Teaching with Technology

This article describes student’s experiences in the use of educational “Global Links” as a tool used to connect US students in East Carolina University, ECU, with students in South Korea to attend a distant learning class that is presented to both student groups. The described experience was presented as an example of “meshing two contrasting cultures with a different primary language via the internet”.

East Carolina University has launched a “Global Initiative Program” in 2003 that has used different communication technologies to interface with students in 18 different countries around the world. ECU has utilized video linking as a tool to support collaborative efforts between its faculty and their partners in other countries.

The focus of the article was to describe the process of developing a “global link” that supports distant learning. Furthermore, the article described students’ assessments of their experiences.

In order to develop a successful global link among groups, the execution of the following four steps is necessary:

1. Identify and establish a partner. This requires the search for a corresponding group that are interested to engage in such an educational exercise.
2. Pre-planning of the needed steps for a successful global link requires the identification of course topics, examining available communication tools and developing a calendar that fits participants.
3. Activating the global link by utilizing periodic interactive sessions among the students where the instructors act as facilitators.
4. Collect assessments of the global link from the student utilizing questionnaires. These assessments should include benefits and challenges they had experienced.

The global link was supported by use of “Skype” and “Centra” which is a new connectivity tool that is currently used to support distant learning. You can learn about this new service by connecting to its website at: http://www.saba.com/products/centra/ . The Centra connectivity mode is currently used at Stanford University, US.

It was interesting to read the comments and assessments of the students. The most prominent comments were:

1. This interaction with other students in other countries has provided them with an opportunity to experience the “Beginning of International Awareness”
2. Some “Innate Facts” about this experience is the fact the there was a language barrier. English was the used language which presented a communication challenge to the Korean students even though they had considered English as their second language.
3. The other “Innate Fact” is the difference in time zones that presented a challenge to coordinate the global link as well as the importance to coordinate the educational colanders between different countries since they may have different schedules.
4. The challenge of having technology that works was clearly presented by the expression “Technology is great when it works or if it works”. This indicated that the students had struggled with the technology and had been frustrated by the experience.
This article presented that use of global links between institutions to support distant learning courses is very helpful to propagate “internationalization” of educations. The challenge is how to coordinate the efforts between the institutions and how to identify reliable communication tools that will facilitate the collaborative interaction of the participants.

Hanan

Source:
Ko, B., Boni, Boswell, & Lee, H. (2009). Exploring student experiences of a global link; recommendations for future programs: International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning , 6(1 1), Retrieved from http://www.itdl.org/Journal/Nov_09/article02.htm doi: 1550-6908