Telecollaboration and University Internationalisation

Telecollaboration and Internationalising
University Education
Robert O'Dowd,
Universidad de León, Spain
@robodowd
robert.odowd@unileon.es

Outline for our Presentation
• A brief overview of different
models of telecollaboration
• What has telecollaboration
contributed to university
education to date?
• What are the challenges for
university educators?
• Where can you learn more
about telecollaboration and get
your classes involved?

Trending Topics in
Internationalisation (1):
“Much, if not all, of the debate in higher education seems to be focussed
these days on massive open online courses, or MOOCs, which according to
several people should be considered nothing less than a revolutionary new
model for higher education teaching and learning.”
[‘Virtual Mobility without commericialisation’ Hans de Wit, 2013]
[http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20130528175741647]
What have been your experiences of MOOCs?

Trending Topics in Internationalisation
(2):
In 2020, at least 20% of those graduating in the European Higher
Education Area should have had a study or training period abroad.
[Communiqué of the Conference of European Ministers Responsible for
Higher Education, Leuven and Louvain-la-Neuve, 28-29 April 2009]
http://ec.europa.eu/education/doc/2008/mobilityreport_en.pdf
• The current rate of mobility in Europe?
• 4% -5%
• The current rate of mobility in Valencia?

But what happens to the remaining 80%?
European Commission Report: “European Higher Education in the world”:
“…internationalisation should not benefit only the minority…who spend
time abroad….Higher education policies must increasingly focus on the
integration of a global dimension in the design and content of all curricula
…to 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)”
But how should this be done?

One possible solution: Telecollaboration
What is Telecollaboration?
The engagement of groups of
students in online intercultural
interaction and collaboration with
partner classes from other cultural
contexts or geographical locations,
under the guidance of educators
and/or expert facilitators
What’s in a name?
•Virtual Exchange
•COIL (Collaborative Online
International Learning) - SUNY
•OIE (Online Intercultural Exchange)
•eTandem
•eTwinning
•ePals

What does
Telecollaboration
offer universities?
An Intercultural
Experience for
non-mobile and
pre-mobile
students
Semi-Authentic
Communicative
Foreign Language
Learning
Opportunities for
Internationalisation
of the curriculum for
on-campus learning

A collaborative alternative to MOOCs
While in MOOCs the teaching
stays more or less traditional,
using modern technology for a
global form of delivery, in COIL the
technology is used to develop a
more interactive and
collaborative way of international
teaching and learning.
[Prof. Hans de Wit on COIL – An
interactive alternative to MOOCS]

Different set-ups which Telecollaboration can take
1. A Class of learners in Germany carry out collaborative tasks online
with a class of learners in the USA– using German and English
4. Students on international mobility contribute to a blog where they
discuss their experiences abroad. This blog includes quetions and
comments by ‘pre-mobility’ students at the home university.
3. Before leaving on mobility programmes to Europe, students from
the USA are ‘matched’ and interact online with European students
planning to travel to the US.
2. A class of students in Spain collaborate online with a class in USA.
This is combined with week-long study visits by both groups to partner
universities.

A practical example of Telecollaborative Exchange
• Future ‘Primary school teachers’ in ULE work with Students of Spanish
at University of Central Missouri, USA

Task 1: Representing your culture through photos…
11

Task 2: Discussion forums on issues related to culture and the
relationship between the two countries
12

Task 3: Making videos for their partners on aspects of
the language…
13

Task 4: Writing and presenting blogs about their local
culture for a foreign audience
14

Task 5: Comparing Reactions to movies, short stories, cultural
products

Two students’ reactions…
Student 1: These months sharing opinions have given us a very
different view of the United States, which we had idealized, and that,
from this we have taken note that are not so different to our countries
and that American films us had deceived with respect to reality. The
most important thing I've learned in this Exchange has been not to
judge a society without first speaking with one of its citizens…
Student 2: I really enjoyed meeting new people and talk with them. I
think it was a good experience. I also think that learning English with
this online exchange is fun for people who don’t like English
grammar and it is an alternative way of learning English.
16

