Telecollaboration in the post-Covid paradigm

As an island on the periphery of Europe, Ireland needs policy support mechanisms for telecollaboration which will establish it as a dynamic player in the global education arena, sustaining it beyond the current pandemic. During Covid times, telecollaboration has indeed provided a virtual bridge for students who were unable to avail of traditional Erasmus immersive opportunities, due to mobility restrictions. A recent case study illustrates how students from Spain, Ireland and Germany engaged in collaborative teamwork, using both synchronous and asynchronous tools, on a shared learning platform. But the full potential of virtual exchange has yet to be harnessed by Irish HEIs and the level of participation as an integral part of the curriculum remains minimal and peripheral (O’Dowd, 2013). This may be due to the traditional view of telecollaborative as the reserve of language students and those who specialise in linguistics and intercultural studies. Nonetheless more recently, telecollaboration or virtual exchange is being used for students from diverse disciplines to bring about transnational collaboration, as promoted by the organisation Unicollaborate [https://www.unicollaboration.org/] Furthermore, it also has the potential to stimulate an appetite and curiosity among students for international mobility in the post-Covid future. Embedding telecollaboration into the curriculum would enable HEIs to foster internationalisation at home, thereby broadening the skillset of Irish graduates.

O’Dowd, R. (2013). Telecollaborative networks in university higher education: Overcoming barriers to integration. The Internet and Higher Education, 18, 47–53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2013.02.001