Online Education in an Age of Globalization: Foundational Perspectives and Practices for Technical Communication Instructors and Trainers

Online access and interest in technical communication are increasing on a global scale. The time is therefore right for instructors to consider offering online courses to students located around the globe. Providing effective online courses for such a diverse audience, however, is no simple matter. This article provides an overview of the global market in online education. It presents information and approaches that can help with the development of online courses for international delivery as well as the training and professional development of the instructors, U.S.-based or otherwise, who teach them.

[1]  A. Leitch.  THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. , 1901 .

[2]  TyAnna Herrington.  The Global Classroom Project: Troublemaking and Troubleshooting , 2005 .

[3]  R. Clair.  Charles Kostelnick and David D. Roberts Designing Visual Language: Strategies for Professional Communicators , 1998 .

[4]  Kirk St. Amant.  Success in the International Virtual Office , 2001 .

[5]  A. Luxemburg,et al.  The contribution of electronic communication media to the design process: communicative and cultural implications , 2002 .

[6]  K. Chassie.  The allure of e-learning , 2002 .

[7]  David D. Roberts,et al.  Designing Visual Language: Strategies for Professional Communicators , 1997 .

[8]  Starr Roxanne Hiltz,et al.  Faculty Roles and Satisfaction in Asynchronous Learning Networks , 2004 .

[9]  William K. Horton,et al.  The Icon Book: Visual Symbols for Computer Systems and Documentation , 1994 .

[10]  Sam Dragga,et al.  China Is Hungry: Technical Communication in the People's Republic of China. , 1999 .

[11]  B.E. Munkvold,et al.  Experiences From Global E-Collaboration: ContextualInfluences on Technology Adoption and Use , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication.

[12]  L Cottrell.  Internet Performance to Africa , 2003 .

[13]  Martha Garcia-Murillo.  Patchwork Adoption of ICTs in Latin America , 2003 .

[14]  Douglas R. Vogel,et al.  Exploratory research on the role of national and professional cultures in a distributed learning project , 2001 .

[15]  K. Amant.  Distance education in a global age: a perspective for internationalizing online learning communities , 2005, SIGG.

[16]  D. Anawati,et al.  Behavioral adaptation within cross-cultural virtual teams , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication.

[17]  William Horton.  The Almost Universal Language: Graphics for International Documents. , 1993 .

[18]  K. Amant.  When Cultures and Computers Collide Rethinking Computer-Mediated Communication according to International and Intercultural Communication Expectations , 2002 .

[19]  John Connolly.  Problems in designing the user interface for systems supporting international human-human communication , 1996 .

[20]  A. Sivunen,et al.  Team leaders' technology choice in virtual teams , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication.

[21]  Global brains : knowledge and competencies for the 21st century , 2001 .

[22]  M. Warschauer.  Technology and Social Inclusion: Rethinking the Digital Divide , 2003 .

[23]  Suzanne Willis,et al.  Beyond the ‘digital divide’ , 2006 .

[24]  Keith R. Briffa,et al.  Blowing Hot and Cold , 2002, Science.

[25]  Daniel Ding,et al.  Challenges and Opportunities: Two Weeks of Teaching Technical Communication at Suzhou University, China. , 2001 .