MULTICULTURAL EXCHANGE & NEW MEDIA
Global Education Solution for Children
Marcos Sadao Maekawa, Takehiro Suzuki and Keiko Okawa
Graduate School of Media Design, Keio University, Yokohama, Japan
Keywords: Cross-cultural, Exchange, Digital Media, Children.
Abstract: This paper introduces the Global Education Kids Project and its research on educational programs and
activities able to provide global experiences for children around the world, supported by new media
technologies. A global experience can be understood as a situation in which kids can get together with
others, collaborate on works and actions, share knowledge, feelings, and moments of cultural exchange,
reflection and friendship. This paper explains some of the elements necessary for designing an effective
program for multicultural exchange that we discovered while conducting research and promoting and/or
observing experiments.
1 INTRODUCTION
In the last two decades, the development and
globalization of media technologies have been
changing not only the way people communicate and
work, but also the way they learn and study.
Changes in the whole world were brought up,
making information exchange more accessible and
speeding its dissemination. On the other hand, new
issues on a scale never seen before have been
challenging the global society to find new solutions.
Though one effect of globalization is the
homogenization of lifestyles and cultures, it is
necessary to preserve and teach the next generations
to respect cultural diversity.
Introducing Global Education supported by new
media technologies will encourage school-age
children to think and reflect about local and global
issues. Interacting directly or indirectly with other
children around the world, they become more
motivated to participate in exchange activities and
more interested in communicating. This sort of
programs will also stimulate children’s creativity.
Furthermore, those cultural exchange experiences
will prepare and inspire the next generation to meet
the challenges of living in a global society.
1.1 Cross-cultural Communication and
Cultural Exchange
The demand for cross-cultural communication skills
has increased dramatically because of globalization.
A wide variety of cultural exchange activities can be
found around the world aiming to promote mutual
understanding between different cultures. Knowing
more about cultural differences and similarities is
essential to achieving mutual understanding and
making cross-cultural communication effective.
Those activities applied to children’s education can
provide them with their first notions of other
cultures and view of the world. In many countries,
projects have already started promoting cultural
exchange and dialogue and stimulating globally
focused educational programs introducing global
citizenship.
According to the Commissioner’s Advisory
Group on International Cultural Exchange of Japan
(2003), the Japanese government invested heavily
through the 60’s in cultural exchange to restore its
position in international society after World War II.
In the 70’s, trust in Japan among the international
community was restored and during the same period
there was “a surge of international exchange
initiatives by local governments as well as by civil
and grassroots organizations.” (p. 5) Today, the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (2009) holds
yearly the event Global Youth Exchange Program in
order to promote dialogue and international mutual
252
Maekawa M., Suzuki T. and Okawa K. (2010).
MULTICULTURAL EXCHANGE & NEW MEDIA - Global Education Solution for Children.
In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Computer Supported Education, pages 252-257
DOI: 10.5220/0002861302520257
Copyright
c
 SciTePress

understanding among young people from many parts
of the world. (“MOFA: Global Youth Exchange
Program”)
1.2 Global Citizens, Global Issues
The Get Global! Project is an initiative from the UK.
Price et al (2003, p. 3) points out that one of the core
themes of this project is to develop an understanding
of the world as a global community and discuss the
political, economical, environmental and social
implications of this. In this project guidebook, a
MORI pool indicates that 80% agreed with the
following statement: “Young people need to
understand global issues so they can make choices
about how they want to live their lives.” (Price et al,
2003, p. 3)
Another relevant factor in global society that
raises the needs of the spread of global education is
the international migration phenomenon. According
to International Organization for Migration (IOM),
there are over 214 million international migrants in
the world in 2008. IOM’s website (2009) considers
migration one of the defining issues of this century
and points that it is necessary “to manage migration
effectively to enhance its positive and reduce its
negative impacts.” (“Fact & Figures”) This research
believes that global education and respect of
diversity can help children, both those hosting and
those migrating, to experience a smooth adaptation
to cultural environment changes.
Information and Communication Technology
(ICT) has led to enormous transformations to
education and will continue going forward. The
smart use of ICT can bring multicultural activities
closer to children, and provide them with new
valuable opportunities to feel global.
