Abstract:

This presentation will explore the genesis and implementation of a hybrid course structured around an ongoing exchange of videos between students at SUNY/Purchase and at universities abroad, including those from Turkey, Mexico, Germany, Russia, Lithuania and Belarus. Methods and course modules will be presented and short videos will be screened.

Objectives
To present an example of an internationally collaborative course which has been offered for six years and which enhances cross-cultural awareness.
To demonstrate the potential for bringing creative media production into the online classroom and to elucidate how this student-driven approach differs dramatically from embedding media into a course LMS.

Thesis
In 2001, after returning from a Fulbright Fellowship in Eastern Europe, I developed an online course which would link my students at SUNY/Purchase with students at the university where I had been in residence in Minsk, Belarus. I wanted them to experience each other’s world, knowing that they were unlikely to be able to travel and actually meet. To do this I created a course that focused on the exchange of student created media, rather then on informational or didactic material. We also utilized still images and writing, but the main emphasis was on video production.

In developing my approach to using video in an intercultural context, I modified the Surrealist’s Exquisite Corpse game, such that the participating students shot and edited linked scenes which built upon the work of their partners, with the piece moving back and forth between them in a sequential manner as it was produced. In this way the students were constantly challenged to find meaning in the videos that they received, which in some cases they could not fully understand due to cultural or aesthetic differences. This process also foregrounds the students’ decisions of whether or not to use language, and if it is used how to navigate this aspect of the exchange, since in some cases there is not equal fluency in a shared language. Often, the exchanges foregrounded cultural conflicts and navigating this area was one of the most interesting, yet problematic aspects of this course.

In this presentation I will show short videos made in Belarus, Turkey, Mexico, Germany and Lithuania to illustrate ways that student ideas and feelings resonate in this format. I will also discuss other aspects of the course, including student writing and the various online interfaces that I have explored over the years of teaching this course.