Virtual Innovation and Support Networks

Introduction

Recent global and international events such as the COVID-19 pandemic have underlined more than ever the important role which online collaboration and exchange can play in both Continuous Professional Development and in Initial Teacher Education. During the two-years of lockdown and restricted mobility, online networks and platforms enabled both teachers and student teachers to continue to communicate with colleagues, to participate in professional networks and to engage in professional development opportunities. Indeed, some commentators interpreted the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity for innovation and progress in online teacher education. Reflecting on the potential of professional online communities for overcoming teacher isolation in the COVID-19 era, Knight (2020) observed: “[t]‌he impetus for online collaboration has perhaps never been greater than it is now during the COVID-19 pandemic. …particularly in the case of world language education, it also poses an opportunity to replenish a weak professional development infrastructure” (p. 303).

Of course, the use of online networks to facilitate teachers’ collaborative activities was already extensive before the pandemic. Studies have shown how platforms and networks such as UNICollaboration, eTwinning, School Education Gateway and Scientix, as well as specialised teacher communities in social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, had already enabled educators to overcome feelings of professional isolation (Chen et al., 2009), to learn about and share innovative classroom methodologies and uses of educational technologies (Lantz-Andersson et al., 2018), and to engage in intercultural dialogue and establish collaborative partnerships with colleagues from other cultural backgrounds (O’Dowd & Dooly, 2022).

Students in Initial Teacher Education have also been engaged in online learning communities through Virtual Exchange (VE) programmes which bring them into contact with partner classes in other countries. VE has been used extensively in pre-service teacher education programmes to develop students’ foreign language, intercultural and digital competences (Carloni & Zuccala, 2018; EVALUATE group, 2019; Dooly & Sadler, 2020; Dooly & Vinagre, 2021), but also to give them first-hand experience of using online collaboration in classes in the hope that they, in turn, will go on and use such projects in their own classrooms in the future (Grau & Turula, 2019; Kurek & Müller-Hartmann, 2019).

Despite this interest in online collaborative communities in both Continuous Professional Development and Initial Teacher Education, there have been relatively few examples of initiatives which have explored bringing cohorts of teachers and student teachers together in online collaboration. This is perhaps surprising, considering the potential benefits which such initiatives could have for both sets of participants. Student teachers stand to benefit from learning first-hand about real classroom experiences and from seeing closer links between what happens in schools and the theoretical content of their university coursework – often an elusive aspect of Initial Teacher Education (Ulvik et al., 2021). The activity also offers teachers the opportunity to share the problems and challenges they encounter in their classrooms and to receive feedback and support from a potentially enthusiastic group of students who are aware of recent methodological developments. It was this form of online collaborative learning and its potential for teacher professional development and for overcoming professional isolation that the VALIANT (Virtual Innovation and Support Networks) study set out to explore.

However, before looking in detail at how the VALIANT study developed the role of online collaborative networks in teacher education, for the sake of clarity it behoves us to briefly review the terminology of online international education.

A Review of Terminology

As digital technologies have been increasingly used in contexts of international education and collaboration, a series of terms have come into use which are often confused or used interchangeably. These include the terms Virtual Exchange, Virtual Mobility and Blended Mobility. We will now look at each of these to identify their different characteristics.

In this volume, we define Virtual Exchange (VE) as an umbrella term which refers to the numerous learning initiatives and methodologies which engage learners in sustained online collaborative learning and interaction with partners from different countries and cultural backgrounds as part of study or training programmes and under the guidance of teachers or trained facilitators.

Apart from the two basic characteristics of using technology and engaging in intercultural collaboration and exchange, this definition also highlights two further characteristics which are likely to be inherent in all types of VE: first, that the online collaboration forms part of the participants’ formal training or study programmes and, second, that it involves the guidance of teachers or trained facilitators.

The first of these is an important part of any definition of VE as it allows us to differentiate between projects which are integrated into educational programmes and more informal intercultural interactions and collaborations which might take place online. For example, students and teachers often interact in online social networks with colleagues and friends from other countries. This may be beneficial for their foreign language skills and their professional development, but this should not be seen as VE. VEs differ from informal online interactions in that VE initiatives are generally integrated in some way into the participants’ formal learning and participation in the project is provided with some form of academic recognition, whether it be in the form of grades, credit or microcredentials.