Science fiction to science fact - a case study

It's strange how sometimes very disparate strands and ideas suddenly form themselves into a coherent thread. I was in a lesson last talking about using Skype with one of my students, a senior doctor in a hospital here in Thessaloniki when he mentioned that the already knew about the idea of teleconferencing as the hospital had just set up a regular link with another clinic in which doctors would be able to take part. Then again, he added he'd first come across this technology in action more than ten years ago in a conference in Spain.

I suddenly remembered that I'd read that the idea of using phones to transmit images was not a new one and that it had first been presented in the 60's. After a little googling I found out that the Picturephone was first presented to the public by AT&T in 1964. However, when it came out commercially in the 70':

"It was a disaster. People queued in droves to avoid buying it. What happened? Part of the reason was the cost. Picturephone was not cheap: $125 per month plus $21 per minute. Also, there was the problem of how you use a picturephone when you're one of the very few people who have one. Without a compelling reason to think that people were going to sign up for picturephones real quick you're faced with the reality that there's a whole lot of nobody to talk to out there.

Whatever the reasons, the picturephone limped along briefly and then was quietly pulled at a loss of $1 billion."

Tales of Future past

Later on, with the advent of the internet the idea was revived in the form of the videophone in the 90's. Once again expensive specialised equipment was needed and the the price was beyond the means of most consumers. I remember working in a school were they had such a system which scandalised us all as it cost over a million drachmas (or six months wages for most of us). Once again the technology remained unused and quickly was taken away.

What has changed now is that with the introduction of voip applications such as Skype we can now have the same kind of communication for almost nothing. If you have a computer and a broadband connection then all you need is a headset and a webcam. (my equipment cost me 25
euros in total).

As far as education is concerned check out Vicki Davis's great post on using Skype to bring in outside expertise to our classrooms here. Also check out how an Electronic Peace Corp could transform education (and not only) in developing countries here .

Electronic Peace Corp - How would it work?

Photo by Amateur Photo Bore

There's nothing new under the sun. I googled the term "electronic peace corp" and found references going back to 1984. I should have realised that somebody would have thought of this long ago. However, I though I'd describe how such a scheme might work in the web 2.0 era.

The whole enterprise depends upon easy access to broadband internet connections, Now this may sound like a utopian idea to those who live and work in poor countries, yet as I said yesterday, the massive growth of mobile phone usage in places like Africa means that setting up wifi networks over large areas is not just a crazy dream. In addition, the introduction of the $100 laptop means that many more people will have the tools to access the internet within the next five years.

How would it work?

Once problems of access have been overcome I envisage that the Electronic Peace Corp would be an internet space akin to Ebay. In the sense that "buyers" and "sellers" seek each other out rather than being directed by a central authority. The idea would be that those who want to volunteer their time and expertise would advertise or seek out those who most need it. And vice versa.So, for example, I, as an ESL/EFL teacher might decide to cooperate with a colleague in secondary school in Ghana or Laos.

You would sign up, giving details of your professional background, interests, preferences and level of commitment - which could be anything from volunteering to spend an hour a week at your PC to actually going there to help.

The Ebay model

However, there is the possibility that the system might be abused. For example I might say that I'm an experienced engineer or pretend to be a professor when in fact I'm nothing of the sort. Like Ebay each person or group would be subject a rating system. Everybody would have to "earn their stripes". Any bad behaviour would earn negative reviews. Similarly, those who work well and effectively garner better ratings in the same way sellers on Ebay do.

Using Voip/ Video

The other major plank of this service would be voip/video services such as Skype. This would allow real time communication in spoken form and so anyone who is not a fluent in say, written English, or even their mother tongue could participate. Pictures/video taken by cell phone cameras and sent via the web would also get round the need for lengthy or complicated descriptions.

Even the language barrier would not prove insurmountable as people could volunteer their services as interpreters/translators via skypecasts. For example, a America doctor could discuss a patient with a nurse in Cambodia while a Khmer speaking Cambodia-American translates via a skypecast.

What about this for a name? The Walking Wiki (WaKi)

The Electronic Peace Corp

Photo by Brunoat

A few months back I wrote about how two things will change education in developing countries (see here); the hundred dollar laptop and the mobile phone. Over the last 24 hours I have seen a couple of stories that seem to bear out my prediction, or at least appear to show that things are moving in the right direction.

Whilst over at the BBC's website I came across this story about how mobile phones are transforming life in Kenya. Of all the interesting details that the article contains, the one that stood out was the a third of all Kenyans have a mobile. While I'm sure that most are not the state of the art phones with built - in camera and mp3 players that will change in the near future as these items become standard on all entry level models. This means that students have a means of watching video, listening to audio material and perhaps most importantly of all producing such things.

The other item I saw in the news was the imminent arrival in Greece of the first MIT 100 dollar laptops (though they are going to cost a bit more than that in the beginning). I finally got to see one of these things in detail on TV and I was most impressed both by the design and its potential. Although I don't think that it will have much impact here, the possibilities for countries which do not have the money to pay for PCs or Macs are enormous.

The idea that the laptop can replace existing textbooks is just the beginning as the potential for producing material and spreading ideas is simply endless. Suddenly, blogging, podcasting, vlogging, wikis and social networking cease to be the preserve of the well - off countries of the North and become a means to educate and be educated wherever you are.

Here's an idea: The Electronic Peace Corp. The idea is that people sign up to help a project in a developing country without having to leave their own living room, let alone country. This would allow doctors, teacher, business leaders, engineers and the like to contribute their time and expertise. The ability to communicate in real time via Skype video and the like would mean that people could be on hand to help when needed. A kind of walking, talking Wiki page.

Another possibility is that you make translating Wikipedia part of your national curriculum. In countries where instruction in English is common students translate Wiki pages into the local languages. Suddenly, within the space of a few years the vast repository of knowledge Wikipedia contains in English becomes available in hundreds of different languages and dialects.

What do you think the 100 dollar laptop could be used for?