New Era, New Media, and New Strategies for Cross-Cultural Collaborative Learning

Background

Although culture has been acknowledged as an important factor to be considered during the process of instructional design (Henderson, 1996; McLoughlin, 1999; Reeves & Reeves, 1997; Wang, 2004), a need exists to translate these cultural considerations into practice (Rose, 2005). In the cross-cultural setting of this project, cultural differences actually became learning materials for nurturing intercultural competence related to a range of activities (Byram, 1995).

Interestingly, for almost 20 years, educators have been exploring the application of technology to connect students and teachers from different nations and cultures (Davis, Cho, & Hagenson, 2005). As Davis (1999) pointed out, the motivation for making such connections was the belief that education was now operating in a global context, and technology could increase access to education on an international scale. As a result, providing pre-service teachers with an opportunity to learn from peers in other cultures could equip those teachers with the skills needed to become effective educators within global contexts. These same experiences could be used to provide students with similar kinds of experiences in order to make them more effective global citizens.