This telecollaborative project focuses on current and recent business news that is of European or global interest. The aim is to engage a number of HEI' s from areas of Europe to virtually discuss and debate the topics from differing cultural viewpoints.
Students will be encouraged to interact through social media on structured topic areas but are also suggested to converse on a more informal and social side too to fully embrace the opportunities and experiences available
Teacher trainees design an intercultural activity that allows their learners to learn more about their partners in a telecollaborative project.
A writing task with several phases. Tutors divide their students into groups, they are tasked with researching and collecting information about how students are perceived and writing a short blog post collaboratively. The posts are shared on a forum and language clarifications are sought from the partner institution. A student editorial committee from the partner institution then reviews the posts and selects the best from across the levels to post publically on an open blog. Voting and responses are sought using twitter etc.
Students can collaborate to create a story asynchronously by passing the story back and forth across several sessions. Each student begins a story, and then sends it to the partner for continuation. This back-and-forth story swap can occur once or as many times as assigned. Stories can be co-authored that feature particular aspects of culture (fairy tales, fables, ghost stories, etc.) or that feature particular aspects of language (vocabulary, genre transformations, etc.).
A useful platform for this activity is the website " Storybird" at storybird.com. The teacher can set up accounts for students, or they can create their own accounts. Students use the vast database of artwork to illustrate their stories, and they can easily invite partners to contribute to the story from within the platform. Another possible technology that could be used include Google Docs slideshow presentations that support static image and text.