Meet my classmates: Ling, Alex, Keisuke, Yuri and Mahmoud (Entry 5)

The chapter on learning and e-learning got me thinking about a reading that I did a project on when I did Intercultural Communication under Prof. Armstrong back in Summer. The article was about this concept called the Global Classroom, and in a nutshell, it was an initiative to use technology to break down the physical barriers that prevent true intercultural communication.

It started in 2003 with Dr. Rosina Chia and Dr. Elmer Poe from East Carolina University, who started the Global Classroom project. They utilized a webcam chat over a H.323 connection, which required very little bandwidth, to set up video conferences with classes from different countries. The images on both sides were projected on walls and adjusted accordingly such that the image of each class would appear life-sized to the other, to further simulate the reality. Their first partnership was with Voronezh State Agricultural University, located 400 kilometers south of Moscow. Despite certain technological limitations, such as lag time, and cultural barriers, within time, both sides grew accustomed to each other, and grew closer as friends despite the incredible physical distance between them.

This got me really interested in the concept, especially since the premise of the article alone allowed my group mate Tracey and I to come up with a presentation that was far more interesting than the usual stand-there-and-read-off-your-slides drab. We managed to set up a webchat meeting Tobias Reynolds-Tylus, who was a former UB student and spent a year here in Singapore. We chatted in between lags in the connection (I had to tether my iPhone to my MacBook and use my 3G connection, because that would still be faster than using the infernally laggy WiFi connection provided by our dear school). It was rather interesting, and considering the time we had to prepare, I felt that it was a good effort. Certainly better than people who just plain read off their slides.

That demonstration was to show just how technology has not only permeated the classroom, but has now enabled us to do things that we were never able to do before. Sure, there's always a chance to "interculturally communicate" in multicultural Singapore, but is that really intercultural communication? Not to me, because to me, we all come from the same culture (Singaporean). Even if we spoke to foreigners here, we would be speaking to foreigners who were socialized to our ways to some degree. Real intercultural communication would involve regular face-to-face correspondence from someone who was from an entirely different culture, and who was just as immersed in their culture as we were in ours. Of course, Toby spent a year here, so he's quite familiar with Singapore, but this demonstration was meant to illustrate the concept that technology can now be used to bridge such wide gaps, which is truly amazing.

This, to me, is certainly one of the best innovations to the classroom yet, but some of you may disagree. So what do you think is the best innovation to help improve the way students learn? Let me know in the comments section down below!