PICCLE ACTIVITIES HAVE YET REACHED CONCLUSION - JANUARY 2004

A Pedagogy for Intercultural Critical Literacy Education (PICCLE)

PICCLE will disseminate a model for the teaching of intercultural critical literacy based on the development, implementation, and evaluation of curriculum modules at the partner universities. The PICCLE model offers the following key features and activities:

1. The faculty will create 15 web-based modules to add global literacy and communication skills to courses for 1,000 future communications and literacy education professionals.

2. Each PICCLE module guides transnational student teams to analyze the cultural values and perspectives constructed in language, print, and media texts from their respective cultures, and to author web publications to analyze and critique the textsÕ cultural representations. This intercultural critical literacy skill provides a foundation for the globalization of future professionals in communications and education as they learn to transcend cultural boundaries of meaning in their interpretation and creation of texts, and to develop multiple language skills to negotiate and promote more globally informed meanings in their future workplace, and their everyday life as global citizens.

3. Technology resources, materials and expertise, at each partner location will be a university contribution to the production and implementation of the modules. The web-based tools for module tasks include synchronous and asynchronous messaging, file exchange, web authoring, and web video editing.

4. Quantitative and qualitative research data will be used to describe the effectiveness of each course module in terms of the level of student engagement in the web-based tasks, the quality of the intercultural analysis, and the degree of knowledge of other cultures and languages demonstrated in their writing and web publications.

5. A multi-lingual PICCLE resource website will be created for the dissemination of the model and the course modules. Teaching plans, materials, and assessment rubrics to implement each module will be the key deliverables.

6. 27 participating faculty from the partner institutions will participate in one teaching exchange during the project, during which they will collaborate on the development, implementation, and evaluation of PICCLE modules.

7. The lead faculty will meet twice a year, before or after the FIPSE/DG EAC conference, and in the Spring on the opposite continent.

EC Partners:

Christer Morheden, Head of Distance Learning, School of Education and Communication, Jonkoping University, Jonkoping, Sweden
Helmut H. Dispert, Faculty of Computer Science, Kiel University of Applied Sciences
Kimmo Salmenjoki, Professor Multimedia and Internet Technologies, University of Vassa, Finland

USA Partners:

Jamie Myers, Associate Professor of Language and Literacy, Penn State University, State College, Pennsylvania
Ramon Serrano, Professor, Department of Teacher Development, St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, Minnesota
Larry Ferguson, Assistant Professor, Norfolk State University, Norfolk, Virginia