International and Worldwide

 One item of Web 2.0 I hope to increase is the breaking down of borders.  I’m old enough to remember the draw of what was called the World Wide Web was the connection across the miles to any country in the world.  And it has.  I watch soap operas from around the world and tweet with followers from countries I haven’t visited.  At one time, the Internet allowed me to facilitate modules for fellow corporate trainers in eleven countries simultaneously.  Web 2.0 should be accelerating this further, right?  The world online has no barriers, right?

There’s just one catch.  We don’t know the slightest thing about each other.

Science-fiction taught us to imagine a world, for example, that spoke the same language through merging of vernaculars or auto-translation.  Google Translate is good, but lacks context and cultural sensitivities.  Videos like those by Cut demonstrate how different we still are within our own country:


Two things stand out in this video: just meeting someone from another country just scratches the surface.  Speaking and relating to them is a completely different experience.  Further, Americans start at a disadvantage because we don’t speak more than English.  Only 20% of Americans speak another language according to the Washington Post.  This is a barrier not just to hear what one person is saying; it’s indicative of how little of the world we truly know.  Learning across borders with Web 2.0 means designers must build in the global context.  It can’t be assumed nor can it be faked.  Learners that fail to build across risk limiting perspectives and not being inclusive in their approaches.  The old conservationist adage applies here: think globally, act locally.

Lest learners continue to fail to find their peers on a map.




Comments

  1. The WeaveJuly 14, 2022 at 1:22 PM

    Thanks for the videos! I loved the first one, it was cool to try and guess, even though I could see the people. I didn't get any of them right lol.
    I agree also, that we are so disconnected from the rest of the world. I'm jealous that a lot of people across the world can speak multiple languages and I am over here with boring ol' American English. Connecting on the web is so much more than we give it credit for.

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