Virtual.Cultural.Collaboration: mobile phones, video technology, and cross-cultural learning

Abstract

Cross-cultural learning has gained increased interest and importance within school curricula in recent years. Schools are using technology to accumulate resources for cross-cultural learning, which has predominantly been pre-prepared videos, documentaries, photos and textual information available online. In this paper we describe the engagement with video technology on mobile smartphones by three migrant families who were tasked with developing cross-cultural resources over the course of six weeks. The resources developed were then used as a learning resource in a classroom and feedback was taken from the teacher. Our study has established that mobile phones particularly smartphones are an accessible, evocative and affordable avenue to aid in the development of cross-cultural resources alongside building stronger parental engagement in schools. The study contributes an expansion of knowledge in research areas that seek to use video technology on mobile phones to build cross-cultural resources for learning and strengthen home-school and school-home communication.