An interactive cultural transect: Designing, deploying, and evaluating an Online virtual-abroad learning experience

This pilot project conducted by researchers from the University of Central Florida (UCF) seeks to answer the question: Does a real-time, two-way, mobile, remote webcasting system have special properties for learning compared with traditional distance learning platforms? Students enrolled in two online, undergraduate UCF courses explored South Africa via a ‘Cultural Transect’, which we define as a method for recording and observing occurrences of cultural phenomena through regions and across borders of contemporary cultural systems around the world. The researchers hypothesize that this interactive Cultural Transect model augmented the traditional classroom by providing experiential access and interaction with authentic data, content, people, and real-world contexts.