Gina Bennett

Thanks, Kyra! I really **AM** interested to see more. What I would love to see (I haven't looked through all the resources in detail yet though) is a case study or narrative or other resource that illustrates differences in cultural approaches to education. For example, I once read an interesting account of how Asian scholars may think about certain writing approaches which include 'copying' the work of others (shows respect), the collectivist idea of truly shared knowledge, etc. Darned if I can remember where I read that but it was a really interesting glimpse into the [highly-ethical!] thinking of someone culturally different! And I also once read a research report comparing the 'creativity' of Asian schoolchildren when compared to American. The Asian children were taught to copy artistic works very closely when they were young. It was considered arrogant for them to express individual style until they got much older & more technically capable. Interestingly... by the time they were in early adulthood, the Asian students were at least as creative as their American counterparts. I love that kind of thing that challenges our stereotypes!

Ah, and yet a THIRD reference that I can't locate! I remember reading an old Frontier College publication, written to help prepare itinerant educators to work with disenfrancised adult learners. The text advised educators to remember "there is no 'right' English. All dialects are created equal." Of course, academic writing (any writing, really) needs to be clear, understandable... but good English is also not a moral issue!

A long post, sorry

Hi Sylvia, hi everybody

Our web conference last week -- especially our considerable discussion about plagiarism -- sure got me thinking. Coincidentally, I am working on a project for the International Dept. at our college, developing a list of educational activities for faculty who wish to develop their intercultural competence. A key developmental model we are using as a foundation is Milton Bennett's Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity, which coaxes us to look at our intercultural understanding as being somewhere on the scale from ethnocentric to ethnorelative. (If you want to know more, this is interesting.)

Anyway, I really got to thinking about how our discussion about plagiarism probably includes both ethnocentric & ethnorelative worldviews. I like Sylvia's opening statement for this thread, about how the plagiarism video is about "examining and explaining the rules of Canadian academic culture" -- I think it's so important to identify the milieu in which we work as an academic culture. Within this culture, plagiarism is often considered to be 'stealing' the ideas of others & such acts are treated as if ethically & morally wrong. While I don't think it's right to purposefully pretend that you created a unique work when in fact it was mostly 'borrowed' without citation, 'plagiarism' is often more vague than that & the grey area gets pretty big pretty fast. It's just different in different cultures, & for those of us who are immersed in Canadian academic culture, I think it's really worthwhile to work towards a more ethnorelative view.

Hi Jenny, you make a very good point.

I personally have no argument with the promotion of pro-social behaviours. Some of my best friends are pro-social ;-)

But I think that the push for socialization in online environments (in ANY learning environment) is, in many cases, poorly considered. Collaborating, teamwork, social software tools etc. are pushed as if they were an Absolute Good in any learning environment. In many cases, strongly-social strategies don't relate to the learning outcomes at all & the activities are included in a course only because the instructor was led to believe that they HAD to be there. I remember an Accounting instructor coming to me for advice because she was having such a hard time thinking of a provocative forum topic every week in order to encourage more discussion. When I asked her why she needed to develop so much discussion in an Accounting course, she looked at me as if I were some sort of heretic.

My Master's thesis was all about how the distance education experience is different for rural learners. What I found out was that many distance education programs are designed by urban people & really push the distance learner to 'join the learning community' of the online class. However, most of the people I interviewed already had strong social ties to the community in which they were situated & did not feel a need to participate socially in the 'foreign' environment of the academic community.

An aside: I started responding to this thread directly within Google Wave & kind of got confused to see the discussion start up in SCoPE... this will take some getting used to!

Well, fellow SCoPE denizens, it's been a week since we launched the asynchronous component to our 'Pimp your Post' live session, brought to you by BC's Educational Technology Users Group (ETUG). This async discussion has been fairly quiet & I'm assuming that's because the synchronous session was so invigorating that you are all completely absorbed in re-vamping your entire online introduction processes ;-)

As always, this SCoPE discussion will remain open for a long time, as an area to post your additional suggestions & comments as they occur to you. How to launch your online course or presentation on the best foot forward will continue to be an important topic & no doubt we'll see a bit more action when people are thinking about this again (probably in September for us Northern Hemisphere types).

Thanks for your participation! We'd love to see any & all of you at ETUG's Spring Workshop, taking place in fantastic Victoria, BC, on June 7 & 8. Keep an eye on http://etug.ca/ for news as it unfolds.

This sounds like a really well-structured activity, Nellie. I like the idea of the calendar (makes the whole thing more tangible) & also the time limitation. I can see myself being more likely to follow through with an assignment if I have committed to a date & I know that it's for such a short time commitment.