2016 ICEAS
The 6^th International Conference on Engineering and Applied Sciences
June 8-10, 2016 Hong Kong

Keynote Speaker

2016 Best Paper Award Winners Announce

The Award Ceremony will be held on 10:30-12:00, June 9, 2016 in Tokyo Suite before Keynote Speech.
Warmly welcome all the attendees to join the ceremony!

Topics: Computer literacy education and multicultural instruction

In most academic institutions around the world, as computers and information technology devices become more and more present in all aspects of our daily life, computer literacy education is already an integral part of education. At the same time, internationalization of higher education takes place at various levels throughout the world today and the multicultural nature of education proves to be a constant challenge to educators on all continents.

In the context of multicultural instruction, computer literacy education presents particular challenges. We are going to address some of these challenges; in particular, we are going to discuss two important aspects related to the development of computer literacy education. First, while a wide variety of course structures and teaching styles exist, the knowledge levels of incoming students is quite varied. This issue is even more pressing in an international environment, where students come from countries with various levels of computer literacy, as well as different personal experiences with computers and information technology in general. Second, learning management systems (LMS) occupy an important place in today’s education in general, and a huge variety of LMSs are currently being employed by academic institutions. Significant differences between students' familiarity with such LMSs are generally displayed and the variety of experience extends even more when we consider the backgrounds of international students. Furthermore, the perceptions and use of LMSs have a cultural dimension as well. Our talk will address the above issues and describe specific examples and lessons learned from our experience in Japan, acquired while teaching a diverse group of undergraduate international students.

Simona Vasilache is an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Systems and Information Engineering at the University of Tsukuba in Japan. She completed her undergraduate studies at the Politechnica University of Bucharest, Romania, and she obtained her PhD from the University of Tsukuba in Japan. Her research interests include human computer interaction, software engineering, formal methods, cultural aspects of e-learning, as well as intercultural communication. For the past 5 years she has been teaching a culturally diverse group of international students in Japan.