Models of
Telecollaborative
Exchange in
University
Education
E-tandem
Cultura
Sharing
Perspectives
Soliya
17

http://www.cisi.unito.it/tandem/etandem/
• Two native speakers of different
languages communicate together
with the aim of learning the
other’s language (e.g. German-
English)
• Based on the principles of
autonomy and reciprocity –
Responsibility rests mainly with
learner
• Partners provide feedback on
content and foreign language
performance
• Teacher’s role is limited –
learners keep a diary and/or
portfolio of their work

An example of an American-Spanish e-tandem
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 the ciudad de Nueva York 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? Elena

Simultaneous teletandem sessions between Georgetown
University and Universidad Autonoma de Mexico (Mexico) and
UNESP - Universidade Estadual Paulista (Brazil)

2: The Cultura Model
http://cultura.mit.edu/

Questionnaires for both groups in mother tongue

Written Discussion Forums –asking for
clarifications of the questionnaires
• Student 1 from Spain: Most of the words used to describe the United
States are: fast food, Obama and patriotism. Are you surprised with our
answers?
• Student 1 from Princeton: Hi! I am particularly interested in the theme of
fast food. This past summer I recognized how many fast food chains exist
in Spain, such as Burger King and McDonald's. From my experiences with
friends…, I had heard of students who eat fast food quite regularly that
were not US citizens. It is intriguing for me to see how many people
responded with the impression of fast food or junk food when hearing the
word United States.

Questioning, explaining, correcting…
• Student 2 from Spain: On the one hand I think that this is because your
country is really big, but on the other hand, maybe your tastes are about
this kind of food. This is one of the most important reasons that the USA
has got more than the 50% of its citizens with obesity, and the obesity is a
really big problem talking about the health. What do you think?
• Student 2 from Princeton: ….I think that perhaps the most important
factor contributing to the national problem of obesity and the
proliferation of fast food is the steep cost of healthy food, which might not
be immediately apparent. America's reputation of prosperity might hide
the hundreds of millions of Americans that cannot afford fresh fruits and
vegetables. For many, fast food is the only economically viable option, and
a significant contributor to nationwide health problems

3: The Soliya Model – East-West Negotiations
• Soliya connects over 200
students from over 30
different universities in the US,
Europe and the predominantly
Arab and/or Muslim worlds.
• Students are placed into small
groups of 8-10 students and
guided through a 9-week,
English language dialogue
program by pairs of trained
facilitators.
http://www.soliya.net/

Stages of the Soliya ‘Connect Programme’
• Students meet online in groups of 8-10 for two-hour sessions each
week for ten weeks.
• Each group has participants from universities around the world and is
led by two Soliya facilitators
• Dialogue progresses from discussing culture and everyday life to
delving into controversial topics
• Soliya has a full academic curriculum including readings and classroom
activities that complement online dialogue sessions.
• Each semester concludes with a hands-on media project in which
students produce short news segments.
[http://www.soliya.net/?q=what_we_do_connect_program]

4: Sharing Perspectives: A Content & Exchange Model
http://www.sharingperspectivesfoundation.com/

Stages of ‘Sharing Perspectives’
• Providing academic content
Participating universities construct a shared curriculum. This curriculum is
presented through video lectures by the participating educators.
• Enabling online discussion
After watching the video-lectures, sub-groups – of one student per
participating university – come together in a web-based video-conference
room, where they discuss the lectures of that week. These discussions are
hosted by professionally trained facilitators.
• Facilitating collaborative research
Students are required to collaboratively design and conduct survey research
in their own communities in order to learn about the broader societal impact
of the topic.

Sharing Perspectives on Innovation in FL education – León,
Spain; Tel Aviv, Israel and Malmo, Sweden

5. Pre-Mobility Telecollaboration & Combing Virtual
and Physical Mobility
• Kinginger: “A particularly intriguing
application of this approach…
would be to establish
telecollaborative courses linking
students at home to their in-
country peers in the precise
locations where they will study
abroad and thereby to establish
contacts through prior,
institutionally sanctioned
interaction (2009: 111).”

