Cross-Cultural Blog

Despite microphone issues, our conversation was enjoyable - we don't get to shoot the breeze with Australians in Australia every day. The questions were not quite as focused as we might have liked, but the video was interesting and in talking about it we discovered that the people we talked to were more like than unlike us. Perhaps that is because we both speak the same language and watch the same TV. We probably even get distracted by the same Facebook...

While I really enjoyed the "cross-cultural" portion of the cross-cultural exchange, I wish that all of the Sydney students were better equipped to hear what the Stanford students were saying (we had to share on headset/mike per group), as it made the exchange portion more difficult. The whiteboard was a godsend for communicating brief, stand-out ideas, but more complicated concepts had to be spoken one at a time by our group members over the headset. In future, I'd love to see a second session with Stanford incorporated into the course, so that ease of communication and familiarity are well-established prior to the actual academic teamwork. Group C, it was a pleasure!

this was an interesting way to approach cross-cultural rhetoric. which isn't really what our course is about this semester but doesn't it teach us more about the world of rhetoric and communication (and that illusive real world that we keep hearing about as students?)

one thing i would say about the "vision of students today" is that this interface could be really interesting way to update the video. there is no absolute need to try and unify the experience of the student into one cohesive voice - why could we not have a number of students contributing their views simultaneously, thus allowing the right of reply and a chance for people to change their minds after shooting the breeze with people who agree and disagree with them?

kathryn
university of sydney

Unfortunately I was late to class so I didn't have a real chance to interact with the group at large. Still, having done a similar exchange in first semester in Rhetoric of the Streets, it's great to see that we're continually making improvements to the way we interact; streamlining the class as a whole.

I found the discussion about student use of libraries really interesting. It appears Sydney students utilise ours more. However, I'm not sure if this is necessarily in a research capacity: they tend to feel more like cafes or common rooms! This probably has to do with online research technologies. Because we can access the function of libraries from our computers, we need to find new uses for the spaces they otherwise occupy.

Hi Anthony from sydney uni here.
Todays exchange from stanford was a really enjoyable experience. One negative aspect tho was the fact that in out group we had only one headset so only one person could interact at a time. Overall tho it was great to here about the stanford students university experience. We had some interesting discussion about our areas of reseach and study aswell as uni life in general. I began to explain about how we have been looking at hypertext and hyperfictions and the the affect this has had on literary production and critiscim. I discussed a piece I wrote as one of my assesments in stead of research essay.
I would like to share this peice with the people at stanford. I am unsure how to do this. Can you advise me as to how i might do this. I have it as a word file on the desktop right now. any advice? interest?

Amelia:
I thought that the hookup was fun but I'm not sure if we had the same objectives. It felt like our group was a lot more academically focused than our hookup group - some of what we were writing seemed to be more theoretical than what our Stanford colleagues expected. The lack of microphones meant that a combination of whiteboard-ing and speaking/listening was used to communicate and this became, in Celina's words, quite schizophrenic.

Celina:
There was a lot of unused potential in the whiteboard, but i would have loved to have prepared images/sites to link to. This is probably symptomatic of how rarely these things happen in Sydney classes, but still enjoyable.

Don:
Following on from Amelia's comments, it was a bit weird trying to talk about hypertext theory and its implications for creative and academic writing with a group who hadn't been studying it.. I suppose the common ground between our subjects was an interest in how technological changes have influenced academia / research. So we did have an interesting discussion on the possibility of collaborative work on YouTube.. but this discussion was limited by the actual technology we were using (we only had one headset!) Still, i think it was worthwhile.. and definitely something that should be continued in the future.

The End.

Totally agree with the technological issues in Sydney. We only had one hour and had to spend a lot of time moving around, fixing glitches, rather than having an engaging discussion.

Stanford Group A, we still really enjoyed the chat, it was just difficult with only one microphone/headset per group. We're very envious of your setup (and couches!).

One thought we had for next time was some sort of a collaborative project throughout semester to replace one (or all) of our assessments. It might be a video, an essay, anything that forces us to engage in meaningful cross-cultural discussion.

What do you think?

The technological problems on Sydney's end obviously impeded our discussion but there is a definite improvement from the exchange we did last semester in Rhetoric of the Streets where we had 20 people clustered around three computers and there was a deafening roar! There's still room for improvement but the concept and company are fantastic!

Hi

This is Lily Basdeo from the Page to Screen class at Sydney Uni. We have just had a very interesting exchange with the Stanford Cross-Cultural Rhetoric Workshop. After watching the video A New Vision of Students Today we had a group discussion regarding the use of technology in research. Surprisingly, we discovered from our Stanford friends that a great deal of their research is done online, whereas at Sydney Uni, we use the library a lot - I guess because we have the biggest library in the southern hemisphere! Personally - and I know a lot of people will find this weird - but I prefer printed text to hypertext. I like the permanency of print - online text is in a constant state of flux, each time I access it, it looks different. Some might argue that this is also the same as rereading books, so I guess it comes down to personal preferences.