2 BACKGROUND
The use of digital media has been revolutionizing
education as a whole, overcoming barriers of
distance and time difference with E-learning and
online boards, educational websites and social
network services (SNS). This trend is very clear in
higher education, with the spread of universities and
their open courses online, giving opportunities for
students from many locations to access contents at
the national and international level. We looked for
related works in the same area of cross-cultural
exchange and multilateral digital communication,
mainly videoconferencing, for elementary students.
Most of the academic bibiliography found was
related to the use of SNSs and other Web2.0 tools,
but mainly for language exchange and was
concentrated in secondary or higher education. On
the other hand, various projects that focused on
elementary students were promoted on blogs and
websites. We found, basically, two categories of
activities: (1) independent initiatives and (2)
educational online platforms.
2.1 Linking Classrooms with ICT
In those independent initiaves, interaction occurs
through digital communication software with
videoconferencing functions, mainly Skype, that can
be dowloaded for free from the web and that costs
little to operate. Some of the initiatives reached a
global scale, such as the Around The World With 80
Schools project, from the US, that holds short
sessions (1 to 5 minutes long) for kindergarden up to
6
th
grade students and aim to connect with at least 80
schools in different countries and continents, as
described in its website (2010). Although they have
been successful and are an example for other
teachers, software limitations do not allow
multilateral videoconferencing because all activitites
must be made peer-to-peer only.
On the other hand, there are online educational
projects with bigger organizational structures aiming
to link classrooms around the world. They usually
are totally supported by government or public
organizations, develop programs and online
instructional materials, and have their own platform
of interaction online. Europe has some of the biggest
examples, such as the British Council’s Connecting
Classrooms project and e-Twinning.
In Asia, one example of an innovative online
educational platform is focused on higher education;
the SOI (School on Internet) Asia Project, SOI Asia
utilizes a satellite-based network to provide Internet
access in a less expansive, easy to deploy, and more
feasible way.” (“About SOI Asia”) Through this
network, 27 universities and research institutes in 13
countries have access to live lectures and online
archives.
One strong point is the use of a satellite-based
network that enables regions with low internet
infrastructure—one of the reasons for the digital
divide—to reach content for higher education. As a
distance learning environment and research network,
SOI Asia promotes multilateral interaction enabled
by self-developed video and audio applications.
Depending on the hardware infrastructure of the site,
it is possible to receive high-definition quality image
and sound.
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2.2 A Demand for Contents
The rush to introduce ICT has brought together
organizations and local governments to work on
providing hardware for children. The demand for
cross-cultural programs focusing on children is
increasing at the same pace.
For example, recently, Uruguay announced Plan
Ceibal, their ambitious program that provides one
laptop for every student and teacher in the country.
Plans on a smaller scale are more frequently
mentioned in the mass media. Now, that the world is
intent on giving children more access to computers,
which is a very important part of the process, it is
time to go beyond providing hardware and
connectivity at schools. It is also necessary to
develop programs capable of utilizing the potential
of this environment, to work on developing the
teachers to teach ICT literacy to children and to give
the opportunity of a global experience to as many
children as possible. This will awake their awareness
of other cultures as a whole and will also begin to
prepare the next generation to face global issues that
arise in the future.
3 EXPERIMENTS
As researchers, we have been observing and
participating in the design of new cultural exchange
programs, supported by at least one new technology
or new medium. All of them have more than two
countries participating, in order to create a
multicultural environment and observe children’s
motivation and immediate reactions during and
immediately after each activity. Through this hands-
on experience, we expect to discover more ideas and
refine them to enhance the program’s design.
3.1 Connecting the World through
Komadori Anime
Komadori Anime is the Japanese term for snapshot
animation. Eighty elementary students (ages 8 to 14
years) from Japan, Italy, Cambodia and Brazil
participated in animation production workshops
designed to promote cultural exchange. Participants
did not have any direct interaction with peers
abroad, but they were expected to accomplish two
tasks; reflect about their own culture and find
cultural differences and similarities.
In this program, new media tools, such as video
and digital camera, played an important role
supporting children’s creativity. ICT (regular public
internet) was essential to the smooth communication
and operations management among the sites.
3.1.1 Methodology
This program was divided into three stages in four
countries over 1.5 months, on different dates.
