Prof Mirjam Hauck

This demand-led study - motivated by questions regarding the K-12/secondary education sector at our IVEC 2021 panel - sits at the interface of two priorities: “Reaching new audiences” and “VE at the K-12 level”. We will expand the size of our target sample reaching out to additional educators and administrators from regions where learners traditionally don’t have access to global learning opportunities, and also to young learners to establish the benefits they draw from participating in Virtual Exchange (VE). We will also draw on our contacts in the K-12 sector to explore existing VE models, contents and outcomes, and potential barriers to VE program adoption.

This project is a response to the Stevens’ Initiative’s recent RFP (https://www.stevensinitiative.org/request-for-proposals-research-in-virtual-exchange/). It speaks to the following priority mentioned in RFP: Accessibility for underrepresented populations: This priority will explore the effect VE participation can have on people from populations that are traditionally underrepresented in international learning, and how programs and policies can be designed and conducted to increase access to VE programs and maximize positive effects for those populations. Virtual Exchange (VE) is a practice, supported by research, that consists of sustained, technology-enabled, people-to-people education programmes or activities in which constructive communication and interaction takes place between individuals or groups who are geographically separated and/or from different cultural backgrounds, with the support of educators or facilitators. Virtual Exchange combines the deep impact of intercultural dialogue and exchange with the broad reach of digital technology. (EVOLVE, 2019) In Higher Education VE is currently promoted VE as “the” solution to internationalisation at home which, in turn, is defined as “the purposeful integration of international and intercultural dimensions into the formal and informal curriculum for all students within domestic learning environments” (Beelen & Jones, 2015). The research team wants to identify the particular challenges in VE for underrepresented populations, and produce a series of recommendations as to how practice and policy making can mitigate the impact of these challenges. Our starting point is Critical VE, i.e. VE as a vehicle for action, for public engagement, and for socio-political change. An approach that requires us to move outside of our comfort zones and to systematically reach out to others who want to have a voice both on- and offline; VE for short-, mid- and long-term impact, and advances equity, inclusion, and social justice. VE that promotes global fairness in the digital space and contributes to shaping the “new different” (see also my keynote at the recent International Virtual Exchange Conference: https://iveconference.org/2020-conference/).

This project is a response to the Stevens’ Initiative’s recent RFP (https://www.stevensinitiative.org/request-for-proposals-research-in-virtual-exchange/). It speaks to the following priority mentioned in RFP: Accessibility for underrepresented populations: This priority will explore the effect VE participation can have on people from populations that are traditionally underrepresented in international learning, and how programs and policies can be designed and conducted to increase access to VE programs and maximize positive effects for those populations. Virtual Exchange (VE) is a practice, supported by research, that consists of sustained, technology-enabled, people-to-people education programmes or activities in which constructive communication and interaction takes place between individuals or groups who are geographically separated and/or from different cultural backgrounds, with the support of educators or facilitators. Virtual Exchange combines the deep impact of intercultural dialogue and exchange with the broad reach of digital technology. (EVOLVE, 2019) In Higher Education VE is currently promoted VE as “the” solution to internationalisation at home which, in turn, is defined as “the purposeful integration of international and intercultural dimensions into the formal and informal curriculum for all students within domestic learning environments” (Beelen & Jones, 2015). The research team wants to identify the particular challenges in VE for underrepresented populations, and produce a series of recommendations as to how practice and policy making can mitigate the impact of these challenges. Our starting point is Critical VE, i.e. VE as a vehicle for action, for public engagement, and for socio-political change. An approach that requires us to move outside of our comfort zones and to systematically reach out to others who want to have a voice both on- and offline; VE for short-, mid- and long-term impact, and advances equity, inclusion, and social justice. VE that promotes global fairness in the digital space and contributes to shaping the “new different” (see also my keynote at the recent International Virtual Exchange Conference: https://iveconference.org/2020-conference/).

EVOLVE aims to mainstream Virtual Exchange (VE) in HE by developing and upscaling it as a collaborative international form of learning across the curriculum. Beyond the immediate consortium members, the project will engage university associations (Coimbra Group and Santander Group/SGroup) in setting up new VEs, training educators and other facilitators for running exchanges by using an innovative online “Co-Laboratory” approach. The pillars of the Co-Laboratory are an educator training package and a platform where the training and the materials used will be hosted. While developing their own intercultural communicative competence and the ability to design tasks that foster the development of such competence in their students, the participating educators will also acquire digital literacy skills as VE are – by default – mediated by technology. Skills recognition for educators will be implemented through an Open Badges system such as the one managed by the IMS Global Learning Consortium. The Co-Laboratory will initially be open to educators in institutions and university associations belonging to the consortium, and will be opened up to the public at large at the end of the project. The impact of the VEs implemented by trainees who have completed the Co-Laboratory will be measured through research targeting outcomes at both educator and student level. Close collaboration with decision takers [policy makers?] in universities, university associations [and national and European policy networks?] will raise awareness for VE and contribute to establishing VE as an innovative educational practice undergirded [underpinned?] by rigid academic study. This, in turn, will contribute to the European agenda for implementing VE on a larger scale [to promote the development of contemporary skills with learners and educators.] by creating a safe online space where young people can meet to exchange views and ideas with the aim to increase intercultural awareness, and – as a by-product, also enhance their digital literacy skills, their social presence online in particular.

Foreign language (FL) Telecollaboration involves virtual intercultural interaction and exchange between groups of FL learners in geographically distant locations. This project aims to achieve the effective integration of FL telecollaboration into EU Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and thereby to achieve key aims of the Bologna process.

Foreign language (FL) Telecollaboration involves virtual intercultural interaction and exchange between groups of FL learners in geographically distant locations. This project aims to achieve the effective integration of FL telecollaboration into EU Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and thereby to achieve key aims of the Bologna process.