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her own comments. It turned out that the instructor’s advice did relieve her frustration of not being able to write response to her international partners.
[Now] I can take others’ ways of writing comments for reference. Before I start to write comments, I check Daphne’s or Brian’s comments first. They are always the fastest ones [who publish comments on the blog.] Then I tried to write similar response with theirs, but not the same ones.
(Interview#3, November 21, 2008) She found the blog environment provided her with access to the learning experience of other participants and benefited form reusing their dialogue with international partners. Especially Teresa was influenced by Daphne a lot. She often took her comments as reference. In a group discussion, Daphne shared with other participants many ways to respond to the international partners’ posts which helped Teresa develop some strategies to make comments.
Now I know some ways of responding to our international partners, such as telling them how I feel about their life and what our differences and similarities are. I use these tips in my comments.
(Reflection journal#2, November 28, 2008)
Phase 4-5: Becoming a “supporter” and presenting another side of her
Learning to support other local students’ ideas
In addition to the skills of responding to international partners, Teresa also learnt how to interact with the local students on the blog “Research Diary,” where everyone was encouraged to freely share what they thought about their international partners’
posts and what they would like to comment on in Chinese. She told me that she liked the interaction of the informal and stress-free discussions with the instructor and other local students.
Although the instructor asked us to say more, I did not think it was stressful. The instructor asked us lots of questions, and we just shared what we really thought about those questions. I think it was just like daily conversation. The only difference is we can “see” the talking. So I read what they thought.
(Interview#4, December 23, 2008)
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Not only was she interested in knowing others’ thinking about cultural issues, but she also liked to exchange supports with other members. After reading other local students’ posts, she would show as more supports as possible to the members whose ideas were what she had never thought of or she agreed with.
(1) I think Larry’s idea is great because he said he knew American education valued the abilities for practical projects after watching the video of “Simple machine.” I never thought of that.
(Blog comment on “Research diary”, December 19, 2008) (2) I agree with Ben because he mentioned American partners’ introduction of what they should do and what they shouldn’t do in school could help us understanding more about their school rules. And I also think their videos of school rules are fun and interesting.
(Blog comment on “Research diary”, January 16, 2009) It was obvious that on the blog “Research Diary,” the way Teresa interacted with other students was quite different from what she used to do in class. While she always kept silent in class, on the blog she turned to be an active “supporter” who tried her best to identify the “good points” from other people’ thinking and gave them positive feedback.
Since Teresa became a “supporter” on the blog “Research Diary,” she actively got involved in interacting with her students. She was always the first or the second one giving positive comments to other members and would visit the blog “Research Diary” regularly to see if anyone gave her feedbacks in return. Obviously the process of exchanging supports increased Teresa’s participation in the intercultural discussion.
What factors made Teresa change a lot and start to be engaged in giving others supports? Based on the researcher’s observation, the activity of giving supports to other members provided Teresa the chance of actively participation without stress. As mentioned earlier, Teresa did not have much self-confidence of producing her own thinking because she was afraid of making mistakes. Therefore, when communicating with international partners, she had to observe how other people expressed their ideas
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in order to write her own posts. In other words, she was a “learner” who always followed other members’ thinking and imitated their intercultural communication strategies. Although Teresa considered that observing others' strategies was beneficial for her intercultural communication learning, she did not have chance and confidence to produce her own ideas. However, when Teresa could give other students positive feedbacks, she played the role of a "supporter" who could follow other people's thinking and also added her opinions while explaining the reasons why she supported others' points. Moreover, she thought the exchange of positive supports could build social connection with other members. In the third interview, Teresa told the researcher, “I think the activity of giving supports to each other is more interesting
and interactive for me.” It showed that the process of giving supports to others
changed not only her role in the intercultural project but also the way she interacted with her student.
Besides, being a supporter also helped Teresa develop more intercultural thinking. While reading and evaluating other local students’ thinking about the cultural differences and similarities, she found she was inspired a lot by other local students. The more she discussed with other students, the more she realized that on the blog it was fun to know different opinions from different people. She said,
I used to pay all my attention to thinking about what questions I could ask to my international partners. But now I think it’s more interesting to know whose opinions are similar to mine and whose opinions are different.
(Interview#4, December 23, 2008)
Presenting another side of her
Besides, as getting more familiar with using online multimedia resources to introduce her school life on the blogs, Teresa found multimedia and photographs could vividly present what she wanted to say. She was more motivated to learn more about new Internet multimedia tools. For example, at Phase 4, as the students shared
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their “Extracurricular activities” to each other, she was the first one who would like to make an animation introducing her graduation trip with a new Internet multimedia tool called Go Animate.
I wanted to introduce our international partners the pictures of famous tourist spots we had been to. But if I published the pictures directly on the blog, it was not special. So I thought “Go Animate” helped me to make the introduction more interesting and attractive. And it’s fun to make such an animation and I hope they [international partners] like it.
(Interview#4, December 23, 2008) In order to make the international partners like her introduction about her
graduation trip, she took efforts to organize and present her complete ideas through an animated animal in her animation. She chose a naughty monkey as the online persona to represent herself in her animation and used it to perform social practices. The naughty monkey came in the pictures, greeted the audience first, played some tricks, then introduced the places and their activities in the pictures taken during the
graduation trip, and at the end, said goodbye and left. In the fourth interview, the researcher asked why she selected a naughty monkey while there were many animated characters available, such as teachers, doctors or beautiful girls, and she answered, “I think the jumping monkey is so funny so I used it to in my animation!” Interestingly, Teresa was a quiet girl in class. But she chose a monkey, such an extrovert character, in her animation to interact with international partners. The monkey seemed to serve as another identity she took on the blog: the one who could be very active and talkative in front of other people. From Teresa’ multimedia works, it shows that Teresa not only demonstrated her abilities of integrating different resources to completely present her life experience but also created another image of her, which could not be seen in her real life.
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