Expanding educational spaces of cooperation and social relations through Technology-enhanced International Virtual Exchanges

Abstract

Technology-enhanced international virtual exchanges (IVE), or Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL), provide educators and students with the access and tools to connect with the world through collaboration with colleagues and peers in a global context (SUNY COIL Center, “Welcome”, n.d.a). In the IVE courses, students in different countries work together to broaden not only their academic knowledge, but also digital literacy, critical thinking, problemsolving, teamwork, and communication skills (Werner, 2015). In this study, technology-enhanced IVE are introduced and the benefits of IVE for educators and students are explored. Some concrete examples are also shared of how two professors from Ukraine and the United States reflected on the course of collaboration with our French partner professor to co-plan and co-teach a technology-enhanced IVE course in order to offer sustainable international education and provide students with the opportunities to gain diverse cross-cultural, cross-linguistic, and cross-disciplinary experiences, to demonstrate communication skills using technology, and to improve their intercultural competence.