USING TECHNOLOGY TO PROMOTE CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING IN HIGHER EDUCATION CLASSROOMS

The Significance Of This Topic Educators are facing significant changes with the increasing number of populations in schools (Damarin, 1998); and the rapid growth of technology (Ryu & Byeon, 2011; Damarin, 1998).

(Quappe & Cantatore, 2007) 1-Parochial 2- Ethnocentric 3- Synergistic 4- Participatory Four Levels Of Cultural Awareness

Outsiders And Insiders When students interact with other students from different cultures and ask each other about their family costumes and traditions, both of the students step back and rethink about their traditions before they answer others’ questions (Hare, 1999).

1- How can technology be a useful tool for facilitating cultural understanding in higher education classrooms? 2- What are some strategies for using technology to promote cultural understanding in higher education classrooms?

Online Instructional Resources Online instructional resources are tools and methods used to empower the use of technology for users to enact new learning environments, new communications between students and educators, and new teaching methods; they are advantageous and significant factors in understanding cultures (Dong, Xu and Lu, 2009).

Asynchronous Learning To Promote Cultural Understanding

Asynchronous learning occurs when instructors and students interact independent of time and location. One of the advantages in using asynchronous tools to help with cultural understanding in that they grant students the ability to think critically about other cultures and deeply percept what other cultures are like (Tomlinson-Clarke & Clarke, 2012).

Asynchronous Learning Tools To Promote Cultural Understanding Tange (2011) defines wikis as collaborative websites that allow multiple authors to access them in order to edit the content they have asynchronously. Wikipedia is one of the most famous wikis worldwide. These types of asynchronous learning effectively help students to understand other cultures.

Blogs Boulos, Maramba, and Wheeler (2006) define blog as a combination of two words “web” and “log”; this word “blog” means an enriched online journal whose multimedia environment allows authors to work collaboratively to construct their knowledge.

Others s: Exchange programs. Films or Videos: Educators found that “film in general and video programs in particular represent an inexpensive, as well as a versatile, pedagogical tool” (Salaberry, 2001, p.41).

2- Synchronous Instructional Resources To Promote Cultural Understanding It occurs when people learn together at the same time.

Synchronous Instructional Tools To Promote Cultural Understanding

Videoconferences Videoconferencing is an advanced online educational form that allows participants to communicate with each other face-to-face in the same time (Journell & Dressman, 2011).

Skype Skype basically transfers computers to telephones using a voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) technology to enable users to communicate from anywhere in the world with other users.

Chat-based Online Discussions Chat is one of the synchronous communicating forms that enables instructors and students to have discussions, conversations, and ask and answer questions in “real time.” Example: “Ask a Librarian.”

3- Other Types Of Tools That We Can Use To Understand Other Cultural Regions

Geographic Information Systems GIS is a universal and geographic program used to analyze, capture, store, explore, and visualize data from geographic areas worldwide (Environmental Systems Research Institute, 2014). 11% of the U.S. students could not locate their country on the map, and only one in seven could locate Iraq (13%) or Iran (13%) on a map of Middle East/Asia (Roper, 2002).

Communication Strategies

Keypals Keypals are activities that use electronic tools such as , bulletin boards, threaded discussions or chat environments to provide opportunities for students to engage in communication with peers in other locations.

Global Classrooms Global classrooms are activities where two or more classrooms study the same topic together. Real time chat environments and video conferencing support this type of activity quite well.

Electronic Appearance Special guest speakers have long been used in classrooms. Electronic appearance activities extend this practice through the use of communication technologies such as chat and video conferencing.

Telementoring Telementoring activities bring subject matter experts into communication with a student.

Question And Answer Question and answer activities allow experts to serve as information sources to students. Like electronic appearances these types of activities can be one-to- group forms of communication. However in some question and answer activities individual students communicate with a single expert. These types of activities differ from telementoring activities in that there is seldom a personal relationship formed between the student and the expert. Often the questions and answers are archived publicly for others to use. There are a number of web sites that offer expert advice on a number of topics.

Advantages Of Using Technology In Cultural Understanding Breaking social constrains and improving students’ performance Creating collaborative learning and sharing environments Hearing another voice Discovering differences among students The ease of accessibility The ability to convert theories to visualized contents

Disadvantages Of Using Technology In Cultural Understanding Takes time to get involved into discussion Preparing and training teachers Providing technology instructions Technical issues

Conclusion By tying technological tools and strategies to diverse classrooms in higher education students would be experiencing a better cultural understand which is essential to be more open-minded to other cultural contexts. Effective educators need to create collaborative, motivational and communicative learning environments in order to effectively and vitally promote understanding of cultural differences in educational settings. To achieve cultural understanding, teachers can successfully accomplish their educational goals by using educational tools and strategies.