In the first stage, participants were divided in
groups of approximately 5-6 members and were
given a brief introduction to all of the other
participating countries. Since the age range was
broad (1
st
to 6
th
graders), basic data about each
country, relevance in sports, typical food and other
easy-to-understand topics were used as introduction
information.
After that, children were given coloured pencils,
paper, and digital cameras and expected to produce
material such as characters and objects (drawings)
and also backgrounds (photos). They were guided to
produce pieces that could represent their original
culture as much as possible.
Once the session ended, the drawings were
scanned and the material was exchanged with other
countries’ participants so that each site had the same
contents available to be used to prepare animations.
The exchange process occurred online, since an FTP
server was available for file transfers among the
sites. In the case of Cambodia, where Internet
infrastructure is very poor, all data was recorded on
a CD-ROM and sent by regular post.
In the second stage, participants experienced
animation production. The exchanged material was
briefly introduced and children quickly started
discovering cultural similarities and differences so
they could select some of the pieces, create an
original story, and record a narration. Each groups’
facilitators operated the software (Windows XP,
Movie Maker, Audacity), but the children guided
them. During this session, participants also viewed
some messages recorded by their international
colleagues in the previous session.
In the third and last stage, held only in Japan, all
of the participating sites’ animations were screened
for the participants, parents, guardians and other
stakeholders. For other countries, the movies were
uploaded to a website for their viewing in four
languages: Japanese, English (for Cambodia), Italian
and Portuguese.
3.1.2 Evaluation and Results
After observing participants and analyzing
interviews with parents and stakeholders, it can be
concluded that the children enjoyed learning about
other cultures and were motivated to introduce
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elements of their own culture to others, though most
of them couldn’t identify what those elements
should be. Organizers had anticipated this, and
guided the children with books and references they
had prepared for this purpose.
In Japan, 4
th
to 6
th
graders were more interested
and focused on thinking about elements from their
own culture than younger participants were, but all
of them were very excited while watching video
messages from other countries.
Internet access was essential to the management
of these workshops; written communication was by
email, the conversations were over VoIP software
such as Skype, and materials were exchanged using
FTP servers.
The results of this program were the base of
discussion for a symposium—held in Japan— about
the mission and views of the future of ICT, children,
the digital divide and cultural exchange.
3.2 Global Kids Eclipse 2009
On the morning of July 22, almost 500 students from
eight countries—Japan, Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand,
Bangladesh, Philippines, Malaysia, and United Arab
Emirates—gathered at 13 different locations in Asia
to share the longest total solar eclipse of this century
and a multicultural exchange experience.
This program provided a common virtual space
where the students—the majority were 6th graders—
could watch eclipse images transmitted from remote
sites and also participate in other real-time
interaction sessions. The participants were connected
through the SOI Asia network, utilizing video and
audio applications developed originally to offer
multilateral communication. This was also a good
opportunity to investigate how the SOI Asia
platform performed in activities other than the usual
online lectures for higher education.
3.2.1 Main Goals
The program was designed with two main
objectives: to promote science and to have all of the
participants feeling global.
FEELING GLOBAL - By connecting different
places around the world remotely, it was hoped that
the students would increase their awareness of the
world (overseas, time differences, other countries)
and be inspired by the opportunity to interact and
share experiences with other students from different
backgrounds.
PROMOTING SCIENCE - In the International
Year of Astronomy 2009—declared by the United
Nations and endorsed by UNESCO—GLOBAL
KIDS ECLIPSE 2009 attempted to encourage
student interest in science and astronomy and
support the central theme of IYA2009: “The
Universe, Yours to Discover.”
3.2.2 Methodology
Since regular education curriculums vary from
country to country, and to give more time to
participants to be involved in this activity, the
program was divided into two days.
All locations were asked to hold a pre-event, in
which students would hear a lecture about the
eclipse phenomenon and also create an art piece on
the theme “My ideal Star/Planet.” Drawings were
used for the cultural exchange corner in the main
event.
The main event schedule was divided in two
themes: multicultural exchange and eclipse
observation. It started with a very simple language
exchange that also served to break the ice.
Next, participants from each site had time to
introduce some of their drawings, explain concepts,
techniques, and included messages. In this part,
students from any site could ask questions of or
make comments to the authors. Since the majority of
participants were not fluent in English, a
simultaneous interpretation network was design to
make multilateral communication flow smoothly.
