Global learning: still too expensive?

The technologies behind global learning need no longer cost the earth. Photograph: Maria Toutoudaki/Getty Images

When the concept of 'global learning' began to emerge in the 1990s, it was an expensive endeavour that required specialized classroom equipment, dedicated telecommunication lines or satellite links, and specialized technical support. In 1995, a typical one-hour global learning class, involving six different universities around the globe, cost upwards of $10,000 (£6,450) just for the connections. The classroom technology was not only expensive but also difficult to operate.

Often each professor would need an on-site technician present to operate the system. Most mid-level university administrators saw such initiatives as expensive and risky, and perceived no benefit, monetary or otherwise, for the institution. As long as benefits were measured in terms of net revenue, global learning was perceived to be too expensive to justify its use.

However, as global communication technologies have steadily improved over the last decade, together with a better understanding about how to use them to improve teaching and learning, an increasing number of educators are beginning to embrace global learning as a viable way to connect classrooms between diverse parts of the world and to facilitate meaningful learning. The overarching goal of global learning has been to increase students' intercultural awareness and to prepare them for communication, collaboration and teamwork with people of other cultures.

As the first decade of this new millenium progressed, advances in internet-based communication platforms and tools provided lower-cost and easier-to-use alternative to the 1990s technology for global learning. During the early part of the decade, a handful of pioneering institutions used this technology to connect classrooms. The leaders of those initiatives saw the benefits of global learning, but they were often alone in their insight.

Now, a professor can use her or his laptop, with built-in webcam/microphone and audio/video projection connections to facilitate global learning in all kinds of learning spaces. Effectively, infrastructure costs have fallen to zero. If institutions adopt a revenue neutral model where each institution charges tuition and provides credit for its own students, then our attention as teachers and administrators can turn to non-monetary benefits.

If infrastructure costs and net revenues cease to be issues, then we can pose the question: what are the intangible and long-term benefits for students, faculty, school, and society? Based on ongoing international, collaborative research studies of a variety of global learning programs, five non-monetary benefits of global learning have been identified:

• Reduction in xenophobia and cultural stereotyping by encouraging the development of multiple perspectives and consideration of multiple meanings

• Creation of good-will and international peace-building as participants learn how to conduct constructive dialogue and work together on collaborative team projects

• Development and nurturing of intercultural and social capital by faculty and students within and between the institutions of higher education

• Provision of more collaboration opportunities for international teaching and research

• Access to unforeseen venues for collaborative and employment opportunities beyond national borders

Even with these research findings, there still exist misconceptions among some administrators and academics about high infrastructure cost and negative net revenues, which creates an obstacle to global learning implementation. There may be several other reasons why global learning has not been fully embraced, including institutional inertia, ethno-centrism, cultural imperialism, lack of meaningful consultation with future employers, and unwillingness to try new teaching and learning innovations. One thing is for sure though: global business enterprises are in need of graduates who are globally savvy and interculturally competent.

To effectively communicate and collaborate between cultures, it is necessary to understand other perspectives and practices – this is the heart of global learning. It is well understood in the humanities and social sciences but often dismissed as irrelevant in other discipline areas. Global collaborative teamwork in engineering, business and medical professions can be fraught with lower productivity and misunderstandings and when participants have no global learning preparation.

In 1988, for example, NASA required metric units for the construction of the Mars Climate Orbiter but one manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, provided thruster data in "pound force seconds" instead of "newton seconds" as required. The spacecraft was supposed to orbit Mars at an altitude of 150km but descended to 57km instead due to the incorrect units. The result: it burned up in the Mars atmosphere at a cose $655.4m (£423m). What did NASA learn from this example – and what can we learn from it in turn?

Glyn Rimmington is the professor of global learning and Mara Alagic is the graduate school assistant dean at Wichita State University. Patrick Blessinger is the founder and executive director of the International Higher Education Teaching and Learning Association (HETL), New York, and co-founder of the Institute for Meaning-Centered Education

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Fostering global discourse: it's time to embrace distance learning

Is it time traditional higher education welcomed and developed distance learning courses? Photograph: Frank Baron for the Guardian

Many people in higher education think of distance learning the same way one would a distant cousin: aware of its existence, perhaps even thinks well of them, but reluctant to pick up the phone and find out how they are doing. And like the cousin you don't know well, the justification for your lack of interest is that distance learning is just a little bit awkward.

Distance learning is reputedly characterised by clunky online interfaces, isolation and generally conspiring to make students – and staff – miss out on so many of the things that make university life so attractive: daily interaction with people who think like we do. We imagine it to be just a depleted version of the 'real thing'.

But in the same way that reconnecting with a distant relative can teach you things about yourself that daily interaction with your closest friends can't, distance learning has things to offer that are difficult to find in a traditional university course. An good example of this is its capacity to instantly connect to people from all over the world. At the Centre for Alternative Technology, we run a range of specialist renewable energy and sustainable architecture masters degrees. Our distance learning course has enabled us to create a course that gives sustainability a global perspective.

A distance learning course puts students into a classroom that spans the whole world. It means the range of perspectives that are brought into that classroom are more diverse than any other method of learning. For a course based on sustainability this is crucial. Sustainability shouldn't be taught as an abstract theory amongst a group of people that all basically come from the same background, it should be taught as a discourse amongst people with diverse experiences of its practical application. Many other fields would benefit from similar thinking.

