Abstract:

During this pandemic and quarantine time, we have experienced a worldwide reorganization of working and teaching into a virtual mode. After taking over in-presence activities, the role of online education is no longer the simple solution in emergency conditions but a real opportunity for intercultural education, first theorized in Maastricht in 2002. The strategic role of education goes through a phase of educational transition that becomes a broad action plan for digital education of the European Union. This contribution presents the experience of an international workshop carried out in blended mode as part of the ERASMUS PLUS international collaboration agreements between the University of Naples Federico II and the Polytechnical University of Madrid.

In fact, as part of the promotion of modernization and internationalization of the university system, this type of activity is developed through three main strategies:
1) digitalization, through online seminars;
2) attractiveness and demand growth, as through this international training experience the students involved gain an insight into the potential of the two universities;
3) networking for the consolidation of international relationship between the two groups of scholars and professors.

The promotion of international mobility, through the Erasmus visiting professor experience, helps to consolidate international relations between the partner university groups as in this specific case with the University Polytechnical University of Madrid.

Moreover, it contributes to personal and professional growth as teachers and researchers, and for students it promotes the development of "European intercultural competence," particularly between Naples and Madrid.

During two days of workshops, students only had an opportunity to attend in-person and online seminars taught by professors from both universities on the topic of the built landscape, but they were able to develop synthesis papers together by doing a focus on materials and techniques.

The workshops were designed considering two meetings in two different locations. The first meeting was held in Naples and the second in Madrid, but both were open to remote participants. This made it possible to involve students from each location who were either enrolled at that university for their entire course of study or matriculated as Erasmus students for a semester or for the year.

Online participants, from both polytechnic schools, were able to see professors and students from both locations and listened to their presentations. The professors introduced the organization of teaching, for the structural engineer, and the activities of the two technology research laboratories, also introducing the research groups. Undergraduate and PhD students presented their thesis work in collaboration between the two polytechnic schools.

It was clear from the presentations that there are many possibilities for collaboration on many topics of didactic and scientific in-depth study, and for this reason, even professors from the graduate program who have not yet done an Erasmus short mobility and who could carry out cycles of lectures abroad were involved.

Caring for relationships via Internet connection, both visual and audio, is already proving to be a successful strategy for strengthening ties of European faculty groups without affecting the cost of mobility, which would still be individual and would not have the same synergy effects.

Keywords:

Erasmus program, blended learning, intercultural education.