Making robot movies: An innovative international academic collaboration to teach transhumanism

This paper discusses an example of global media production in an educational context that is also a model for online intercultural exchange. We investigate the process of an international, research-led film production project between two universities, RMIT University, Australia and the State University of New York, Oswego campus, USA (SUNY Oswego). The aim of this paper is to investigate how teams which are geographically, academically and culturally diverse may engage in a process of research-led learning. We discuss important issues in the emerging field of online collaboration as they relate to practice and pedagogy in both higher education and industry. We offer some basic guidelines for methods and practice in global online collaboration. We conclude that hybrid techniques which blend virtual and "real" or face-to-face classroom techniques may be most useful to produce exciting screen research and production outputs.