A virtual mobility project between Argentina and Italy: Students’ perspectives

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

Cologne/Bonn Region

Congreso; Virtual Mobility for All - Teaching and Learning in a Connected World; 2023

University of Applied Sciences

Since 2019, the School of Educational Sciences of the NationalUniversity of Rosario, Argentina, has a double degree Agreementwith the Department of Language, Culture and Society of theUniversity of Calabria, Italy. The Agreement was put into effect afew months before the pandemic, a circumstance that led to theentirely virtual implementation of the courses in both highereducation institutions, becoming eventualy a virtual mobilityProgram. Among the subjects involved, the Seminar "Intercultural Dialogue" delivered by the Argentine university for both its ownstudents and those from Italy, is analyzed in this presentationfrom their perspective. The course proposal was founded onproject-based learning, and consisted of carrying out anintercultural project grounded on educational research withethnographic fieldwork. As regards the content, students shouldget in contact with migrants in the city of Rosario, Argentina andthe region of Calabria, Italy, respectively, and gather informationabout some educational situation they are undergoing. Studentsworked in groups, some of which were of mixed nationalities, andthe subsequent exchange of results was also planned.Synchronous virtual classes with bibliographic support wereprovided by the staff, leading to the preparation of a writtenreport followed by oral presentation within the class. In order tomonitor the educational effects of the virtual experience, theArgentine staff in charge of this subject implemented an onlinesemi-structured questionnaire to both the Italian and Argentinianstudents. In such instrument, different aspects involved in the virtual mobility were elicited: interpersonal relation mediated byvirtuality, the role of a foreign language in the university studies,the immigration issue in both contexts, the convenience of theethnographic approach to address these topics, academic andextra-academic obstacles, and future perspectives of the virtualmobility. In this scope, this presentation systematizes theperspective of the students -both the Italians studying this subjectonline at the University of Rosario and the host Argentinestudents- about the different aforementioned dimensions. As awhole, the results show a general acceptance of the interculturalexperience on both groups of students; in the case of the Italiansin virtual mobility, they highlighted a more active andparticipatory teaching style of the host university; on the otherhand, the Argentinias valued the benefit of knowing othercultures, although the impact was not so strong. As regardsobstacles, time shortage for the development of the project,difficulties in the learning contents involved, deficientconnectivity, and time zone difference are mentioned by thestudents. From their perspectives, recommendations for the nexteditions of virtual mobility between Argentina and Italy aredrawn, which can also be transferred to other similar Programs.