Congreso ICDE 2008

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON

DISTANCE EDUCATION - ICDE 2008

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, From 24 to 26 November 2008

The Conference will be headquartered at the Universidad del Caribe,
located in the city of Santo Domingo

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GREETING ADDRESS

It is a well-established tradition in ICDE to hold international conferences on distance education in different parts of the world based on the regional structure and activities performed by ICDE member institutions and individuals.

ICDE is very pleased that the series of ICDE International Conferences in Latin America is followed up by this conference in Santo Domingo , the capital of the Dominican Republic . We are very grateful to my dear colleague Lic. Marta Mena who once again has taken the responsibility for setting up such a major event, together with the ICDE Latin American Network group. And I am particularly grateful to Dr. José Andrés Aybar Sánchez, Chancellor of the Universidad del Caribe (UNICARIBE) , for hosting this event.

Open distance learning has to face new pedagogical forms and technological settings as well as newly upcoming needs and demands from its stakeholders in a constantly and speedily changing environment. We are convinced that open and distance education, with its variety of possibilities, is essential part of the strategy for learning and training in the future. Updated knowledge, skills and information throughout the entire population and workforce will be a prime basis for the sustainable development of people and business in a globalised world.

The main theme for this conference will be "Current Challenges of Virtual Learning� - inclusion and citizen participation, research and development, commitment and social responsibility, fields of application, construction and management of knowledge. ICDE celebrates this year its 70's anniversary. As the global association for open and distance education, ICDE has undertaken a number of activities looking ahead to new and challenging developments. We know that distance education is and will be the foundation for real change. Only it can ensure that knowledge becomes a commodity of great abundance, rather than remaining what it is now in too many parts of the world � a commodity of great scarcity. This conference will focus on a number of issues regarding the social responsibility of virtual learning, inclusion and citizen participation and commitment, again underlyning the potential of distance education as the foundation of real change.

For over seventy years the ICDE conferences have allowed us to share our expertise not only with each other but with every educator and policy maker. Today we are a much sought-after leader as we puzzle through the new world of virtual and mobile learning, of open access, of open source and in a global environment of aggressive commercialization. The 2008 ICDE International Conference in Santo Domingo promises to deliver valuable prospects to the challenges of virtual learning. I am sure that this event will certainly be a great conference in a wonderful city with enthusiastic presenters and participants attending and actively contributing to its success.

We should not miss this excellent chance to capitalize on networking opportunities, to explore new alternatives in cooperative work, to get new ideas regarding research and development, and to exchange knowledge, experiences, and opinions with the various experts in the field of distance education.

Welcome to Santo Domingo !

Bienvenidos a la República Dominicana y a la conferencia internacional del ICDE!

Prof. Frits Pannekoek, PhD.
President of ICDE
President of Athabasca University , Canada

Universidad del Caribe
The Universidad del Caribe is an institution of higher education, open and distance learning, whose mission is to train human resources needs of society with a humanistic and innovative work in the field of science and technology, within a framework of excellence academic institutions and within a quality proces. .

Central Theme The slogan that will respond to this event will be "Current Challenges of Virtuality": inclusion and citizen participation, research and development, commitment and social responsibility, areas of application, construction and knowledge management. " The intention this time is to gather knowledge, experiences, views and positions of various experts and discuss the various sub-themes proposed for the development of the event: a) Distance education as an element of Social Inclusion and Civic Participation. b) Research and Development in distance education. c) Construction and Knowledge Management through distance education. d) Contributions of distance education in their various fields of application.
Contributions
It will be an excellent opportunity to consolidate or to start strong institutional relationships, discover new alternatives for cooperative work, and listen to publicize the new proposals, practice and research developed in the field of education and technology, and exchange knowledge, experiences and views with different experts present at the meeting.
Objectives So that experts in the field meet in order to reflect on the principal contemporary problems in Distance Education. To realize this, to generate proposals oriented toward researchers, educators and administrators related to these subjects. ICDE invites all those interested in the development of the modality in the various regions of each continent, to attend and participate actively in the event.