Between sessions, students enjoyed quizzes that
made the learning fun; they were motivated to
express that which they had learned previously and
also could see other participants’ immediate
reactions, stimulating interaction.
For the eclipse observation corner, live images of
the total eclipse, provided by the National
Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), were
received in the main site in Yokohama, Japan and
then transmitted to other locations through the SOI
Asia network. This technical structure enabled the
transmission of high quality images to all sites. This
is an essential factor to facilitate communication
among children; facial expression and voice tone are
very important elements in cross-cultural
communication, especially because they didn’t have
a common language to rely on. High quality images
of the total solar eclipse also allowed the 500
participants to share the emotion and the experience
with those in countries where the total eclipse could
not be seen.
3.2.3 Evaluation and Results
In order to evaluate this activity, surveys were
distributed for children and teachers in Japan and
Indonesia. When asked about their impressions and
thoughts about participating in this event, children
gave very positive feedback on the opportunity to
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interact. Although more than 90% of the answers
referred to the eclipse as the main learned lesson, as
expected by the Promote Science goal, 32% of the
students added that cultural exchange was also part
of the main lesson.
In a deeper reading of the surveys, a syntactic
analysis of the material revealed that the high
number of substantives such as country, world and
exchange reveals that this program made them
reflect about the feeling global aspect. Collected
data revealed they enjoyed sharing; they used a
relevant number of words like together and
everybody/everyone.
Teachers and other stakeholders also gave
positive feedback and demonstrated interest in
participating in new activities like this. They also
suggested new programs to nurture teachers.
Multilateral communication was smooth, other
than a hardware problem; one location had a faulty
microphone. ICT, specifically the existing
infrastructure of SOI Asia, made it possible for all of
the operations and management to run smoothly.
3.3 Mekong Kids 2009
The Mekong Kids 2009 program was held during
the Mekong Festival 2009, a celebration of the 90
th
anniversary of exchange between Japan and the
Mekong countries (Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia,
Myanmar, Laos and Yunnan Prefecture in China).
This activity aimed to encourage children from
each Mekong country and Japan to show their
culture and daily life to friends within the Mekong
area and in Japan. It was an opportunity for them to
know more about their own home country, and
(re)discover colours, forms, views, sounds and
flavours.
Using new media such as Twitter, they were able
to share these experiences and discoveries and to
deepen the exchange between the Mekong area
countries and Japan.
On the Japan site, Mekong Kids 2009 aimed to
provide all visitors a chance to see the contents and
messages created and posted by children and also
the opportunity to interact with people from the
Mekong area countries.
3.3.1 Evaluation and Results
It was not possible to evaluate the effectiveness of
this program because not many children were able to
participate. In the Japan site, participants felt
motivated to show their culture, such as origami or
Japanese characters. One Japanese girl was
motivated to participate because she wanted to see
the response from the Mekong Kids.
However, a survey collected from visitors of
Mekong Festival 2009, in which a question about the
importance of cultural exchange programs for
children was included, revealed that almost 100% of
the visitors considered it to be important for kids’
education.
4 FUTURE WORKS AND
CONCLUSION
Although surveys and feedback from children,
teachers, parents and other stakeholders showed that
there is more room and demand for multicultural
exchange programs in formal and extracurricular
education, there are still many lessons to be learned
and possibilities to be explored.
One of the lessons from related works, and
confirmed by the practices described in this paper, is
that having a good partnership with schools,
universities, local government and/or organizations
is essential to make this sort of program feasible and
sustainable. Teachers and facilitators have to be
developed in parallel. This would also help
improving scalability of the operational structure. In
order for these programs to be effective they should
be held on a regular basis. Furthermore the effects of
these programs should be evaluated in the mid- and
long–term basis.
Beyond getting computers into children’s hands,
this research aims to give them opportunities and
experiences made possible by the new media
technologies. Results from the experiments observed
have confirmed one of the most important results:
children are ready to have global experiences like
the ones described in this paper. This can be the
basis for dialogues, diversity and other new
experiences.
This research into improving children’s
interactions and new contents design will continue.
We also expect to create sustainable program
development and deployment to be expanded in Asia
and other developing countries and regions.
These kinds of programs widen children’s view
of the world, make them reflect on local and global
acts and their responsibilities to society, and
definitely inspire them to face global issues and to
help find solutions for them.
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