Abstract:

This paper will discuss three projects have been conceived as scientific endeavors on the basis of ongoing research, applying learning in and through media in multilingual educational settings. Specifically, they are implemented to explore and to foster the understanding of telecollaborative settings in higher education by giving the opportunity to Master students to experience various telecollaborative situations within one academic year.

The pedagogical aim is to engage students in real interaction with peers allowing them to reflect on how interaction, knowledge construction and negotiation are built through various technological means. Students of the MA study programme are given the opportunity to have first-hand experience of what “telecollaboration” means during one academic year. In order to gain understanding and to explore telecollaboration individually and collectively, three types of settings has been developed for first and second year students of the master programme, involving each a different target group, namely students in the USA, Spain and Latvia.
The first setting, entitled “Joint reflection on teaching practice through Telecollaboration: perspectives for teacher training and professional development”, involved 2nd year students of the master exchanging with peers at the Autonomous University of Barcelona who did a Master on teaching of foreign languages. Interactions took place in English and through a Moodle learning space during three months. The potential of the project was based on idea of having students collaborate on a) development of teaching materials, projects and lesson design, b) reflective practice concerning their own and peers’ teaching practice and c) the process of socially constructed knowledge about daily aspects of teaching.
The second setting involves master students paired with students at Columbia University, New York. The goal of this telecollaboration was to apply a "learning-by-doing" approach for the integration of IT tools and Web 2.0 applications in various learning settings. Students form mixed groups with members of both institutions who collaboratively explore Web 2.0 tools such as blogs, wikis, Google Sites, podcasts, social bookmarking tools and real time communication tools (e.g., Skype, Instant Messenger). Working on a period of approximately three months, students jointly construct projects with groups of students of the participating universities and make outputs available on the web.
In the third setting, MA students engaged with peers at the University of Latvia, learning French as a foreign language. MA students act as tutors while developing materials with a strong intercultural accent and mentoring learners online. Communication tools are both asynchronous (moodle space) and synchronous (skype) for weekly conversation. While the main goal of tutors is to develop the use of technology in foreign language education, the aim of the learners is to communicate with experts in the target language and culture, rendering their learning experience more authentic, “situated” and cultural.
Implications on critical reflection and collaborative inquiry will be discussed in light of findings from the three telecollaborative settings.

Keywords:

telecollaboration, vocational training, higher education, ict in learning and instruction.