M.A. Garito, “New technologies for distance teaching university: a strategy for development”, in "Mobilizing Distance Education for Social Justice and Innovation" - "Movilizar la educaciòn a distancia, para la justicia social y la innovaciòn", UNED-ICDE 2013 International Conference

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BACKGROUND

Only if we implement powerful policies aimed at democratising the access to knowledge, will we be able to lay the foundations on which to make skilled men and women act and to jointly create the values of solidarity and respect of differences, thanks to which the world will more easily share those universal values that, in principle, are accepted by everybody: justice and peace.

The convergence of telecommunications and computer science, the realisation of computer-based networks and the integration of languages, by overcoming space and time constraints, gave rise to the globalisation process and to the development of the knowledge society. We are facing a true revolution that is based on the multiplication of knowledge and its corresponding applications, but also on the knowledge codification, memorisation and knowledge transfer. Thanks to the Internet, in theory, all people can become the beneficiaries, but also the distributors of knowledge, both on individual and on a collective basis and the swiftness with which technology evolves, the Internet and satellite diffusion will soon enable even the poorest countries of the world to access the Web.

The true commitment of the richer countries toward the poorer ones should be to support them by promoting their economic development and, at the same time, by making the true immaterial capital of society develop: i.e. knowledge and competences. Since many years the International Telematic University UNINETTUNO has been working on several academic cooperation projects aimed at realising new educational models. By working together, the interconnected intelligences of teachers and students of the northern and southern shores of the world develop a network of skills and knowledge, not by imposing one cultural models to others, but by using intercultural and inter-linguistic interaction and cooperation.