Does anyone else have any views on this?

Regards
Lily Basdeo

I thought this was a fun experience however it was too brief and broad to really have a rigorous discussion about cross-cultural communication. I also think that Sydney students were ill-equipped to have an effective conversation. I think doing a more long term project with a group in this manner could be a great experience in cross-cultural communication

The technological shortcomings in Sydney, as everyone before me has said, seriously impeded our ability to have a productive conversation. However, it was much better than the exchange we did last semester in Rhetoric of the Streets when there were 20 of us clustered around three computers all talking louder and louder, trying to be heard.

I also think this is another case, like hypertext, where the technology distracts from the content. We spent so long fixing problems, swapping microphones and playing with the functions on the whiteboard that we didn't manage to have an academic discussion.

But, hopefully, with further instances and refinements these problems can disappear and we can fully engage across the Pacific Ocean!

So, my original post did work - another example of technology impeding discussion!

The videoconference experience was exciting and futuristic, but really wasn't that much better than an old-fashioned conference call. Yes, we could see each other, and write on the whiteboard, but the cameras and microphones didn't add too much.

Also, with Australia and the US being so far apart, there's an inevitable delay in the video and audio feeds. This hurts the video much more than the audio.

Obviously, videoconferencing software will improve in the future, but it's not quite ready yet. At least, Marratech's software isn't. For now, it's only impeding the conversation, rather than enhancing it.

Thanks to Group D in Sydney! I hope you had as much fun as I did.

It was overall a fantastic experience except for the following points:

1) There could be more pre-conference interaction through web chats and emails.
2) We could exchange contacts after the conference.
3) Australia should use speakers instead of headphones.
4) Consider doing his once at the start of the quarter and once at the end.
5) There was not enough time to produce a better cartoon.

Thanks!

I was glad for this opportunity. Our group spoke a bit to the idea that activities such as this one are useful for their ability to "de-privatize" the learning process. In a way, they give us new faith that are thoughts and scribblings aren't all for naught; our opinions transcend the white walls of a first-floor classroom tucked away in a building in a quadrangle in north-central California. What we learn and decide and work to achieve becomes relevant outside just a given rectangular space. In this case, it travels cross-continentally, 7,000+ miles to Australia.

That said, there are some areas where improvement can be made, I think. As others have pointed out, the technology troubles intruded on the discussion (a sort-of darkly funny subtext to our discussion on technological progress). And for my part, I wish I could have approached the discussion with more rigor. I knew little about hypertext and the theory behind it, so my contributions to the talk were by and large speculations. I hope I didn't come across as too sorry a presence to our friends in Australia.... :(

But it is always entertaining to commiserate over procrastination habits together. And the disparity in library use was an illuminating (or at least interesting) point.

Good luck to all as you end your spring term.

Thanks, Group B! And thanks, Australia!

Sincerely,
Elizabeth

Along the same lines as Yong's comments, I also agree that pre-conference interaction would have made the experience even better, and more productive than it was.

There was one point where I forgot that we had an actual task to accomplish and got caught up in "shooting the breeze" and getting to know our collaborators. Perhaps, a "test"/"icebreaker" could have been done sometime earlier this quarter, (with the caveat that Australia is able, given that they were winding down their semester) with this most recent conference being somewhat of a cumulative project showing our collaboration.

I think that this was, all-in-all, a great idea and a fun, learning experience. Of course, if the technology was a little better, thus producing a smoother avenue of communication, everything would have panned out almost perfectly. But, given what we had, I believe we made the best of it, and I hope that our Australian counterparts felt the same. If there is a quick fix, in the event that everything stays the same for next year, I would have only changed the length in which our interactions lasted.

Thanks and best of luck in the coming weeks!

Cheers,
Carlos

Overall the experience was enjoyable and productive. It was great to hear about the different experiences in Australia, and to learn what they were doing at their ‘uni’. It was also interesting to see the similarities between the two student cultures, a discussion prompted by the YouTube video. The discussion about the YouTube video led directly into a discussion of hypertext where it was fascinating to read two conversations on the marratech whiteboard while listening to a separate conversation over their headset. We were able to discuss our experiences with hypertext, but it was harder for us to discuss it in a more academic context both because the Stanford group did not have much background and because discussing it involved different people using either the whiteboard or the headset.
Some suggestions for next time:
-Multiple sessions throughout the quarter would be helpful and give us a chance to work out the technology issues
-Unifying topic or project for the two groups to work on collectively throughout the quarter.
-Integration of blog into communication sessions.

It was an amazing experience to meet with a group of people who live thousands of miles away. We had a chance to talk about the differences in school systems, financial issues, and academic curriculum between U.S and Australia. It was particularly interesting to see that students in Australia seemed to make a more extensive use of libraries in academic research than we normally do.

