What Skills are Involved in Open Virtual Mobility? A Students’ Perspective from Italy and Spain

Abstract

Virtual Mobility can enhance curriculum development in Higher Education by promoting international co-design and collaborative work among students and lecturers through the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). During the spread of COVID-19 pandemic, virtual forms of students’ mobility increased considerably, allowing learners to continue or start VM experience even if boarders and campuses around the world were closed. The recent outbreak in interest and activity related to VM requires educational researchers to study this learning practice in depth in order to provide data and effective indications in terms of skills promotion. During the academic year 2020-2021, a team of lecturers of Teacher Education programs from the Roma Tre University (Rome, Italy) and the University of the Balearic Islands (Balearic Islands, Spain) agreed to work in open digital environment, organising specific VM activities for 38 university students. Specifically, students were asked to meet online, design and collaboratively create, in groups from the two countries, Open Digital Resources (OERs) to be used in international online contexts with their future pupils. This paper presents the design of the learning experience together with self-assessment results of the professional and transverse competences promoted. Conclusions also reflect on the new improvements to be done for new editions of the activity.

Eight Sustainable Practices for Digital Activity Development: Drivers and Barriers in International Higher Education Collaboration

“…Among the numerous examples of digital activities of international collaboration, we can cite the COIL partnership developed by the State University of New York at Oswego, NY, USA, and, in The Netherlands, the Hague University of Applied Science's health promotion and wellness depar tment, described in Harris et al 2021, 7 where students of the two institutions were paired to work together for six weeks on various health promotion assignments in virtual modalities. Another example is the Open Virtual Mobility project activated between the University of the Balearic Islands in Spain and Roma Tre University in Italy, 8,9 where preservice primary teachers of the two institutions worked in mixed groups in an open digital learning environment (DLE) to prepare open educational resources for their future students. The Interdepartmental University School for Strategic Sciences at the University of Turin, in cooperation with the IT-Army Education and Training Command and School of Applied Military Studies, is active in the proposal of short-term and virtual mobilities for civilian and military students in the field of security and defense.…”