Virtual International Partner (VIPs)
• Students planning to take part in an
Erasmus mobility are assigned a
Virtual International Partner in their
desired destination
• The students carry out various tasks
in L1 and L2 over a 2-month period
using email, skype, etc.
• At the end of the exchange, students
submit a portfolio providing evidence
of their work and reflections on their
learning
• Successful participants are awarded
extra points for Erasmus application
• Partnerships currently exist with
Ireland, UK and France

Tasksheet 2: Finding out about your Host Country
Discuss the following questions with your virtual partner. You should tell them about
these aspects of your own country and they will tell you about their country. It is not
obligatory to discuss all these questions – focus on the ones most interesting for you.
1. How big are your two countries? Compare the population of your two countries.
2. What are the opening times of shops and restaurants in your countries? What
time do people usually have their lunch and evening meals?
3. Find out what a typical meal would be in your partner’s country. What do people
usually eat at lunchtime? And what do they have for their evening meal?
4. How much do the following things cost approximately in your partner’s country?
a. A coffee
b. A bus/tram ticket
c. A lunchtime meal in a restaurant
d. A week’s groceries in a local supermarket
5. What are the main religions in your partner’s country? Does religion play an
important role in society? If so, in what ways? Talk about your own country first
and then you can compare with the host country.

Your opinions…
What model would best suit your teaching context
and your subject area?

What has research told us about the best way to
apply Telecollaboration in university education?
• Great potential for awareness raising of cultural differences in
communicative practices – different genres, pragmatic competence etc.
Learners consider their partners to be ‘people who matter’ (Belz and
Kinginger, 2002, 2003).
• In the context of online learning ‘exposure and awareness of difference
seem to reinforce, rather than bridge, feelings of difference’ (Kern, 2000,
p. 256). – Hence the need for task design and integration into classroom.
• In order to contribute to students’ linguistic and intercultural
development, the key is to combine online interaction with either
reflective reviews of online interactions (e.g. ‘la salle de rétrospection’
Kern, 2014 ) or through pedagogic interventions by teachers (Cunningham
& Vyatkina, 2012)

What has research told us about the best way to
apply Telecollaboration in university education? (2)
• Intercultural communication skills
form part of ‘new literacies’ and
‘twenty-first century skills’
• However, they require attention
and training in the classroom
• Need to develop Online
Interaction skills in students
“Teaching Comments”, “Asking
Questions”

An extract from a German-Irish exchange
• A German student writes this opening message to her new partner in Ireland:
• Hello, how are you? I study English and history at the University of Essen and I want
to become a teacher. This term we do some cultural studies concerning Ireland and I
very interested in it because I actuallly do not know much about it.
• Now I would like to ask you some questions.
Do you live in Northern or in Southern Ireland? How many people live in your town?
Are you a Catholic or a Protestant? I have heard that regular churchgoing declines
more and more in your country-is it true?
• What are you doing in your free time? Do you often go to pubs? What do you think
about Germans? Irish people have the reputation of being very indirect and polite in
their speaking style. I have read that there was an enormous economic change in
Ireland.
• How have you or your parents experienced the social and economic change in the
past 20 years?
• That's all for now. I am looking forward to hearing from you!

Criticism of Telecollaboration and Exploring
“Telecollaboration in the Wild”
• “The limited authenticity” of simply engaging L2 learners
with other classrooms. Alternatives?
– Hanna and de Nooy (2009): Online interaction with native
speakers on the websites of international newspapers such
as Le Monde.
– Sauro (2012): online fan communities – remixing etc.
– Thorne (2010): ‘intercultural communication in the wild’:
“…situated in arenas of social activity that are less
controllable than organized online intercultural
exchanges might be, but which present… compelling,
opportunities for intercultural exchange”.

Objectives:
• Carry out a review of
telecollaboration in European
university education
• Develop a platform with tools,
resources and networks to facilitate
telecollaboration practice.
• Develop a set of workable solutions to
address the lack of academic
integration of telecollaboration.
An Alternative Trend: Integrate Telecollaboration more successfully into University Education
INTENT Project (2011-2014) : Integrating Telecollaborative Networks Into Higher Education
Financed By The European Commission - Lifelong Learning Programme

Study of Telecollaboration in European Universities
 Three surveys:
 Experienced teacher telecollaborators (102 responses)
 Inexperienced teacher telecollaborators (108 responses)
 Experienced student telecollaborators (131 responses)
 Qualitative Case studies:
 7 representative examples of telecollaboration around Europe
 Aims:
 Identify telecollaborative practices undertaken by European
university educators
 Explore the barriers to telecollaboration and the strategies used to
overcome these barriers

