VOCAL News and Youtube channel

We are pleased to share with you our first newsletter and appreciate if you share it with your network and colleagues!

In a related news: Project VOCAL has it’s own YouTube channel – check out, watch and share your colleagues testimonies of becoming an e-learning course developer! It is continuously update it with video teasers for our online courses and interviews with developers who participated in the training and their collaborative work developing their own course.

 

“The more I learn about intercultural competence the more I am aware about its importance”

The importance of intercultural competences, of the course design and to know your target audience as well as the fruitful international discussions, and learning about new tools were claimed as the main benefits for participating at the 2nd (final) VOCAL short-term staff training event that took place in Heilbronn, Germany between 18-22 September.

23 participants from VOCAL partner institutions continued their work together that started in Kaunas this May to acquire competences on tutoring international, intercultural and diverse learner groups and digitalization of quality learning resources. They were working on the VOCAL Moodle platform as well as in groups, sharing the focus between the training material and the foundations of the 6 re-developed courses that will be the next great assignment for the participants.

At the end of the event we have asked participants to share what their key messages, achievements were that they will take home with them. Here are some of their responses:

“I found the guest presentations and the presented tools the most useful during the training week.”
“The international discussions were really fruitful. I could also finally have a clear picture of the course design and how to proceed about it.”
“I meet new people with whom I can continue working and I think that we can collaborate in future projects.”
“The more I learn about intercultural competence the more I am aware about its importance.”
“There’s a lot of work and thoughtful preparation when designing online courses, and that the international and intercultural dimension is almost always impossible to avoid… so it’s something that should always be considered and thought about. I also learned got a better overview of how to structure a course. I particularly liked the cultural intelligence framework and would incorporate it in my own teaching and research.”
“There are more similarities in the teaching world than expected.”
“Always over plan a training content- and activity wise, as it is better to take home “unused” slides and activities than not knowing how to kill the time.”
“Its nice and productive to use colleagues experience and to benefit from collaboration.”
“It’s very important to know your target audience. That’s where everything starts – how you structure and adapt your content, how you differentiate it and what aspects should be considered when planning.”

The VOCAL partnership appreciates and expresses its gratitude to the
Baden-Württenberg Cooperative State University Heilbronn
for the great work of organising the training event
and to all the trainers for their dedication and professionalism.

Third project meeting held in Heilbronn

The third project meeting of VOCAL was held on 22 September in Germany, hosted by the Baden-Württenberg Cooperative State University Heilbronn.

Partners discussed completed and in progress deliverables, such as the realisation of the second (final) short term staff training event taking place parallel to the meeting, the finalisation of the three training materials on digitalization of quality learning resources, on designing online collaborative learning activities embedding digital, social and intercultural competence development and on tutoring international, intercultural and diverse learner groups.

Partners have discussed issues regarding the 6 re-developed courses that the training participants will start to work on following the training, dissemination issues and the progress of the testimonies of VET and HE teachers participating in the project.

Second short-term joint staff training in Heilbronn

Teachers and trainers from consortium institutions need competences on digitalization of quality learning resources, on designing online and open collaborative learning activities and tutoring international diverse learner groups in order for them to be able to (re)develop curriculum adapting it for online, open and intercultural active learning.

The VOCAL partners organise the second joint staff training on designing collaborative learning activities embedding digital, social and intercultural competences and digitalization of quality learning resources on 18-22 September 2017 in Heilbronn, Germany.

See the feedback on the first training event here.

The training event is only open to consortium members, however the training materials developed in the project – on digitalization of quality learning resources, on designing online collaborative learning activities embedding digital, social and intercultural competence development and on tutoring international, intercultural and diverse learner groups – will be available as open educational resource under CC BY-SA (Attribution-ShareAlike).

Multicultural collaboration makes us stronger

Ideas for Moodle use, teamwork, cultural exchange, new friends – these were claimed as the main benefits for participating at the 1st VOCAL short-term staff training event that took place in Kaunas, Lithuania between 8-12 May.

24 participants from VOCAL partner institutions worked together to acquire competences on digitalization of quality learning resources and on designing online and open collaborative learning activities. They were working on the VOCAL Moodle platform, familiarising themselves with different features of the system supporting collaborative learning. See the full program of the event here.

At the end of the event we have asked participants to share what their key messages, achievements were that they will take home with them. Here are some of their responses:

“Moodle is more versatile than I thought.”
“Moodle usability and its power in online workshops, all the functions that it has to present content and to assess students.”
“Real workshop training in Moodle, more understanding of different cultural and educational backgrounds.”
“Multicultural collaboration makes us stronger.”
“It´s important to consider the multicultural approach in the learning process and we can use as benefit this diversity between students in the presencial and virtual learning environments.”
“New horizons and possibilities to develop my teaching possibilities. Possibility to learn and to collaborate to create together with international team and different competences.”

The event will be followed by the second short-term joint staff training in September in Heilbronn, Germany.

The VOCAL partnership appreciates and expresses its gratitude to the
Innovative Studies Institute at Vytautas Magnus University
for the great work of organising the training event
and to all the trainers for their dedication and professionalism.