Co-Laboratory Training

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Welcome to the training!

Welcome to the course preparing you for designing and implementing a class-to-class Virtual Exchange.This course is offered as part of EU-funded EVOLVE project. It will help you to:

  • learn about VE as a teaching method
  • feel what it’s like to be a participant in an online learning environment
  • meet colleagues who are also interested in implementing VE
  • study examples of VE scenarios
  • learn how to integrate pedagogy and technology in VE
  • discover challenges you may encounter in your VE project
  • launch your own class-to-class VE.

Throughout the course, you will be assisted in developing your own exchange. To start, please peruse the items below

Enjoy the course 🙂

The EVOLVE Team

Module 1: Pedagogy of Virtual Exchange

In the first module of this course you will learn what VE is and how it can be realised in different contexts. You will also learn about different types of tasks and will be asked to reflect on real-life task sequences used by practitioners in their exchanges. You will also have a first attempt at identifying the learning objectives for your exchange.

Module 2: Task Design and Technology

In this week you will learn how to match technology with pedagogy in a VE project. We’ll start with establishing learning objectives for an exchange you have in mind. You will also learn about various technical solutions to support your project. We hope you find this module useful.

Module 3 Managing Challenge

In this module a closer look will be cast at challenges that instructors and participants alike may experience in a virtual exchange project. In particular you will

  • explore some real-life TEP challenge scenarios and discuss them from the perspective of challenges and tensions;
  • discuss challenges you may encounter in your VE projects and strategies for solving them;
  • see tensions as opportunities for learning.

 

Module 4 Critical Digital Literacy

In this module we will explore the tools and choices we make when designing online learning because, as John Dewey writes in Schools of To-Morrow:  

“Unless the mass of workers are to be blind cogs and pinions in the apparatus they employ, they must have some understanding of the physical and social facts behind and ahead of the material and appliances with which they are dealing.”

Let’s open our eyes to the dynamics of the “solutions” we find and question how they impact on our teaching.

Module 5: Intercultural Communicative Competence

In this module you will:

  • Become aware of the intercultural learning opportunities and challenges which can emerge in Virtual Exchanges
  • Learn about various types of tasks that promote intercultural competence development
  • Explore the importance of the teacher’s role in facilitating intercultural learning in virtual exchanges.

Module 6 Facilitated Dialogue

Facilitated Dialogue is yet another form of Virtual Exchange. It is a structured conversation through which participants can share their thoughts and work towards mutual understanding. It is particularly important when you work with people representing various cultural and ethnic backgrounds, which is the case in VE projects.

Before your facilitated dialogue session, please read the following information:

After your facilitated dialogue session:

Additional resources

About this course

The pages here are a copy of the Co-Laboratory Training in Virtual Exchange developed by the EVOLVE team. The course is available as Open Educational Resource under a CC-BY-NC-SA license.  It can be downloaded as an IMS Common Cartridge and imported in your institution’s virtual learning environment. For more information, see Training Resources.

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