“Telecollaboration Is worthwhile”: Experienced university
practitioners give their feedback on telecollaboration

What students learn from Telecollaboration

Students’ comments on what they learned…
• I've been practising a lot of English. I know how an email conversation is like in
English. I realized I should be less influenced by cultural stereotypes.
• Cross-cultural dialogue skills -negotiation and facilitation skills
• Patience and cooperation.
• My foreign language skills, both speaking and comprehension and some language
teaching techniques.
• I have developed the ability to work in a group.
• I believe I‘ve developed my ability to write in a foreign language and my
knowledge regarding the use of ICT in foreign language teaching. I’ve been able to
expand my vocabulary.
• Coordination and group work mainly (I was group leader)
• J`ai developpe la capacite de travailler en groupe.
•

So why isn’t everyone doing it?
 In your opinion, what are the reasons why telecollaborative
exchange is not more popular in university education?
 __________________________________
 (Mentioned by 49/ 98 practitioners)
 __________________________________
 (Mentioned by 28 / 98 practitioners)
 __________________________________
 __________________________________
 (Mentioned by 19 / 98 practitioners)
 __________________________________

So why isn’t everyone doing it?
 In your opinion, what are the reasons why telecollaborative exchange is not
more popular in university education?
 Time necessary to set up and run exchanges
 (Mentioned 49/ 98 practitioners)
 Difficulties in integration & assessment due to institutional requirements
 (Mentioned by 28 / 98 practitioners)
 Lack of pedagogical knowledge about how to run and integrate exchanges
 (Mentioned by 20/ 98 practitioners)
 Teachers lack e-literacies/ required technological knowledge
 (Mentioned by 19 / 98 practitioners)
 Difficulty in finding appropriate partners
 (Mentioned by 9/ 98 practitioners)

Educators’ comments:
• “From my perspective, having done 5 different telecollaboration projects, I
feel now that they are not good “on-the-side" projects because there is no
time to really bring students' attention to the communication taking place and
the language being shared. All of my projects felt rushed. It was frustrating,
though I will say there were also good things that came of all of them.”
• ...because it‘s very hard to find partners.“
• “…the cost-benefit ratio is negative for them [my colleagues]. In other words,
they realise these exchanges are relevant for the students but it takes too
much effort to organise it and for that reason they won’t introduce it in their
teaching.”

Growing recognition at institution level

Conclusion - Future Trends in University Telecollaboration?
• Greater support from university
decision makers – less dependency
on ‘pioneering teachers’?
• New models of exchange which
integrate telecollaboration with
curricular content (Sharing
Perspectives etc.)?
• More demands for research which
clearly demonstrates learning
outcomes of telecollaborative
initiatives…
• More interest in telecollaboration
for social change and for
professional training

Join UNICollaboration.eu:
the Home of Telecollaborative Exchange for University Classrooms

Start here to find databanks of classes, institutions and
practitioners who are interested in establishing contacts…

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

Create a new class and let other practitioners read about your group
and the type of exchange you’d like to have…

In the ‘Tasks’ tab in the top menu bar, you’ll find collections of tasks,
task sequences (i.e. collections of interconnected tasks) and
assessment tools to use in your online exchange projects…

To learn more about how online exchanges work:
Click on the ‘Training’ tab in the top menu bar. Here you’ll find accounts of
different exchanges (‘Sample projects’) and information on how to set up and
run an exchange (‘Training modules’)

When you choose a sample project, click on the different tabs to read
about the project, the tasks it used and how educators evaluated the
project…

To discuss issues related to telecollaboration with colleagues: Click on
‘community’ in the top menu bar and participate in our moderated
discussion forums…

Read more about telecollaboration…
• Contact:
– robert.odowd@unileon.es
– Publications: http://unileon.academia.edu/RobertODowd
– See this presentation again: http://www.slideshare.net/dfmro
• Read the INTENT Report on Telecollaboration in Europe:
– http://www.scoop.it/t/intent-project-news
– Join UNICollaboration: www.unicollaboration.eu

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