Speaking for the IEA, director Mark Arnold explained, “the
rapid expansion of global collaboration in business and government should be
accompanied by greater efforts to stimulate opportunities for students,
educators, and researchers to encounter learning in the context of
intercultural environments. The central
objective of the IEA will be to promote and support the increased availability
of such opportunities”.
With more than 3,000 members, the Society for
Intercultural Education, Training and Research (SIETAR) is the world's largest
interdisciplinary network for students and professionals working in the field
of intercultural communication. SIETAR encourages and supports the development
and application of values, knowledge and skills that promote and reinforce
beneficial and long-lasting intercultural and inter-ethnic relations at the
individual, group, organization and community levels. SIETAR has active representation in the US through its main
organization (SIETAR-USA) and a few independent local groups: Austin, Houston,
New York, Rocky Mountain and Washington D.C. It is also active in Calgary and
British Columbia (Canada), Indonesia and Japan. In addition to these region-, country- or city-based groups, Young SIETAR offers
students and young professionals across the globe a forum to share ideas and
discuss issues of interest.
Figure 1: James Burke, in avatar form