Culture plays an overarching role that impacts investment, planning, design, development, delivery, and the learning outcomes of online education. This groundbreaking book remedies a dearth of empirical research on how digital cultures and teaching and learning cultures intersect, and offers grounded theory and practical guidance on how to integrate cultural needs and sensibilities with the innovative opportunities offered by online learning. This book provides a unique analysis of culture in online education from a global perspective, and offers:* An overview of the influences that culture has on teaching, online learning, and technology* Culture-sensitive instructional design strategies and teaching guidelines for online instructors and trainers * Facilitation and support strategies for online learners from different cultures * An overview on issues of design, development, communication, and support from a cross-cultural perspective* An overview of how online education is perceived, planned, implemented, and evaluated differently in various cultural contextsWritten by international experts in the field of online learning, this text constitutes with a comprehensive comparative introduction to the role of culture in online education. It offers essential guidance for practitioners, researchers, instructors, and anyone working with online students from around the world. This text is also appropriate for graduate-level Educational Technology and Comparative and International Learning programs.

About the Author
Insung Jung is Professor and Chair of Education, Media and Society at the International Christian University in Tokyo. Before joining ICU in 2003, she served as the Director of the Multimedia Education/E-Learning Center at the Ewha Women's University in Seoul for three years. The Center was established to develop, deliver and manage e-learning programs for the University and involved in establishing numerous collaborative relationships with national, regional and international institutions to develop and deliver web-based distance education programs to professional women in the region and throughout the world. Charlotte Nirmalani Gunawardena is Regents' Professor of Distance Education and Instructional Technology in the Organizational Learning and Instructional Technology Program at the University of New Mexico. For over twenty years she has published widely and presented on distance education, eLearning, and Instructional Technology. She currently researches the social construction of knowledge in online learning communities, the socio-cultural context of online learning, social presence theory, and cross-cultural e-mentoring. She has served as Principal Investigator and Project Director for U.S. federal research and evaluation grants, and was a Fulbright senior researcher in Morocco and Sri Lanka. She has consulted for World Bank and Asian Development Bank distance education projects, and the Ministry of Education in Sri Lanka to train online teachers and instructional designers for its National Online Distance Education Service.

Reviews

"Just as neither religion nor culture is monolithic, neither is online learning. This stimulating collection from around the world will help online teachers to negotiate better the various cultural divides and thus offer our students better online learning experiences."

Reflective Teaching (Wabash Center)

Book Information
ISBN 9781579228552
Author Insung Jung
Format Paperback
Page Count 222
Imprint Stylus Publishing
Publisher Taylor & Francis Inc
Weight(grams) 421g