Virtual Mobility in School Education
Experience Europe virtually
In secondary schools, virtual activities are not new. Already before the Covid19 pandemic, pupils could experience Europe virtually. They could collaborate with their peers from different countries without leaving their classrooms. These international cooperation experiences have been made possible through the use of new communication technologies and platforms like eTwinning, School Education Gateway or TeleTandem.
As physical exchanges of pupils became impossible due to the health crisis, many language teachers tried to enable their students to meet and communicate with foreign pupils virtually. Erasmus+ national agencies, together with eTwinning, organised a series of webinars for teachers which aimed at encouraging and providing tips for the implementation of virtual international mobilities and collaboration. In fact, the number of eTwinning projects has increased since 2020 and the tools that enable online exchanges found also more and more users.
eTwinning
eTwinning is a European action that offers teachers from the 43 participating countries the opportunity to get in touch with each other to conduct distance exchange projects with their pupils using digital tools. More than 980,000 teachers are registered in the eTwinning online community (October 2021). Launched in 2005 as the main action of the European Commission’s eLearning. programme, eTwinning has been an integral part of Erasmus+, the European programme for education, training, youth and sport, since 2014.
The platform provides support, tools and services for schools to communicate, collaborate, develop projects and share ideas with other schools throughout Europe.
School Education Gateway
Presented in 29 European languages, the School Education Gateway is an online platform for teachers, school leaders, researchers, teacher educators, policymakers and other professionals working in school education – including Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) and Vocational Education and Training (VET).
https://www.schooleducationgateway.eu/
TeleTandem: French-German Virtual Mobility platform
The most important and comprehensive tool available for carrying out a Franco-German distance learning project is the TeleTandem platform by the French German Office for Youth. It is free of charge, free of advertising and complies with the European Data Protection Regulation. It offers a protected virtual framework, based on the Moodle learning and management software.