Designing Web-Based Training: How to Teach Anyone Anything Anywhere Anytime

11.12. IN CLOSING...

11.12.1. Summary

• The goal of global training requires designing WBT for people with different cultures, languages, economic conditions, and expectations for learning.

• Set clear expectations for learners. State requirements for language skills, commitment, participation, and technical capabilities. Make your cultural perspective and viewpoint clear.

• Accommodate different levels of technology. Provide simple text and graphics as alternatives for larger multimedia presentations. Substitute lower-bandwidth chat for videoconferencing.

• Let learners take the course in a way consistent with their preferred learning style. Provide menus, an index, and a map to guide them.

• Use expressions, examples, and formats that work for learners of all cultures and countries. Clarify dates, times, telephone numbers, currency amounts, measurement units, and numeric quantities.

• Avoid culture-specific symbols such as those based on animals, hand gestures, religious symbols, or images of people. Draw on common imagery provided by international business, sports, transportation, medicine, and space travel.

• If you are not translating your text, write in a simple, direct style of English, free of slang, complex expressions, ambiguous words, unfamiliar abbreviations, and convoluted sentences.

• In collaborative activities, show proper respect and reserve, especially when addressing people of other cultures.

11.12.2. For more...

For a concise view of cross-cultural issues in WBT see Chapter 10 ...