Russian, American students use Webcam to connect

EMMITSBURG, MD. — A partnership between Mount St. Mary's University and South Ural State University in Russia is growing through high-tech teaching tools built around a Webcam.

Mount business professor Sandra Sjoberg said students in the Maryland college's international marketing class gained communication tools and learned about forming and maintaining international business relationships on the Internet.

"It is a way to bring international marketing outside of just the textbook," Sjoberg said. "The student teams work on the case assignments outside of class and then discuss them together via the Webcam sessions."

This fall, Webcams in Chelyabinsk and Emmitsburg were used to allow students and teachers from both universities to talk to one another and practice working as simulated global business teams. Each team had three to four students from each country. The students also used Google groups, online translation tools and Skype to work together and communicate.

Their assignment came out of a Heineken business study about expanding that beer's market into Russia. Business major Amanda Buckel said the students from both countries compared their viewpoints to analyze the prospects of such an expansion.

"We're learning a lot from the Russians about how different our countries are," Buckel said. "You're getting out of your comfort zone."

Last semester, the two schools formed a relationship when Mount students visited the university.

International marketing and economics major Jessica Sauers said a recent trip to Prague helped her to make more of this class. "The class makes you reach higher because you're working on a global perspective," she said.

Mount spokesman Christian Kendzierski said the students' visit to Russia let them "see firsthand how the weakened global economy really was global." The changes in the global economy were just starting to affect the industrial-based town when the students visited, Kendzierski said.

Mount's Dean of Business William Forgang said the project "gives the students a chance to experience the contemporary global economy. They will have a chance to work in this environment very soon."

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Information from: The Frederick (Md.) News-Post, http://www.fredericknewspost.com