Promoting tertiary learning strategically to meet today's multicultural student's needs

Many of today's metropolitan cities thrive on educating international students of diverse cultural backgrounds. However, most of these students struggle at two levels in their new environment, namely cultural and financial, and so require specific help in pursuing their educational goals. Tools are available to strategically develop people's learning skills using modem information and communication technologies (ICT). This chapter focuses on the effects of an online tool used along with well structured roles to induce collaborative as well as individual learning. From an Activity Theory perspective our research indicates two main results of interest. First, increased attention to the dynamic of shared social interaction enabled by ICT results in deeper approaches to learning and greater satisfaction among the students who engage in the process. Second, to achieve an expanded learning role and greater independence among learners, particularly those from different cultural backgrounds, it is necessary to more explicitly define the rules and roles in the learning context than is usual in traditional teaching practice.