Improving Cross-Cultural Communication Through Collaborative Technologies
The paper discusses an original research project in the area of education and cross-cultural rhetoric on the use of persuasive digital technologies to enable intercultural competencies among students and teachers across globally-distributed teams. The pap
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bstract. The paper discusses an original research project in the area of education and cross-cultural rhetoric on the use of persuasive digital technologies to enable intercultural competencies among students and teachers across globally-distributed teams. The paper outlines the methodology for the research, including the use of video conferences, collaborative blogs, a project wiki, webforums, and Google documents, and presents the findings on how such information and communication technologies can influence people to approach cross-cultural communication with greater political understanding, ethical awareness, and intercultural competencies in order to bring about improved international and social relations. The paper presents statistical data pertaining to qualitative and quantitative assessment of project outcomes; it situates the project within current debates in intercultural communication and digital pedagogy; and it concludes with a projection on the scalability and sustainability of using computers to change human attitudes and behaviors in positive ways in an international context. Keywords: education, trust, productivity, culture, social relationships, ethics, human attitudes, collaboration, international research, cross-cultural communication, and rhetorical theory.
1 Introduction Through a Wallenberg Global Learning Network (WGLN) grant, our project aims to contribute new learning in the fields of education and cross-cultural rhetoric through application of persuasive digital technologies as the mode and apparatus for changing attitudes about cultures and for empowering users to develop intercultural competencies as a means for improving international relations, social relations, political understanding, and trust in educational and cultural exchanges. In this paper, we offer an international perspective on the use of persuasive technology in creating what in the literature is termed “intercultural competencies” among students and teachers across globally-distributed teams. 1.1 Overview and Research Goals The past two decades have witnessed an explosion of interest in globalization, transnational studies, and cultural codes of communication and the concurrent scholarly attention to developing better methods of implementing technological tools in educational settings. Yet, a key problem remains: how best to use information and Y. de Kort et al. (Eds.): PERSUASIVE 2007, LNCS 4744, pp. 125–131, 2007. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007
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A.J. O’Brien, C. Alfano, and E. Magnusson
communication technologies (or ICTs) to offer students hands-on learning of transnational and intercultural differences. To address this problem, our WGLN project “Developing Intercultural Competencies through Collaborative Rhetoric” experimented with innovative uses of technology by bringing together students at Stanford and Örebro Universities in globally-distributed teams to analyze rhetorical artifacts (speeches, advertisements, architectural landmarks, representations of nationhood) with the aim of facilitating both
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