But there exists a potential tension here between the local and the global. For whilst the underpinning technologies associated with ICT, and in particular the Internet, are global, it is my contention that to be effective educational applications must be localised and bounded by local cultural expectations. But learning is essentially a product of experience and reflection, and consequently I have been delighted to have had the opportunity to, explore this topic in two significantly different national contexts. This short paper shares some of the personal insights I have derived from this experience and reflects briefly on the impact of ICT-supported learning approaches on the internationalisation of higher education. Since 1998 I have made a number of contributions to the Invitation Lecture series at the College of Administrative Science, Muscat, Oman.
Oman is an extraordinary country of contrasts.
In part developing, a hundred kilometres outside of Muscat one encounters a lifestyle that seems only now to be adjusting to the intrusive technologies of the 21st century, and where agricultural practices seem unchanged by the passing millennia. Yet the higher education sector in this country, as elsewhere, is confronting the challenge of integrating new technologies into the curriculum, and finding new and innovative ways of promoting access, progression and lifelong learning. Unlike much of mainland Europe the challenge for this, as many other parts of the developing world, lies in meeting the increasing expectations of a predominately young population within the cultural and moral traditions of Omani society. Here my assertions on the value of ICT-supported learning, largely based on experience in rural East England, have been received enthusiastically. However, the questioning raised by my audiences have been particularly illuminating.