Summary: Sue Anderson's article is about the experience of developing a virtual international classroom exchange with a group of students from China. The process of setting up the program and communicating with Chinese students created many obstacles that forced the students to learn how to effectively communicate with someone from another country. Students had to learn to write and communicate without using slang, idiomatic expressions, and abbreviated language. This type of learning is meant to prepare students to participate in the global community. American students learned about the way of life of Chinese students of the same age, but more importantly they learned about the similarities between themselves. Then the students participated in an activity that had them create a video that highlighted the similarities and differences between the two cultures. The project was an overall success but had it's share of bums in the road that needed to be worked out along the way.
Question 1. What, if any, problems could be faced in the future in relation to Internet censorship in China?
If there is a sensitive topic that the Chinese government wants to keep hidden from it's people a dialog between American Students, who have freedom of speech, and Chinese students who don't, communication between the bodies of student could be lost or interrupted for a long period of time, or the dialog could become hostile if misinformation surrounds said event.
Question 2. What issues could arise with the use of incompatible or stolen technologies.
Like the issues already faced by the classroom in relation to incompatible technologies most of the problems could be worked out, even in the case of google being banned by the Chinese government. Other compatibility issues could be found in the use of stolen or faulty knock offs of software. In the article, Ms. Anderson pointed out that the Chinese students had older models of computers, but they were able to function for the exercise.
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