Presentation on EVALUATE, Erasmus Virtual Exchange and EVOLVE, three EU-funded projects on Virtual Exchange

1. Virtual Exchange Across Boundaries
EUROCALL2018, 25 August 2018
Mirjam Hauck, Sake Jager, Teresa MacKinnon

2. From Telecollaboration to
Virtual Exchange
VE is a form of computer-mediated learning whereby students from geographically remote
classes work together online (in pairs or small groups) on learning tasks developed by teachers
or educational facilitators.
(for a full description, see What is Virtual Exchange, EVOLVE website)
• From languages to all disciplines
• Class-to-class exchanges and facilitated dialogue
• Broader range of learning outcomes targeted
• Stronger emphasis on global issues and problems
• Increasingly regarded as option for internationalization
• Practitioners and researchers from languages as key players in
mainstreaming VE as cross-disciplinary activity

3. Projects for presentation
● EVALUATE
www.evaluateproject.eu
● Erasmus+ Virtual Exchange
www.europa.eu/youth/erasmusvirtual_en
● EVOLVE
www.evolve-erasmus.eu

4. Evaluating and Upscaling Telecollaborative
Teacher Education
(EVALUATE)
Mirjam Hauck

5. The European Commission’s New Priorities for European Cooperation in
Education and Training: need to train educators to use ICT tools in
combination with innovative pedagogies (2015:5).
ET2020 Working Group on Digital and Online Learning:
development of “initial teacher training and digital skills” as well as
“innovative teaching and learning methods as means to develop digital skills
and competences.”
European Education Monitor: “ICT is mostly used as a remedial tool”
(2015:59).
European priority of promoting culture and inter-cultural dialogue for
peaceful inter-community relations (Joint Communication to the European
Parliament and the Council: Towards an EU strategy for international cultural
relations).

6. Key aims:
• to establish the impact of Virtual Exchange on the
development of student teachers’ methodological,
intercultural and digital competences
• to upscale the use of Virtual Exchange in European teacher
education.

7. Pedagogical approach:
• Progressive Exchange Model (O’Dowd & Ware, 2006, 2009)
• 3 interrelated tasks:
1. exchanging information
2. comparing and analyzing cultural practice
3. working on a collaborative product
• Themes and key competences:
• Immigration, digital literacy, media competence, critical thinking , role of education in
multicultural societies
• Training manual including task outlines
• Moodle platform – basecamp for training and the exchanges

8. Research Questions:
Will telecollaboration have a positive impact on future teachers’
1) digital-pedagogical competence
2) intercultural competence
3) foreign language competence?

9. The study:
→approx. 1000 students in Initial Teacher Education
from HEIs in Spain, Germany, Hungary and Portugal
and across Europe in telecollaborative exchanges
with international partners
→quantitative and qualitative analysis of the
development of students’ digital pedagogical,
intercultural and foreign language competences

10. Innovative aspects:
• First large-scale study of the impact of telecollaboration with a large
number of learners from different exchanges.
• First attempt to work with Public Authorities to mainstream
Telecollaboration in Teacher Education.

11. Challenges:
• Difficult to include control groups for quantitative data collection
because of the complexity of the teaching set-ups at the
participating institutions
• Coordination 20 bilateral telecollaborative exchanges and collecting
quantitative and qualitative data.

12. Telecollaboration is taken on as part of Initial Teacher Education curricula in Teacher Training
Institutions
Participation in Telecollaborative training is explicitly mentioned in the “Additional Information”
section of the European Diploma Supplement
Telecollaboration is incorporated into the Public Authorities’ other projects and initiatives
Telecollaboration is mentioned and recommended in Public Authorities’ publications and
strategy papers
Public Authorities undertake to organise further teacher training programmes for teacher
educators in their countries/regions
Telecollaboration is promoted by the participating Public Authorities to their counterparts in other
regions/countries and to the Educational decision makers in EC
Policy impact indicators

13. Erasmus+ Virtual Exchange
Training and recognition
Facilitation of Virtual Exchange
Teresa MacKinnon
@warwicklanguage

14. Training
Details on the Erasmus Plus Virtual Exchange hub

15. Recognition through
Open Badges
See the video

16. EVOLVE
● Evidence-Validated Online Learning
through Virtual Exchange
● Erasmus+ KA3 Forward-Looking
Cooperation project
● January 2018-July 2020
● 8 Universities:
○ Groningen (coordinator)
○ León
○ Université Grenobles Alpes
○ Open University
○ Jan Dlugosz University
○ Padova
○ Warwick
○ Malmö
● 2 Virtual Exchange Providers
○ Soliya/Search for Common Ground
○ Sharing Perspectives
● 2 University Network Associations (70
universities)
○ Coimbra Group
○ SGroup
With the support of the Erasmus+ programme of the
European Union
Connect with us:
www.evolve-erasmus.eu/
evolve@rug.nl
@evolve_erasmus

17. Main actions
• Help universities to implement VE by providing online training and
support
○ Online training co-laboratory: partners from each side are trained and work together to
create the outline, tasks and technology environment for the intended VE project
○ Moodle and Mahara
○ Open Badges for educators
• Conduct research on VE at learner, educator, institution level
○ Baseline study (Sept 2018)
○ Research in context of VEs developed
○ Pedagogical approaches and competences
○ Democratic culture/intercultural competences
○ Critical digital literacies
○ Transversal skills
○ Language and disciplinary skills
• Actively promote results and engage
with policy and decision makers at university,
university network and European level
○ Coimbra Group and Sgroup events
○ Academic conferences
○ High-level policy event Brussels/Strasbourg

18. Participation
● Comparison other VE projects
○ VE across disciplines, all regions, not
specifically teacher training
○ Both partners involved, development of real
VEs as outcome
○ Broad range of competences targeted and
researched
○ Awareness and support at institution level
● Coimbra and SGroup membership
○ Focus is on Coimbra and SGroup networks
○ VE partners of Coimbra and SGroup
members are included
○ Other participants in training are welcome!
● Options for participation in EVOLVE:
○ Bring in colleagues from ANY discipline to
learn how to implement VE
○ As educator/coordinator/educational
supporter, learn more about cross-
disciplinary implementation of VE
○ As educator, to implement VE and participate
with your classes in EVOLVE research
programme
○ Use, translate and adapt our training
materials to develop VE in your own
institution

19. Contacts
EVALUATE:
● Robert O’Dowd, University of León
● evaluateprojecteu@gmail.com
● http://www.evaluateproject.eu/
Erasmus Virtual Exchange (UNICollaboration):
● Francesca Helm, Sarah Guth, University of
Padova
● erasmusvirtual@unicollaboration.org
● www.europa.eu/youth/erasmusvirtual_en
EVOLVE:
● Sake Jager, University of Groningen
● evolve@rug.nl
● www.evolve-erasmus.eu
With the support of the Erasmus+ programme of the
European Union