DEVELOPMENT OF A MULTICULTURAL NETWORK ASSIMILATOR

Cultural assimilator for tutors provides modeling situations, in which the representatives of two cultures are in interaction, and represents four interpretations of their behavior. The description of the situation is aimed at identification of differences between cultures, in our case, educational cultures. In the process of situation selection we consider the peculiarities of students’ and tutors’ behavior, which are well-known in cross-cultural multimedia didactics. We propose the following structure of assimilator: 1. Ergonomic block. For creation of an efficient educational resource focused on multicultural audience it is necessary to involve such components as: the resource navigation, the accessibility of information and its structure, appropriate ergonomic design, the degree of user involvement, the use (specificity) of various multimedia materials, users’ and motivational support. 2. Content specification block. Representatives of different cultural groups have different content preferences in structure and quality. For example, representatives of cultures with a high index of individualism prefer a unique content, so they often add and edit the content. Representatives of cultures with a high index of collectivism rather relay the existing content instead of creating a new one. 3. Discursive block. It’s important to know main national discursive models; communication failures could be caused by various discursive strategies of a culture, discrepancy between practical purposes of the author and information recipient, the difference in the volume and substance of their lexicon, mismatch of conceptual elements in the linguistic picture of the world. 4. Methodical block. According to cultural and cognitive specificity educational information is often presented in different ways - for example, there are linear and nonlinear learning methods, heuristic and reproductive forms based on cultural and cognitive specifics. 5. Communicative block. G. Hofstede’s dimensions have great impact on communication. For example, if a student is a representative of the culture with a lower value of power distance index than the tutor, he will expect an informal relationship from the tutor, including exchange of viewpoints and discussion of mistakes, to which the teacher won’t be ready. The representatives of cultures with a high index of uncertainty avoidance do not accept ambiguous situations and tend to avoid them if it’s possible. Ambiguity and inconstancy of situations are considered as undesirable events. Representatives of these cultures tend to prefer the structured, routine and even bureaucratic way of solving problems. Using interactive educational forms in cultures with high power distance the control over the process is needed. On the contrary, cultures with low power distance this method of teaching is frequently efficient. In the course of teamwork and joint performance of cases the representatives of cultures with a high index of individualism need the spirit of competition, the possibility to express their opinions and an opportunity to make independent decisions. On the contrary, the representatives of collectivist cultures require quiet atmosphere and qualitative technical means for team interaction. Development of an effective cultural assimilator is rather a complex task. We will describe the basic steps required to develop a cultural assimilator. 1. The selection of situations In developing a cultural assimilator the material is desirable to select with regard to descriptions of situations with most significant or characteristic differences between tutors and students as representatives of different cultures. In selecting the situations it should take into account the stereotypes of both cultures, cognitive features, discursive features, particular work with information, special aspects of communication with the tutor and with each other, etc. It is important to organize the process so that the situations will be supplemented not only by the experts and tutors, but by the learners. 2. The creation of episodes Episodes are designed as follows: some relevant information is taken from selected conflict situations, which is examined and adjusted by experts and then the single episode is developed. 3. The determination of attributions represents the collection of questions about the behavior of characters in a particular situation, emotional and cognitive reactions, etc. 4. The selection of attributions At this stage it is necessary to pick up a few alternative explanations, i.e. attributions. Interpretation of human behavior proceeds as follows: experts suggest three possible versions of explanation of behavior of team members and one version which is often used for explanation of the situation by the members of ‘another culture’. 5. Complete set of “cultural assimilator” Each situation is usually prescribed on several pages. One page is for description of the event itself, and the next one has a question with four answers for making a choice. We decided to use Wiki platform for allocation of the developed cultural assimilator. 6. Conclusion It’s common knowledge that today’s education is becoming more open and easily accessible; consequently, it is not limited by the boundaries of countries and regions. Moreover, on-line communication allows the educational processes to transpire irrespective of the territorial boundaries: not only the number of students is growing, but also their cultural identities are becoming more diverse. Nowadays educators are facing new problems caused by different world views, specific types of educational discourse, various information processing strategies etc . As a part of cross-cultural multimedia didactics, the following subject may present particular interest: 1. Methods and techniques of interactive didactic support of students studying independently in a virtual learning environment, considering social-cultural discourse and motivational features; 2. Social pragmatic aspect in the design of the structure, content and interface of electronic manuals and online learning environments (knowledge structure, content and media preferences, presentation preferences; 3. Appropriate selection of teaching methods including cognitive and discursive differentiation. Cross-cultural multimedia didactics may be viewed as a combination of cultural, psychological and pedagogical aspects, of culture specific pedagogical discourse, unique features of ergonomic design of educational resources, cognitive and pragmatic features and specific methods and forms of teaching and, therefore, is set to become one of the most important trends in contemporary education system.

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