International Education | e-Learning Professor

Students from two continents meet online

8 November 2017 by Graham Stewart Leave a Comment

At the end of last year, two groups of students met in an online course bridging South Africa and China. A lecturer exchange program in China last year provided Prof Graham Stewart with the opportunity of bringing together students from Durban and the Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University (FAFU). FAFU is situated in the city of Fuzhou on the South East coast of China. The online course aimed to make participating students aware of the larger world and deepen their understanding of themselves, their culture, how they are perceived, and how they perceive others.

One of the FAFU participants commented:

“All in all, it was an enjoyable experience and I am glad I made some international friends and learnt about academics in another part of the world. it put a lot in perspective for me and humbled me to show me that there is so much out there and we need to grow and learn and experience more while we are still young. These were really great memories.”

International Learning Team Showcase Design Project

26 August 2016 by Graham Stewart Leave a Comment

Eileen MacAvery Kane joined South African colleagues Herman Botes and Hendali Steynberg in an intercontinental presentation to an audience of e-learning enthusiasts at Durban University of Technology. Their Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) project “Building Bridges between Cultures” (see previous blog post) showcased the quality and depth of the international educational experience that students can enjoy in a well-designed and skillfully facilitated online space. The seamless way in which the session was conducted, with the challenge of having one presenter thousands of kilometres away in the United States demonstrated the ease with which participants can be brought together for international learning. Herman Botes is Head of the Department of Visual Communication, and Hendali Steynberg a lecturer in the same department at Tshwane University of Technology in South Africa. Eileen MacAvery Kane is a full-time instructor in the Art Department at Rockland Community College, Suffern, New York. Eileen has authored and designed the books Ethics: A Graphic Designer’s Field Guide, East End Stories, Teacup Secrets and the blog ethicsingraphicdesign.org.

COIL Posters Bridging Cultures

4 May 2016 by Graham Stewart Leave a Comment

South African Student Posters - TUT-SUNY Rockland Project — South African Student Posters – TUT-SUNY Rockland Project

The essence of good collaborative online international learning is a seamless continuum between course content and intercultural dialogue. So said Henry Shepherd of the Stephens Initiative in his keynote at the recent COIL Conference in New York. He was referring to an exciting initiative between Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) in South Africa and SUNY Rockland where graphic design students had shared similarities and explored misunderstandings between their cultures while creating posters around themes like xenophobia, rising university fees, cyber-bullying and gun control. Hendali Steynberg and her SUNY Rockland colleague, Eileen MacAvery Kane, encouraged their students to produce “video icebreakers” to give each other a sense of the different environments. Says Hendali: “A project with soul where there is so much to learn from each other!” The project points towards future successful joint online classes using graphics as a meeting point.

Posters by South African students (starting top left): Nsovo Manganyi, Nombuyiselo Gogwane, Mafemo Phillimon and Mashie (TUT students, 2015). See more at http://rcc.macavery.com/south-african-students/

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