by Alvino E. Fantini, Former Academic Leader for Study Abroad / The Experiment in International Living (programs of World Learning)
(Part I of Technology and Study Abroad was published on the World Learning NOW blog on January 13, 2009)
Recently, I was asked to do what I found to be an interesting task: reflect on the impact that technological advances have had on exchange programs and study abroad (for the upcoming publication The History of Study Abroad: 1965-Present). Here are some thoughts. Feel free to add to them by posting comments below:
Communication and Technology
Of course, the travel mode was not the only thing that changed. Advancements in technology accelerated so rapidly over the past 40-50 years that how we communicated with our academic leaders, student groups, and colleagues abroad, were also affected. It would be hard for someone today to imagine how laborious, time consuming, and slow were most of our administrative procedures in comparison with today’s world, especially when dealing internationally.
It is also hard to imagine that basic office equipment consisted of the typewriter and telephone. Group lists, documents, records, etc. were all typed by hand, often requiring multiple copies which were made by using onionskin copies and carbon sheets (white for distribution copies, yellow for file copies, and green for chron files). And mistakes in typing were annoying and time consuming because mistakes had to be erased and corrections done separately on the original and each of the multiple copies.
Duplicating in larger quantities meant cutting a ditto or mimeo stencil master and then running off multiple copies by hand on the ditto machine or Gestettner (at first, manually operated and later electric), taking care not to ruin the stencil or smudge the copies; or worse yet, getting the ink on your hands and clothes. Selectric typewriters in the 1980s were an advancement; they facilitated the typing process and cut neater stencils but the process remained essentially the same. Later models with a small screen above the keyboard which displayed what you were typing were of dubious progress, in my estimation, since the lack of synchronization between the print that appeared on the screen and the typing process was somewhat disconcerting.
A simple yet vivid memory dates back to 1964 with the installation of the first photocopier on the entire SIT campus (then known as Sandanona). This first photocopier was a marvel — slow, but still a marvel. Copies were reproduced on thick and heavy glossy sheets that usually emerged slightly browned or burned but this beat making carbon copies on the typewriter.
And of course everything was mailed by post both within the US and abroad, meaning that advanced planning time was essential for communicating since this generally took about three weeks by airmail to Europe and often longer to other parts of the world.
Also, telephone calls were expensive and often difficult when calling certain places in the world. A call to La Paz, Bolivia, for example, required making a prior appointment with an overseas operator a few days in advance, who then placed the call at a designated time to an operator in Buenos Aires who in turn relayed the call to La Paz via radio. Europe of course was easier to manage by phone but quite expensive so staff relied heavily on telegrams. The introduction of the telex machine, and later the fax, both made a great difference in the speed with which we could now communicate with other parts of the world. Given this situation at that time, it was not hard to enforce a rule that program participants not call home during their stay abroad since this was considered to constitute an “interruption” to their cultural immersion.
The change in communication possibilities, of course, had a tremendous effect on how we designed and implemented programs and how we coordinated work with colleagues abroad in so many countries around the world. Slow communication meant time lapses between communiqués; it required more advance planning, and thoughtful composition of letters and documents (we even had an official editor who periodically checked correspondence sent out for formatting and accuracy in accordance with institutional standards). Instant communication sped up the process to the point where most people now expect to turn around an item within a day or so. Clearly, the latter is more “efficient” but also more demanding in terms of instantaneous responses.
Today, by contrast, with all the means available for rapid communication, it is much more difficult to maintain total cultural immersion as we used to think of it. Today’s participants commonly walk around plugged in much of the time — listening to their favorite tunes, instantly sending text messages to friends and family around the world, snapping and sending pictures and even video clips back home on the spot, and of course maintaining conversations face to face on skype as often as they wish and at absolutely no cost. The effect of this modern miracle is obvious, giving one the ability while being in Japan, say, to speak — and see — friends and family back home at will.
When I first began to use skype about 3 years ago, I noted in the line below the screen that the number of users at any single moment was commonly at about three to four million and already that number is now generally at about twelve to thirteen million people speaking, and perhaps seeing, each other at the same moment around the world, distance notwithstanding. Today, exchange and study abroad participants can dip in and out of their host culture as they choose, by surrounding themselves within a cultural cocoon of their own creation, if they so desire. They may be abroad in a new and strange environment, yet they can still maintain instant and frequent contact with everything familiar to them. How times have changed!
Alvino Fantini is Professor Emeritus with the SIT Graduate Institute and recently served on the Graduate Faculty for the MA in Language Communication at Matsuyama University in Japan.
