Notes from the Confernce Call on October 3rd
October 3rd Conference Call
Please forgive my very scattered note-taking. Feel free to correct or clarify anything that I have misrepresented.
Opening chat with everyone...responding to one thing they were happy
about in the last week (from my memory...e.g. Javier's football team
won, Diego talked about the conference at Utah State, Sabine is going
out for a girl's night tonight, Marcus - I think something about the
sun coming out, and Temtim - what was yours again?...).
In response to the two discussion questions:
1. What do you think is at least one characteristic/trait from your
native culture (the country you were raised in) that you think would be
different than those listed for Anglo-American culture?
2. What ideas would you want to know more about or what questions about
these two topics would you find it really interesting to know the
answers to?
Perhaps Adele and Minjuan could share their answers too? (Note: Esko will be unable to participate again until late October)
Javier
1. People are naturally in control of their own behavior
50/50 people look for a lot of support from the state as well
2. Find suitable dimensions about culture - make something like Hofstede,
but discovering and testing them on a wider scale. That would be a huge
step.
Diego
1. Differences in how we see time. We see time in
America as chronological, be in exact. In Latin America, we say we have
a meeting at 8, but it really starts at 9 - especially for social
things.
The way we see or experience time are very different. In
America, time is money - we are transforming to learn how to see it as
money, but still for social purposes we do not see it the same. Perhaps
same in India and China.
Society is respected here (e.g. respect of laws) - government here
is more structure, socially established - not as much in Latin America,
so laws are not respected, then govt. tends to be autocratic rather
than democratic, in trying to enforce different aspects of the law
because there is not that respect. E.g driving, or get ticket, not like
that. Also lots of corruption - and that causes a lot of problems.
Level of trust is lower probably than EU or US, because not confident
that other follow same laws. Always trying to find ways around, because
processes are not established, and the one that finds a way around
process can.
(Sabine, needed to debrief some students who saw rules more as guidelines to think about than strict rules)
2. For me it is kind of difficult to understand and apply all the
principles that help utilize cross-cultural communication using web 2.0
tools - so how do you create platforms flexible enough so people from
different parts of the world can enter information in their own way.
e.g.
wikipedia, structured platform, but content is very flexible, so in
that way it is very flexible for areas of the world and languages.
Restricted with tech divide, but that is from my perspective. how
create platforms for adaptation for participation and collaboration
cross-culturally.
Marcus
1. Agree with Javier, in the sense that we have a
socialistic heritage and kind of think that the state should stand for
us. The first point about being distinctive too - in Sweden, we are not
allowed to say we are good at something or selling ourselves like in
America. There is a skepticism when people talk about themselves. More
preference for group harmony over individual distinctiveness.
2. Universal principles - implications in EFA (Education for
All) and online courses with international or multicultural
participants. So start by finding what is NOT universal, and then think
that way. Because quite few of the DE are successful, and what are the
reasons, discover what is universal.
Good to know more about people
Sabine
1. In Spindler's 3rd point, premium put on individualism - in France you are
not supposed to be so different. That could be a problem if you need to
look for a job, but if you try to sell yourself, then people think you
are too proud.
Perhaps Catholic background? Or socialist background of working for group over the self.
Also Javier's point about looking for the government.
Nisbett
- preference for equality in relation or prefer superior position - not
true in France where superior position is equated with responsibility,
and they do not want it. it is the govt responsibility. Fellow France
share with Spanish.
Something else about the French - how much a socialist country it
is in terms of the individual more as a part of a group aspect - desire
for equality, however it is very interesting how the historical
background keeps coming back. Feeling of aristocracy, blue blood, money
line - is superior to you, rules are different for them, and you can't
enter that circle. Some contradictions for aristocracy, vs. common
folks.
2. When Diego talked about platforms, characteristics exchanged and behaviors studies.
It would be better if there was not a broadband divide. That limits people
and what type of culture shows up in 2nd life. But my interest is how
can we integrate intelligent agent within the platform of 2nd life that
would recognize cultural traits that we could educate people during the
cross-cultural events.
For instance, European festival - people tended to remain in
their own cultural groups. Even on the floor, people would congregate
around that geographical location in 2nd life. the avatar is really
just a metaphor of you. so how do cultural traits, or cross-cultural
communication through the added medium of an avatar. voice enabled. but
visual input is a little skewed, because you choose what you look like
(male, female, cat, dragon, etc) on top of national characteristics,
there are sub-groups, what is that individual different that you can
code.
