A brieft overview of the outcomes of EVALUATE as well as an overview of other Virtual Exchange initiatives.

1. A Brief Introduction to Virtual Exchange
& The Results of the EVALUATE Project
Robert O'Dowd
University of León, Spain
@robodowd
robert.odowd@unileon.es
www.evaluateproject.eu

2. https://learning.linkedin.com/

5. “I

6. In Europe the average is 5%...

7. Sarah Richardson:
“…the espoused benefits from [physical]
mobility do not derive from the act of
crossing borders but instead from two other
factors.
First, the encounters that students have.
And second, the influence of their
psychological make-up on how they respond
to these encounters”
(Cosmopolitan Learning for a Global Era, 2016,
p.54).
Simply getting students to study abroad is not necessarily the
solution to our problems anyway…

8. And what about the large majority of our students that
will never engage in physical mobility programmes?
European Commission Report (2013) “European Higher
Education in the world”:
“…internationalisation should ensure that the large
majority of learners who are not mobile… are nonetheless
able to acquire the international skills required in a
globalised world (2013:6)”
“Internationalisation at Home” (Beelen & Jones, 2015)
+
“Internationalisation of the curriculum” (Leask, 2015)

9. One under-explored element of internationalisation at home is
Telecollaboration or class to classVirtual Exchange…
The engagement of groups of students in online intercultural interaction and
collaboration…
…with students from other cultural contexts or geographical locations….
…as an integrated part of course work….
…and under the guidance of educators and/or expert facilitators.

10. What does class-to-classVirtual Exchange look like at
university level?

12. An example of an American-Spanish e-tandem email
Hey Pablo!
It was great to receive your letter. I was so happy to see that you responded to my questions.
Thank you.Your responses were very informative and definitely showed me that family life in
Spain was not all I'd expected it to be. (I was surprised, for example, that your family is not
religious. I assumed that most families in Spain are, and I'm sure you have many assumptions
about life in America as well).
Your English is very good.There are only a few suggestions that I have to correct it. Some of
your sentences are too long, and would make more sense if you separated them into two or
three sentences instead. For example, "My parents are not divorced in Spain there are very
few cases of divorced" could be rewritten as "My parents are not divorced. In Spain there are
very few cases of divorce."Your letter was great and made sense despite these things. Good
work.
Las fiestas en mi ciudad son muy locas y emocionantes. Voy a las discotecas con mis amigas
los jueves, los viernes, o los sabados. Vamos a los bars tambien. Nosotros volvemos a nos
salons de dormitorio a las cuatro de la manana. Queremos bailar a las discotecas. Necesita
tener veintiuno anos por beber el alcohol pero la mayoria de estudiantes en las universidades
tenen los "fake IDs" y ellos beben el alcohol. …
No sabo mucho de Espana. Sabo que hay un museo de Guggenheim en Bilbao y sabo que hay
muchos castillos bonitos. Que sabes de los Estados Unidos? Como es la fiesta en Espana?

13. Examples of virtual interactions: Blogs, videos, videconferencing,
multimodal presentations…

14. Common learning outcomes across virtual exchanges
• Contextualised vocabulary and grammar learning
• Increased confidence in using the L2 with peers
• Nuanced ‘insider’ perspective on
cultural behaviour

15. How many of you have already engaged your students in
Virtual Exchange projects with other classes?

16. “EVALUATE”: A European Policy Experimentation to evaluate the
impact of class-to-classVirtual Exchanges on student-teachers
involved in InitialTeacher Education.
Student-teachers working in transnational teams to create lesson
plans and projects together online

23. Students’ andTeachers’ Experiences
Student 1: “I learned a lot from this experience. It was different from any
other activity that I have done. It helped me with my communication skills,
in the practice of the second language, team work, learning about the
education system in a different culture and more.”
Teacher 1: “At the end of the exchange the reaction was very positive
because the students said they had learned a lot from their partners and that
was, for me, very satisfying. Because I realised that the students had
understood the essence of what we wanted to develop in this project -
which is put yourself in the position of the other, understand them and,
many times, give way. And they learned how other people work.”

24. Teachers’ Experiences
Teacher 1 of Virtual Exchange: “[Teachers need]….a recognition of what we
are doing. I believe teachers get motivated when what they do is valued. And this
can be valued by giving them recognition for their work.”
Teacher 2 of Virtual Exchange: “Teachers need to be provided with special time
for planning and time to develop Virtual Exchange.
They will need much more time. Virtual Exchange
(like any form of collaboration) is really important
for learning, but it takes more time than
individual work.”

26. https://learning.linkedin.com/
Now compare these outcomes to what
we saw at the beginning of our
session…

27. Other resources and initiatives forVirtual Exchange

28. Let’s look at UNICollaboration.eu
the Home ofTelecollaborative Virtual Exchange for University
Classrooms

29. If you choose ‘classes’ then you’ll be able to search or browse a list of
classes which are interested in taking part in virtual exchange projects...

30. Find a partner class at the OnlineVirtual Exchange
Partnering Fairs organised by UNICollaboration.org

31. Get support for your firstVirtual Exchanges:
https://evolve-erasmus.eu

32. Free online teacher training courses at
Erasmus+Virtual Exchange

33. https://www.conversifi.com/
https://talkabroad.com/
https://www.linguameeting.com/

34. Join us in León for a (free) conference onVirtual
Exchange andTeacher Education
https://sites.google.com/unileon.es/evaluate2019

35. More information