The Treasure Trove

Referring back to Gert Jan Hofstede’s words in the Foreword, we have a treasure-trove of ideas and concepts to sort through with respect to globalized e-learning cultural challenges. In this book, we have referenced seminal research studies on cultural influences and dimensions, speculated on their potential impact on e-learning, and reviewed examples of empirical research and observations of these cultural challenges. We have explored the potential ramifications of Western-based theories being promulgated in non-Western cultures. We have addressed fresh ideas about the interactions between culture and e-learning, such as paralanguage and cultural learning objects. In addition, we have heard from learners themselves. Lastly, authors have proposed new ways to analyze and/or adapt e-learning for other cultures, based on logical presumptions, on our current experiences, and on existing research.

The Cultural Adaptation Process (CAP) Model

At the conclusion of the study, The Cross-Cultural Dimensions of Globalized E-Learning (Edmundson, 2004), the cultural adaptation process (CAP) model was introduced as a proposed guideline for evaluating existing e-learning courses and for matching them to the cultural profiles of targeted learners. In theory, the model could facilitate the development of culturally-adapted and accessible e-learning courses, which in turn provide opportunities for all learners to achieve equitable learning outcomes. In this chapter, the author illustrates, with a hypothetical example, how to use the CAP model. As a result of this mock exercise, modifications to the model are recommended. However, the CAP model would benefit from further exploration, use, and development by researchers and practitioners in the field.

E-Learning Localized

The power of Internet provides unprecedented opportunities for learners to obtain diverse content and for educators to quickly distribute resources. In the increasing globalized learning environment, OpenCourseWare (OCW) is one of the recent movements to utilize the Internet in making educational materials freely available to the world. However, the fact that these materials are offered mainly in English poses challenges to the non-English speaking population in many parts of the world. In response to such concern in the Great China Region, a localization project called the Opensource OpenCourseWare Prototype System (OOPS) was born in Taiwan in February, 2004 (Lin & Chu, 2005). OOPS aims to break the language barrier and deliver the openly-accessible English educational materials to the Chinese-speaking audience in their native language. This chapter presents the detailed background and history of this project, and highlights three challenges that OOPS has faced in its early stage of development. They are: (1) access to materials, (2) issues about translation, and (3) complexity of intra-cultural communication. Based on the first author’s direct experience with the project, suggestions and implications for future research are also offered.

Intercultural Dimensions in the Information Society

Nowadays, it is a common ascertainment that information and communication technologies (ICTs) and networked learning are not easy to access for many people in non-Western societies and for those who belong in etho-cultural minority groups. As a result, one of the major drawbacks in networked learning programs is miscommunication amongst culturally-diverse participant users, which, to a great extent, is due to the lack of services that meet the needs of various socio-cultural groups of people. In addition, there is great need for multi-language Web sites (such as educational programmes, curricula, and software) in order to emphasise the importance of culture as a dimension which should be incorporated in modern ICT implementations. A literature review approach is followed so as to review statements and studies in the joint field of ICTs.

Beyond Localization

Instructional systems are products of the cultures in which they are developed. Culture, which we define here as “the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another” (Hofstede, 2001), has a pervasive influence on instructional systems, regardless of whether these systems involve self-paced e-learning, synchronous or asynchronous computer-based learning activities, or online communities of learners. The issue of culture’s impact on instructional systems becomes most relevant and challenging where such systems are transferred across cultural boundaries or developed for multiple cultures. This is currently happening in many large, globally-dispersed organizations that use e-learning technologies to support the learning of their staff around the world. Theories of learning and of cultural dimensions suggest that the effectiveness of certain types of learning systems will be affected where they are used in culturally-diverse environments. The aim of this chapter is to highlight the issues that designers of a wide range of e-learning experiences face when designing e-learning for culturally-diverse learner groups. We provide some models to support learning practitioners, focusing in particular on the importance of a conscious, culturally-informed selection of instructional strategies as the most critical part of the design and development process.

