Cultural aspects in technology-enhanced education

Abstract

Information and communication technologies helped make our world global a long time ago. Developed global models thus influenced education including teaching and mobility. Technology-enhanced education became one of the possible popular approaches used at different levels of education. For educational institutions, technology-enhanced education introduced new types of learners and the potential to share resources with other institutions. Learners can be involved in blended learning, and thereby choose when and where they learn. Opportunities for personalized learning, where learners find their own way through learning material appears and, last but not least, a wide range of devices and systems among which learners can choose their preferred platform is available. By using the mentioned approaches, being virtually involved, we can easily cross geographical borders. Participants can span across continents, countries, regions, cultures and languages easily, without having to step out of the classroom or office, or even be aware that they are crossing geographical borders. The learners became virtually mobile, but at the same time, participants in the same system can be of a different cultural and linguistic background. This requires a new understanding and for the preparation of educational materials as well as educational modules. The needs and expectations of participants from different environments and countries, as well as from different languages and culture groups can be different even with regard to some well-known and developed topics. These differences can influence the complete educational process and participants have to be aware of cultural aspects in technology-enhanced education. Cultural aspects and awareness help them to avoid communicational misunderstandings and other disappointments during the educational process. In this paper, we will introduce some basic cultural aspects and connect them to technology-enhanced education. Through case studies, our experiences with cultural aspects in different situations, expert topics and environments including technology-enhanced education tools will also be presented.