With the invention and proliferation of worldwide interwebs, our ways of thinking about teaching and learning have been completely transformed. The in- ternet has provided us with sources and methods of collecting and considering educational content far beyond what the age of print media could imagine. In- spired by Dewey’s notion that “education is life itself,” the present study assumes that the best educational content is distilled from real-life experiences. In our fast- paced and ever-changing time and society, using online resources has become easy and fast; there is a great deal of variety, and information is constantly being updated and newly created to reflect the most current social situations around the world. As such, the present study utilizes internet communication as a case model for an In- tercultural Communication Studies course, focalizing on the reactions and attitudes toward the COVID-19 pandemic displayed by members of the general public. We collected materials from sources that highlight the distinct cultural characteristics embedded in the different daily needs of the Spanish public as presented in internet communication during the pandemic.
In terms of teaching methods, the present study adopts a pragmatist view, using a problem-based learning (PBL) approach to apply internet materials to an Intercultural Communication Studies course. The purposes of this were: 1) to cultivate contextualized awareness of problems and insightful observation skills; 2) to strengthen information comprehension, analysis, and synthesis skills; and 3) to enhance thinking and judgement skills. We used worksheets and informational questionnaires to assess the effectiveness of student learning, and we offer the re- sults of our educational study as a reference case for Spanish cultural education in a post-pandemic world.
