Virtual exchange refers to education programmes in which constructive communication and interaction takes place between individuals or groups from different cultural backgrounds with the support of educators or facilitators. Evaluating and Upscaling Telecollaborative Teacher Education (EVALUATE, http://www.evaluateproject.eu/) was a European policy experimentation financed by Erasmus+ which studied the impact of a telecollaborative model of virtual exchange on student teachers. Between 2017-2018, the project consortium trained teacher trainers and organised virtual exchanges which involved over 1,000 student teachers at initial teacher education institutions. This entailed students interacting and collaborating with partner classes from other countries as an integral part of one of their courses. The research team then analysed the learning gains from these exchanges using qualitative and quantitative research methodologies. They also worked with representatives from European ministries of education to understand how virtual exchange could be upscaled in teacher education across Europe. This publication presents the findings of the EVALUATE experimentation and its implications for the education of future teachers. The study found that engaging student teachers in structured online intercultural collaboration as part of their formal learning can contribute to the development of their digital-pedagogical, intercultural, and foreign language competences. It can also lead to innovation and international learning in the education of future teachers.

This publication presents the key findings of the EVALUATE experimentation and its implications for the education of future teachers. The study found that engaging student teachers in structured online intercultural collaboration as part of their formal learning can contribute to the development of their digital-pedagogical, intercultural, and foreign language competences. It can also lead to innovation and international learning in the education of future teachers.

The Evaluating and Upscaling Telecollaborative Teacher Education (EVALUATE) project was a European policy experiment funded by Erasmus+ between 2017 and 2019. The EVALUATE consortium trained teacher trainers and organised virtual exchanges which involved over 1,000 student teachers at over 34 initial teacher education institutions in Europe and beyond. Following the successful capstone conference of the EVALUATE project in September 2019, a number of colleagues answered our call for submissions to the proceedings. The articles you find here provide a window into the multifaceted contributions not only to the conference, but to the field of telecollaboration and virtual exchange at large. We hope you enjoy finding out about the many different ways in which our colleagues engage with this innovative pedagogical approach that combines the deep impact of intercultural dialogue and exchange with the broad reach of digital technology.

This volume includes a collection of short papers presented at the second International Virtual Exchange Conference (IVEC) hosted virtually at Newcastle University in September 2020. The contributions address the conference theme, towards digital equity in internationalisation, and offer fresh insights into the current state and future of online intercultural communication and collaborative learning. Providing examples of interdisciplinary, multinational, and multimodal research and pedagogy in virtual exchange from around the world, this book will appeal to educators, administrators, researchers, and internationalisation leads in higher education interested in supporting and implementing virtual exchange.

This volume introduces Virtual Exchange (VE) as an innovative form of online intercultural learning and investigates the myriad of ways VE is being carried out across universities, ultimately arguing for its integration into university internationalisation policies and course curricula. Against the backdrop of increased digitalisation initiatives throughout universities given the effects of the pandemic, chapters focus not only on providing new research findings, but also on providing a comprehensive introduction and argumentation for the use of VE in university education and also in demonstrating how it can be put into use by both university decision-makers and educators. Reviewing the limitations of the activity, this timely work also fundamentally posits how VE and blended mobility more broadly could be developed in future higher education initiatives. This book will be of interest to researchers, academics, scholars, and students involved with Open & Distance Education and eLearning, approaches to internationalisation in education, and the study of higher education more broadly. Those interested in innovative methods for teaching and learning, as well as educational research, will also benefit from this volume.

This volume provides a comprehensive treatment of telecollaboration as a learning mode in translator education, surveying the state-of-the-art, exploring its distinctive challenges and affordances and outlining future directions in both theoretical and practical terms. The book begins with an overview of telecollaboration and its rise in prominence in today’s globalised world, one in which developments in technology have significantly impacted practices in professional translation and translator education. The volume highlights basic design types and assessment modes and their use in achieving competence-based learning outcomes, drawing on examples from seven telecollaboration projects. In incorporating real-life research, Marczak draws readers’ attention to not only the practical workings of different types of projects and their attendant challenges but also the opportunities for educators to diversify and optimize their instructional practices and for budding translators to build competence and better secure their future employability in the language service provision industry. This volume will be a valuable resource for students and researchers in translation studies, particularly those with an interest in translator education and translation technology, as well as stakeholders in the professional translation industry.

This book illustrates new virtual intercultural practices for language learning from primary to tertiary education and highlights the transversality of these practices throughout the language curriculum. The current English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) perspective sets the framework as a possible vector of cultural exchanges in a variety of contexts, and from which the different authors coming from Europe and all over the world present their studies. The book deploys diverse educational exchanges within a wide range of technological tools and with varied approaches to the intercultural dimension in language learning. Through these virtual exchanges, different languages and educational cultures come together to create emerging communities of practice co-constructed for the limited time-space of the collaborative projects. This volume opens a dialogue with researchers from different backgrounds and theoretical and methodological perspectives as technology can no longer be apprehended without its purposeful human and semiotic meanings and, conversely, human and semiotic meanings can no longer be apprehended without Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Going beyond strict polarised views on the technology or humanistic approaches, this book presents a more nuanced, interrelated stance and will appeal to researchers, scholars, post graduate students, and teachers in applied linguistics, language learning and teaching, education, information studies, cultural studies, and intercultural communication.