Interculture, technology and the web

Abstract

In October 2009 ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) the body responsible for attributing and regulating internet domain names, decided that internet sites can be registered with names expressed in other non-Latin alphabets such as Arab, Persian, Russian, Hindi, Greek, Korean, Hebrew, Japanese, Tamil, and traditional and simplified Chinese. Following this decision internet will be more accessible for millions of users who use different characters to westerners. What does this technical change signify from an educational point if view? Will the web become multipolar or more complicated? This article focuses on the educational significance of the internet from a intercultural perspective and sets out to identify the characteristics of languages (written or not) between universality and individuality. The second part of the article highlights the competences needed by teachers who organise technological lessons in classes with non-Italian students, in order to plan a course of lessons that reflect learning styles that have developed in different cultures and contexts to those of the West.