Do technologies with their promises of bringing the world into the classroom and supporting student learning provide opportunities for expanding the scope of multi-cultural education? The degree to which technology can serve the needs of culturally diverse students is dependent upon the adoption of culturally appropriate and inclusive instructional design models. We can adopt Papert's (1993) idealistic belief that "the computer changes who can do what, and what age" and regard the computer as a tool for liberation, achievement and multicultural learning. But we must do more to realise objective of culturally appropriate instructional design. To advocate technological uptake and the saturation of learning environments with technology without planning for culturally diverse students would lead to exclusion of minority groups, and would restrict rather than increase learning opportunities for international and indigenous students. Technologists and multicultural educators need to plan for cultural pluralism and not only flexibility when planning and designing instruction and delivery options.

The context of the present study is the design of culturally appropriate Web sites for Indigenous Australian students making the transition from school to university. The project aims to provide appropriate learning materials and contexts for Indigenous students to access study skills courses online. Collis & Remmers (1997) have defined two categories of sites that have cross-cultural implications:

1. Sites that are made in context and culture, but visited by other cultures

2. Sites designed specifically for cross-cultural participation.

The provision of on-line course for Indigenous Australian students, would fit into category one above. In designing web sites for this target group, it was envisaged that other groups and individuals would visit the site. However, the primary objective was to cater for the needs of Indigenous students seeking a bridge into university. In applying instructional design for these sites, our objective is to generate guidelines for design of this and future sites. Primary considerations were influenced by the educational values and learning styles of Indigenous Australian students, and by investigating factors that might influence their pattern of communication and learning.

Christie (1988) suggests that in genuine Indigenous Aboriginal education the basic goal is to teach the harmony and unity of Aboriginal life. An important goal is to preserve continuity with the past , the land and the people. From an Indigenous persecutive, cultural integrity and survival are fundamental concerns. Some have concluded that mainstream education tends to be assimilationist, and that Indigenous students are assumed to be able to adopt individualistic, self-directed, and self-motivating approaches to their goals. There has been much discussion on the extent of assimilation of students entering universities. In addition, it has been demonstrated that people from one culture are not very good at judging the values of another culture.

Triandis (1990) describes the distinction between individualism and collectivism as the most important dimension of cultural difference in social behaviour. If is accepted that Indigenous students differ significantly from a per groups of non Aboriginal students concerning values that serve collective as opposed to individual interests, this is likely to have educational and design implications. Henderson (1996) reminds us that instructional design is an intangible aspect of culture, but once it is transformed into a material object, it becomes an artefact of the culture is which it is embedded. Our first step in designing the Web site was to ensure cultural inclusivity. This involved review and analysis of a broad range of literature and it involve Indigenous students, community members and academic staff. The principles of design that emerged from our consultation are related to epistemology, pedagogic philosophy and models of knowledge construction that recognise Indigenous perspectives.

There are many current instructional design models and paradigms, each of which is culturally and socially determined. The most fundamental differences can be appreciated by contrasting constructivist with instructivist paradigms. the constructivist design process emphasises learning experiences in authentic contexts, whereas instructivist approaches emphasise learning outcomes.

Henderson (1996) favours and 'eclectic paradigm' which allows variability and flexibility and that enable students to learning through interaction with materials that;

• reflect the multicultural realities of society;
  
  
• include multiple ways of learning and teaching;
  
  
• promote equity of learning outcomes.

These considerations were incorporated in to the initial design of the questions posed to all interested parties, including prospective students, community members and teachers, so that the design would be informed by Indigenous perspectives.

• What kind of learning environment is most familiar to these students?
  
  
• How does the cultural background of these students influence their use and view of time?
  
  
• How do Indigenous students conceive the role of the teacher?
  
  
• What kind of relationship do students want with a teacher?
  
  
• What kinds of assessment tasks will be fair and unbiased?
  
  
• What rewards and forms of feedback will be most motivating for these students?
  
  
• Is the locus of control congruent with these students' own sense of personal control?
  
  
• What cognitive styles characterise the target group?
  

A key component in the design of the Web site was to adopt a view of technology as supportive of Indigenous pedagogy, and to include this in the design phase. The Western idea of "the more technology the better" was not sufficiently to respond to the needs of Indigenous students. Electronic media do not always serve the needs of non-dominant cultures as they represent mainstream views. An important aspect of the design process was to incorporate aspects of collective, Indigenous community approaches to learning. In order to offset the possible isolating sense of technology and to cater to the needs of individual remote students it was decided to adopt a view of technology as serving the needs of a "community of practice" (Lave 1991). This approach fully recognises the conversational, social and interdependent roles that technology must address in offering a supportive context for learning to Indigenous students.

The paper will describe the design principles being developed for Web-based instruction for Indigenous Australian students.

References
Christie, M. (1988). The invasion of Aboriginal education. Learning my way. Papers from the National conference on Aboriginal learning. Perth. WACAE.

Collis, B., & Remmers, E. (1997). The world wide web in education: Issues related to cross-cultural communication and interaction. In B. Khan (Eds.), Web-based Instruction (pp. 85-92). Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Educational Technology Publications.

Feather, N. T. (1972). Value similarity and school adjustment. Australian Journal of Psychology, 24, 193-208.

Henderson, L. (1996). Instructional design of interactive multimedia. Educational technology research And Development, 44(4), 85-104.

Lave, J. (1991). Situating learning in communities of practice. In L. B. Resnick, J. Levine, & S. Teasley (Eds.), Perspectives on socially shared cognition (pp. 63-82). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.

Papert, S. (1993). The children's machine: rethinking school in the age of the computer. New York: Basic Books.

Triandis, H. C. (1990). Cross-cultural studies of individualism and collectivism. In J. Berman (Eds.), Nebraska Symposium of Motivation, Lincoln: Nebraska University Press.