Adapting E-Learning Across Cultural Boundaries

The chapter will, first of all, consider the challenges for educational designers of the need to maximise the opportunities of e-learning by enabling learners to participate in learning experiences, activities, and forms of communication that are congruent with their values, belief systems, and styles of learning. Second, by building on extant research and frameworks, the chapter will propose an integrated framework and set of guidelines for the development of quality learning resources for a global community of learners. The chapter makes a case for the internationalisation of learning resources informed by a flexible and pluralistic approach to design, based on the concept of constructive alignment.

Theorizing and Realizing the Globalized Classroom

This chapter examines what criteria, conditions, or characteristics actually constitute a globalized classroom. A graduate course on online education taught in Japan is presented as a case in point. Online mentoring and educational technologies spanning six countries are described. Explanatory frameworks include globalization, constructivism as a cross-cultural pedagogy, cultural attitudes toward the adoption of online technologies, transformative learning, and empowerment. Voluntary feedback from the graduate students, mostly translated from Japanese, provides evidence such as: (a) that mainstream Western constructivism has some universality to be readily accepted by Japanese students, (b) that unfamiliar online information and communication technologies (ICT) are also welcomed, (c) that a positive form of globalization can occur in such a class, and d) that their learning was transformative and empowering. The theoretical framework accounts for the changes which students reported in their attitudes and practices. Thus the class provides a model for realizing the globalized classroom.

Do the Philosophical Foundations of Online Learning Disadvantage Non-Western Students?

A product of its historical origins, online learning is firmly rooted in the educational values that dominate post-secondary education in Britain, Australasia, and North America. With the increasing numbers of international students studying degree programs online, this chapter asks whether students from diverse educational cultures are disadvantaged in their learning by the teaching approaches implemented within online teaching environments. Active learning, reflective practice, and collaborative learning are all based on a cognitive, constructivist tradition (Fox, 2001), one which is evidently not shared by much of the rest of the world (Kim & Bonk, 2002; Wright & Lander, 2003). Employing evidence from the field of cross-cultural psychology (Allik & McCrae, 2004) and taking Chinese students as an example (Cheung, Leung, Zhang, Sun, Gan, Song, & Xie, 2001; Lin, 2004; Matthews, 2001), the author suggests that there may be some cause for concern within online instructional practices. The chapter concludes with three possible responses to the issue, two of which might go some way towards ensuring that international students find themselves on a more even playing field in their online degree program of study.

Communication Barriers and Conflicts in Cross-Cultural E-Learning

The present chapter assesses the key questions of communication barriers in distance learning virtual communities. To examine their cultural aspects, a Web-survey for distance learners has been conducted. The principal areas of interest were a cultural dichotomy of West/East; discrepancies in educational cultures (teacher-centered vs. learner-centered); mismatches in communication and educational traditions in different cultures; conflict paradigm and methods of conflict resolution. The findings of the survey are summarized and interpreted and some implications for further research are discussed.

Electronic Paralanguage

Psychologists and linguists agree that communicative elements other than words alone transmit more than 65% of the meaning of any linguistic message. New messages in new languages can be learned quickly and in their cultural context if instructional materials are sheathed in the L2 (“foreign”) “electronic paralanguage” rather than in the students’ native “L1” language. That is, L2 acquisition can take place at an extraordinarily rapid pace if the Netiquette and interfaces, page layouts, buttons, and alternative correspondence styles of the L2 mode of expression are employed. Exemplary adult students of French as a Second Language have demonstrated achievement of unusually high-level reading, writing, and cultural competence skills quickly in an online environment that immerses them in their new L2. Indeed, these students’ success demonstrates at least two things: First, learning a new language may be at least as effective, and is clearly more complete, in an online environment than it is in a traditional classroom, and second, that educators online should attend to all features of the electronic environment, rather than simply to the subject matter that it transmits.