A virtual mobility project between Argentina and Italy: students’ perspective

MARIA ISABEL POZZO; THALITA CAMARGO ANGELUCCI; BRENDA BERTRAMO; MARÍA EUGENIA TALAVERA; NARA ALEGRE; FLORENCIA ROSSO; VALERIA MIÑO; JÉSICA VICENTÍN

Conferencia; ViMoAll-Conference; 2023

Since 2019, the School of Educational Sciences of the National University of Rosario, Argentina, has a double degree Agreement with the Department of Language, Culture and Society of the University of Calabria, Italy. The Agreement was put into effect a few months before the pandemic, a circumstance that led to the entirely virtual implementation of the courses in both higher education institutions, becoming eventualy a virtual mobility Program. Among the subjects involved, the Seminar "Intercultural Dialogue" delivered by the Argentine university for both its own students and those from Italy, is analyzed in this presentation from their perspective. The course proposal was founded on project-based learning, and consisted of carrying out an intercultural project grounded on educational research with ethnographic fieldwork. As regards the content, students should get in contact with migrants in the city of Rosario, Argentina and the region of Calabria, Italy, respectively, and gather information about some educational situation they are undergoing. Students worked in groups, some of which were of mixed nationalities, and the subsequent exchange of results was also planned. Synchronous virtual classes with bibliographic support were provided by the staff, leading to the preparation of a written report followed by oral presentation within the class. In order to monitor the educational effects of the virtual experience, the Argentine staff in charge of this subject implemented an online semi-structured questionnaire to both the Italian and Argentinian students. In such instrument, different aspects involved in thevirtual mobility were elicited: interpersonal relation mediated by virtuality, the role of a foreign language in the university studies, the immigration issue in both contexts, the convenience of the ethnographic approach to address these topics, academic and extra-academic obstacles, and future perspectives of the virtual mobility. In this scope, this presentation systematizes the perspective of the students -both the Italians studying this subject online at the University of Rosario and the host Argentine students- about the different aforementioned dimensions. As a whole, the results show a general acceptance of the intercultural experience on both groups of students; in the case of the Italians in virtual mobility, they highlighted a more active and participatory teaching style of the host university; on the other hand, the Argentinias valued the benefit of knowing other cultures, although the impact was not so strong. As regards obstacles, time shortage for the development of the project, difficulties in the learning contents involved, deficient connectivity, and time zone difference are mentioned by the students. From their perspectives, recommendations for the next editions of virtual mobility between Argentina and Italy are drawn, which can also be transferred to other similar Programs.