The role of technology based approaches in globalizing education

Abstract

Students from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds choose English speaking countries for the tertiary studies in popular fields such as Business. It would certainly help this group of students if teaching materials were designed in such a way that dependency and reliance on language was kept to minimum. Technology plays an important role in achieving this objective. Current Information Technology provides ideal opportunities for development of Visually Rich (VR) learning environments. Future information technology products may also facilitate capturing, digitising, storing and transferring human thoughts as an independent medium directly to other sources. Imagine the ability of directly transferring an animation of a concept to a learner in a thought file. After all, the language of thought is probably universal and is not based on a particular type of language. In a strictly natural way, we do not have to pronounce words in our though's Forms (Plato's Republic) or Aristotles' Essences (De-Anima). Although using visually enhanced multimedia teaching materials is not quite like a direct transfer of ideas to others, it is a step in the right direction. This paper investigates how the latest technologies can be used in creating learning environments with a lower text dependency to suit students from different linguistic backgrounds. Therefore, by incorporating appropriate visual features, educational multimedia materials can be developed in a generic language like English, and be available to students whose native tongue is another language. Examples and strategies for development of such systems are provided and discussed in this paper.