Find a report on the event at the e-learning lab site, including the slides of our invited experts:
- Pierre Dillenbourg, EPFL, Classroom Orchestration Technologies
- Ronghuai Huang, Beijing Normal University, Key Issues of e-Textbook in K-12 Schools
- Ulrich Hoppe, University of Duisburg-Essen, The Potential of Network Analysis for Technology Enhanced Learning
- Kevin Chen, italki.com, Bringing ideas to life. Perspective from a commercial tech education startup
- Weikai Xie, SJTU, PPClass – A mobile-enabled online lecture system for large-scale Lifelong Learning
- Denis Gillet, EPFL, Areas of Tension in Technology Enhanced Learning
- Shared rooms. Having one Chinese and one Western student in one room is an excellent ice breaker. We could see how these "pairs" stuck together during the first days.
- Multicultural groups. Before the event, we assigned the students in groups (2 Chinese + 1 Western student). Each group was responsible to lead the discussion of the expert talks (including introduction to the speaker and leading the discussion (which means to prepare questions about the talk)). We changed groups after two days to bring a different mix of students together.
- Counteract passivity/shyness. In our groups, Chinese students tended to have the Western students present the outcomes. Very easy to avoid such behavior: select the student to present just before the presentation itself. This forces everybody to contribute and be aware of the outcomes, since there is the "danger" of becoming the presenter.
- Collect the outcomes of groupwork before the presentations. After each groupwork, we had a presentation session. To avoid that the groups continue to work on their presentations while the other groups are presenting, simply collect the outcomes (ppt, txt, whatever) from all groups before the presentations and be very clear about the fact that you will not accept any revision. I had to do this once, and afterward it was not problem anymore.
- Make the students use templates. In our sessions (especially the students' introductions) we had the problems that some students talked much longer than the assigned 5 minutes. To circumvent this, create a slide template in which the slides change automatically after 1 minute.
- Made the students explain their social activities. Our Western students wanted to have a drink in the evening, our Chinese students wanted to go to KTV. Do you know what KTV is? Neither did the Chinese students know what having a drink means. KTV means Karaoke, "having a drink" does NOT mean you have to drink lots of beer, a coke or orange juice is also okay. Once this was clarified, our students had a great time together in the evening.
- Mix experts and students during meals. Chinese students tend to sit at a table separate from the experts. Don't let that happen. Let the Chinese students sit first, then the experts, even if this means that a few people have to change seats.
We did not succeed in receiving criticism from our Chinese participant. The Western students don't have much of a problem of stating what they liked/did not like. Our Chinese students praised the workshop, but didn't talk about problems. Maybe an anonymous questionnaire would work, or maybe I just have to become better in reading between the lines.
All in all, it was a really successful event. The students achieved what we hoped for: they interacted, learned from each other and became friends. Even tears were flowing the day they had to say good-bye to each other.
