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Time photoOur course invites you to work with data collection and analysis, readings, and discussion around the field of literacy studies

A Pedagogy for Cross-cultural Digital Learning Environments

A Pedagogy for Cross-cultural Digital Learning Environments

http://www.hybridpedagogy.com/journal/a-pedagogy-for-cross-cultural-digital-learning-environments/

As I’m sure you all have been able to tell from my various blog posts, I am really here to become a teacher that changes the way in which, as educators, we approach the teaching of ESL students, or a culturally diverse classroom in general.  This article written by Bernardo Trejos examines and seeks to explore solutions for how online education across multiple languages and cultures can become more effective and useful.  I think that no matter where one lives in the world, education should always be an option.  I highly agree with Trejos that there is not one superior language over another, and there is not one superior country over another.  My serious love and devotion to the Spanish language has made me realize that as much as I love being an English major, I love being a Spanish minor just as much.  I find it appalling that so many professors from English speaking countries do not feel as though it is worth their time to teach online courses to diverse groups of students.

This article has some very interesting points that we have discussed in class quite a bit.  For example, when we examine literacy as power, how do we decide who gets to draw the line between being  “literate” and “illiterate”?  Trejos presents the same question, only more in a sense of how we are going to make online education across cultures something that all countries and nations want to be apart of in order to make it so that every person on this planet has the opportunity and resources to become that “literate” human being they want to be.  One of the most interesting parts of this article to me was the translation of a paragraph in Mandarin Chinese to western linear-style English.  When the analysts broke down the way in which the Chinese was written, there were only 2 full stops and 10 pauses, and in the English translation there were 8 full stops, 2 semicolons, and 7 pauses.  Because the actual way in which different cultures write and produce their thoughts onto paper, it is difficult to internationally find a solution to how we are going to make online education accessible to all.  The fact of the matter is that as we have discussed how Twitter and Tumblr and YouTube are changing our literacy practices, the way in which we actually write and read and think is so different from other cultures that at times it seems like we are going too fast for others to catch up.

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