Virtual Exchange to Develop Cultural, Language, and Digital Competencies

Said Machwate, Rachid Bendaoud, Juergen Henze, Khalid Berrada and Daniel Burgos
Additional contact information
Said Machwate: Trans ERIE, Faculté des Sciences Semlalia, Cadi Ayyad University, Marrakesh 40000, Morocco
Rachid Bendaoud: Trans ERIE, Faculté des Sciences Semlalia, Cadi Ayyad University, Marrakesh 40000, Morocco
Juergen Henze: Department of Education Studies, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 10099 Berlin, Germany
Khalid Berrada: Faculty of Sciences, Mohammed V University in Rabat, Rabat 10000, Morocco
Daniel Burgos: Research Institute for Innovation & Technology in Education (UNIR iTED), Universidad Internacional de La Rioja (UNIR), 26006 Logroño, Spain

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 11, 1-16

Abstract: Many researchers have underlined the benefits of student mobility in strengthening their communication skills. Studying a foreign language and fostering knowledge about behavioural attitudes are the most common research cases. One of the major issues of mobility, by its very nature, is that it implies significant travel and accommodation costs. Virtual mobility, or Virtual Exchange (VE), can be introduced as a proactive alternative solution. This work presents an evaluation of a telecollaborative online course model organised as a VE between German and Moroccan universities. It was established to explore the benefits of integrating a VE experience by practicing some 21st-century knowledge elements as tools for the development of intercultural, language, and digital competencies from the perspective of mobility. In this paper, we present a VE model and its design, structure, and progress. Then, we evaluate this first experience to overcome some challenges that similar future experiences could face. We analyse the tools proposed in this design, the interactions between the different actors, and their feedback. The evaluative study shows the acquisition of awareness of cultural differences and the improvement of language skills through practice in addition to the development of some digital skills.

Keywords: online learning; virtual exchange model; cultural skills; digital skills; language skills; telecollaboration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/11/5926/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/11/5926/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:11:p:5926-:d:561348

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().