Dear Partners:

We are in conversations with universities in the U.K, South Africa, South Australia (Flanders)and India (Hyderabad).  Contacts are also being made in Canada and Latin America.  I will let you know how these go.  Within the U.S. we have begun conversations with both Washington University and Arizona State University, and the University of Texas is now on board.  I encourage you to continue the process at your respective University.   

Programmatically and in terms of process we now need to began discussing the level and types of interaction right now.  The biggest problem is the various time zones.  We know that we will make use of Skype, chat rooms, blogs, and listservs.  The specific mode will also depend upon the level of technology available to the various partners across the globe.  As you can imagine these are and can be major issues for folks living in Bangladesh, portions of Africa, and Latin America. At the minimum, students can interact on both blogs and in chat rooms, as well as listservs as these are universally available.  The more sophisticated interactions are obviously more limiting.  I hope this helps.  

What forms and types of interactions do you as partners foresee or want regarding your our students.  What will work for your particular institution?  How will we take these suggestions and modify or enhance our syllabus?  

Finally, while we have a generic syllabus, I anticipate that we will continue to fine tune it.  Also, we should be amenable to make significant modifications as other partners come forward. 

Thanks and please continue to advise me regarding the progress you are making at your institutions to make this course happen in the Spring of 2011.



I hope that you can and will join us in offering this exciting opportunity to our students.  Let me know how I might help or if you have any other questions.

Thanks


rodney