Temtim (please add the things that I missed, we want to make sure that we got all your thoughts and points)
1. people want positions think is linked to
people give bribes
people always coming late
difference in being concerned in social relationships more than work focus
different cultures people are more govt corruption
2.Training content developers in cross-cultural issues. Very
difficult to develop uniform content for people of diverse cultures and
application interests. Platforms that customize for different learner
groups (what they see and what they learn).
________
Post-meeting notes and thoughts...
Clint
2. I realized I didn't share anything, so I will on this post. I like many of the suggestions made. In addition, I am interested in something called Decision Automation. It is a way in which computer algorithyms (taking into account huge amounts of data available from web analytics and other sources) learn and predict what would be the most valuable thing for any particular user based on what the ideal outcome is. I'd like to see these methods (altready proven in online marketing to increase sales conversions by 100-200%) utilized in educational technology, and particularly to meet the contextualization issues of international learners who each are a combination of so many evolving cultures that it is hard for designers to predict all the paths, but which an algorithym like this could monitor so much more info and change accordingly. And in addition, humans could learn a ton about how it customized messages for different segmentations of user groups.
But that stuff only applies to certain types of content (mainly consumption of pre-existing knowledge). For the other types of educational experiences (e.g. developing creativity, problem solving, collaboration, etc...) I like the idea Diego talked about with finding platforms that are flexible and useful enough to meet the needs of a huge variety of international learners, as well as Sabine's idea to support those interactions with some kind of help tools for facilitating and learning from cross-cultural interactions.
But I think everyone's ideas are really very relevant and should be explored more.
Adele
1.
2.
Minjuan
1.
2.
Ethiopian culture
Hi
First of all, I apology for posting late my ideas.
Well in Ethiopia, the concept of time is different from US. In the office, it is common people get office being late 15 to 30 minutes. It is taken as normal. During appointment, the same also happen, especially social appointments. One thing I observed is that both parties assume that he/she will come late, it doesnot matter if I am late. As a result when you arrive on time, you may not find the person. In the rural area, they don't use watch, appointments time is not exact like early in the morning, late morning (i.e. around 10:00 pm), lunch time and so on. In the town, the transporation facility is very poor. You can't predict at what time you can arrive. You may not find Taxi to take and you may waste about half or one hour waiting for taxi, other time there is traffic jam. As a result people adjusted their way of life the available facilities. To be sharp on your appointment, you have to plan to arrive at least 30 minutes earlier your appointment time.
the other thing time is not considered as money. I worked in the government office. After the office hour, I don't have things to do. I am not bothered if my friend comes late or me. Now I am a lecturer in the university, my time is expensive. I am sensitive if I waste 10 minutes unnecessarily. Becuase I have many things to do. For merchants, time is money.
I think, regarding to time you cannot conclude the same for all people living in Ethiopia.
Regarding to positions.
all resources are owned by the government. To be rich person, you have to have some position. By any means people try to get positions. One way is being a member of the ruling party. You can secure different positions. Once you get the positions. You don't have any mind. Whatever your boss instructs you, you just implement. What surprised me in recent time, even professors or so, once they joined that positions, they are working to maintain their position. They don't bother for other things - ethics or so.
Recently I see new culture. People are lying to get some benefit. Traditionally it was a big shame. Still this is the case in the rural areas. The government lies, then the people learn to lie. I think the system shapes the culture. I see this things in the western society among the politicians. What they are talking and what they are doing is not the same. In some aspect all people share the same culture.
In the Ethiopian culture, the culture tie is very strong. People are very careful not to spoil the social relationship. It is already built within the society. I remember one collegues in my previous office. he didnot give permission for their personal affairs for his subordinates during office hours. Everybody in the Office labels him as inhuman. Being in that personality, he will not get any reward or appreciation from organization. the system doesnot protect your. If you are more social person, you are liked both by your subordinates and your boss. As result people don't want to pay sucrifice for their work than their personal relationship.
Regrading to the different platform.
In the cross cultrual team, we are from different socio-economic development levels and we have different needs and problems. Online learning is a hot issue in the Western society but here in Ethiopia we talked out it but there is no online learning system. The issue of online learning problem is not the problem of Ethiopia right now. Such disccusion may not relevant for me. As IT professional I am interested and I joined the team. In the same way, within one topic there are different issues to be discussed but not all issues are relevant for all learners. Threrefore if the content is designed to include all learner groups, learners have the opportunity to customize their learning process to their specific needs. the issue is how do you know the needs that can be transalted into a learning content. In addition, we came from different culture, we don't have the same learning style. That must be also addressed.
Temtim