However, with very limited knowledge on hypertext, I feel that I couldn't contribute as much as I would have liked, and so possibly next year, I would love to see a collaborative project being implemented, where we could work on the same topic at the start and then meet again near the end of the quarter (or semester) to discuss.

For the technology issue, we started chatting on the message box while the other person spoke so that those who couldn't hear could read from the chat box. Because English isn't my first language, delays in video feedbacks and microphone problems made it even harder for me to communicate, and so reading from the chat box actually helped me with the communication.

It was nice meeting you all and thanks again to Group B in Sydney.

It was an amazing experience to meet with a group of people who live thousands of miles away. We had a chance to talk about the differences in school systems, financial issues, and academic curriculum between U.S and Australia. It was particularly interesting to see that students in Australia seemed to make a more extensive use of libraries in academic research than we normally do.

However, with very limited knowledge on hypertext, I feel that I couldn't contribute as much as I would have liked, and so possibly next year, I would love to see a collaborative project being implemented, where we could work on the same topic at the start and then meet again near the end of the quarter (or semester) to discuss.

For the technology issue, we started chatting on the message box while the other person spoke so that those who couldn't hear could read from the chat box. Because English isn't my first language, delays in video feedbacks and microphone problems made it even harder for me to communicate, and so reading from the chat box actually helped me with the communication.

It was nice meeting you all and thanks again to Group B in Sydney.

I think that when it comes to the internet, I am technologically ignorant. I had never created a blog before or even seen one on the web. Therefore, just the experience of writing a blog in a group and sharing it with people all over the world, but specifically in Sydney, was incredible.

As for the actual experience of video chatting, I thought it was equally valuable and interesting. The Youtube video that we were assigned to watch was eye-opening and it opened up a lot of discussion between the group in Sydney and ours. Their class had been focusing a lot on hypertext, whereas ours of course concerns the rhetoric of research, therefore it was somewhat strenuous for us to find a middle area that we were all acquainted with and that we could comfortably discuss.

However, I think that the video was something that we could all relate to, and indeed we did. It invited discussion of the differences between studying at the University of Sydney and studying here at Stanford University. I was particularly interested how acquainted they are with the libraries on campus and how that played a role in heir classes. For me, I relied heavily on the resources provided from the library for my research project, and I was curious to find out what role books and the library play at that particular university.

It seems that most students nowadays are more acquainted and comfortable with the internet when it comes to finding sources. Moving on, the video brought up discussion of how we study, where we study, how often we study, what we distract ourselves from studying with, and the like. We found that many of our methods of distraction overlapped, and we exchanged some laughs about this.

Overall, I think this was an intriguing experience that is quite unique and one that I might never have the chance to experience again. At the very least I can say that I have had an experience that my parents could not have fathomed when they were in college! The whole web-chatting experience was sort of complicated in terms of having to write on the whiteboard to communicate with the entire group in Sydney because they only had one headset. At times we were trying to respond to one person’s comment on the whiteboard while also listening to input from someone speaking with the headphones.

All in all, I enjoyed meeting folks in Sydney. I wish them the best and I thank them for the experience.

Best regards,
Marisa

Coming from "another side of the world" myself, I was not all that excited about merely talking to students from a different country. I have and take the opportunity to do that everyday! What was exciting to me was talking to students from a university with a culture that is undoubtedly influenced by being in Sydney, Australia. But, also, a culture that has traits that distinctively belong to the university, its students and consequently the work they produce.

The YouTube video that started of our discussion was a good way to compare the habits and culture of students at our respective universities. We agreed that for the most part the video reflected the reality although some of us deflected from the average data that it portrayed.

The discussion of the role of digital media and technology was also enlightening . Our partner group shared their insights on the role of hypertext and Creative Commons in writing. Since we had not delved into these issues in our class, we did not have as much to share on this topic. I agree with Dennis that a unifed project for the two groups would have been ideal. It will not only have given us a common ground for a discussion but it might have better portrayed the differences and similarities of the research cultures in our respective universities.

It was great talking to you Group E!

Hi this is Geoffrey from Stanford group C. I very much enjoyed this cross cultural experience. I was impressed by the fact that the main barrier to communication was not due to culture but due to technology. Worlds away, our colleagues on the Sidney side were surprisingly similar in their study habits (with some minor differences—the most prominent being the amount of online research). But in our discussion, our Sidney collaborators could only chime in one at a time due to the fact that they only had one headset mike for their group of four. In addition, their camera angle was not wide enough to accommodate their entire group at a time. Our group did our best and handled these limitations by communicating mainly through the whiteboard feature.

Hey, it's Ben from Group C. The whole cross-cultural thing was somewhat interesting to me, especially considering I did not know what to expect. It probably would have helped us to have more time - I felt like we really weren't able to say much during the 50 minutes (the youtube video and the technological problems didn't really help). It would also probably be helpful to integrate this sort of international communication into more courses on both sides so everyone knows more of what to expect in the future. Anyway, I learned some new things, so I would rate my overall experience positively.