POSSIBILITIES AND LIMITATIONS IN IMPLEMENTING
GROUP-BASED ROLE PLAY ACTIVITY IN AN ONLINE COURSE TO ENHANCE LEARNING OF INTER-CULTURAL FACTORS IN GLOBAL VENTURES

Nargis Abraham
British Columbia Institute of Technology
Canada

This paper examines the design and implementation of a group role play activity in an online course, to identify what makes the activity purposeful and what challenges are faced. Instructional factors need careful planning to ensure learning outcomes are met and student groups are engaged. Virtual environments such as Second Life hold much promise in enabling synchronous interaction, but need wider support from other departments. Nevertheless, online learning systems such as D2L provide fairly adequate means of student interaction. The paper concludes that it is possible to engage students in online group interactions fairly successfully using available online learning systems.

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