Of course, all university courses will have some international dimension to their intake. But the barriers of increasingly restrictive visa regulations and high cost mean that, in reality, physically attending a course in the UK is becoming increasingly difficult for many overseas students. Academic discourse will suffer if we can't find alternative models, such as distance learning, for bringing students together.

Without a doubt there are features of attending university that distance learning courses will never be able to emulate. I've spoken to students on residential degrees at the Centre for Alternative Technology who say they learn as much from chatting to lecturers or other students in the tea breaks as they do from the lectures. Earl Wilson's quip: "Science may never come up with a better office communication system than the coffee break", rings true. Still, there are also unique benefits to joining the online classroom that can never be found in a traditional university course.

If the benefits of higher education rest on the personal connections that students aspire to make, then we must ask what experiences are of value – if students just want to meet other people their own age to go out drinking with on a Friday night then sure, that is not what a distance learning course offers. If, however, students are looking to be part of seminars with people with a genuine plethora of life experiences, this is the extra element that a distance learning course can offer.

Distance learning doesn't create distances between people, it bridges the distances that already exist and connects diverse people. And the tools are improving to help universities do this better. So rather than simply acknowledge that distance learning exists in a universe far removed from the traditional university campus, it might be time to get to know this 'distant cousin' and learn what it has to add to the strength, and diversity, of UK HE.

Kit Jones is media officer at the Centre for Alternative Technology

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Global learning: still too expensive?

The technologies behind global learning need no longer cost the earth. Photograph: Maria Toutoudaki/Getty Images

When the concept of 'global learning' began to emerge in the 1990s, it was an expensive endeavour that required specialized classroom equipment, dedicated telecommunication lines or satellite links, and specialized technical support. In 1995, a typical one-hour global learning class, involving six different universities around the globe, cost upwards of $10,000 (£6,450) just for the connections. The classroom technology was not only expensive but also difficult to operate.

Often each professor would need an on-site technician present to operate the system. Most mid-level university administrators saw such initiatives as expensive and risky, and perceived no benefit, monetary or otherwise, for the institution. As long as benefits were measured in terms of net revenue, global learning was perceived to be too expensive to justify its use.

However, as global communication technologies have steadily improved over the last decade, together with a better understanding about how to use them to improve teaching and learning, an increasing number of educators are beginning to embrace global learning as a viable way to connect classrooms between diverse parts of the world and to facilitate meaningful learning. The overarching goal of global learning has been to increase students' intercultural awareness and to prepare them for communication, collaboration and teamwork with people of other cultures.

As the first decade of this new millenium progressed, advances in internet-based communication platforms and tools provided lower-cost and easier-to-use alternative to the 1990s technology for global learning. During the early part of the decade, a handful of pioneering institutions used this technology to connect classrooms. The leaders of those initiatives saw the benefits of global learning, but they were often alone in their insight.

Now, a professor can use her or his laptop, with built-in webcam/microphone and audio/video projection connections to facilitate global learning in all kinds of learning spaces. Effectively, infrastructure costs have fallen to zero. If institutions adopt a revenue neutral model where each institution charges tuition and provides credit for its own students, then our attention as teachers and administrators can turn to non-monetary benefits.

If infrastructure costs and net revenues cease to be issues, then we can pose the question: what are the intangible and long-term benefits for students, faculty, school, and society? Based on ongoing international, collaborative research studies of a variety of global learning programs, five non-monetary benefits of global learning have been identified:

• Reduction in xenophobia and cultural stereotyping by encouraging the development of multiple perspectives and consideration of multiple meanings

• Creation of good-will and international peace-building as participants learn how to conduct constructive dialogue and work together on collaborative team projects

• Development and nurturing of intercultural and social capital by faculty and students within and between the institutions of higher education

• Provision of more collaboration opportunities for international teaching and research

• Access to unforeseen venues for collaborative and employment opportunities beyond national borders

Even with these research findings, there still exist misconceptions among some administrators and academics about high infrastructure cost and negative net revenues, which creates an obstacle to global learning implementation. There may be several other reasons why global learning has not been fully embraced, including institutional inertia, ethno-centrism, cultural imperialism, lack of meaningful consultation with future employers, and unwillingness to try new teaching and learning innovations. One thing is for sure though: global business enterprises are in need of graduates who are globally savvy and interculturally competent.

To effectively communicate and collaborate between cultures, it is necessary to understand other perspectives and practices – this is the heart of global learning. It is well understood in the humanities and social sciences but often dismissed as irrelevant in other discipline areas. Global collaborative teamwork in engineering, business and medical professions can be fraught with lower productivity and misunderstandings and when participants have no global learning preparation.

In 1988, for example, NASA required metric units for the construction of the Mars Climate Orbiter but one manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, provided thruster data in "pound force seconds" instead of "newton seconds" as required. The spacecraft was supposed to orbit Mars at an altitude of 150km but descended to 57km instead due to the incorrect units. The result: it burned up in the Mars atmosphere at a cose $655.4m (£423m). What did NASA learn from this example – and what can we learn from it in turn?

Glyn Rimmington is the professor of global learning and Mara Alagic is the graduate school assistant dean at Wichita State University. Patrick Blessinger is the founder and executive director of the International Higher Education Teaching and Learning Association (HETL), New York, and co-founder of the Institute for Meaning-Centered Education

This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. To get more articles like this direct to your inbox, become a member of the Higher Education Network.

View the original article here