iEARN & GLOBAL NOMADS GROUP
1990s
Over the past three decades, technology-enabled, cross-cultural learning models and programs have sprung up in a number of countries, contexts and disciplines, and spawned some terminological confusion and overlap. Variations on the approach have been called globally networked learning, collaborative online international learning (COIL) and, in foreign-language education, telecollaboration and online intercultural exchange (O’Dowd, 2016, 2018).
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The earliest programs using technology to connect middle school and high school classrooms with counterparts in other countries include iEARN, which grew out of a 1988 pilot project linking schools in Moscow and New York State, and the Global Nomads Group, founded in 1998 (O'Dowd, 2018; Helm, 2018b).
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Learn more on the iEARN and Global Nomads Group sites
SOLIYA
2003
Soliya is a pioneering virtual exchange service provider at the tertiary level. It launched the Soliya Connect Program in the aftermath of 9/11 to bring together Muslim and non-Muslim students in Western and predominantly Muslim countries. The program focuses on engaging youth aged 18+ in facilitated online dialogues to foster empathy and develop "21st-century skills such as critical thinking, cross-cultural communication, and media literacy" (Soliya Connect Program, n.d.).
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SUNY COIL CENTER
2006
The universities grouped in the State University of New York system use the term collaborative online international learning (COIL) to describe their technology-enabled global learning programs. Founded at SUNY's Purchase College in 2006, the SUNY COIL Center has been based at the SUNY Global Center in Albany, NY, since 2010. Founding director Jon Rubin, a professor of film and new media, was instrumental in developing the COIL model, which typically involves a U.S. classroom connecting with another in a different country with similar course content (O'Dowd, 2018; Rubin, 2016).
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VIRTUAL EXCHANGE COALITION
2011
Soliya, iEARN-USA and the Global Nomads Group joined forces in 2011 to form the Virtual Exchange Coalition (called the Exchange 2.0 Coalition until 2015). The coalition champions virtual exchanges in its advocacy work with governments around the world, in the hope that “all young people can have a meaningful cross-cultural experience as part of their education” (Virtual Exchange Coalition, n.d.). It presents virtual exchanges "as bringing together new technologies, public diplomacy, and the benefits of exchange that study abroad programmes have traditionally fostered – albeit to a very small percentage of the United States population" (Helm, 2018b).
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SHARING PERSPECTIVES FOUNDATION
2012
The Sharing Perspectives Foundation is a non-profit organization founded in Amsterdam in 2012 that designs and implements virtual exchanges around "current socio-political issues" (Sharing Perspectives Foundation, n.d.). It helps participating universities develop a shared curriculum, with educators from the universities preparing video lectures that all students watch before coming together in small groups for facilitated online dialogues. The students also collaborate on designing and conducting research in their communities on the topic under discussion, and perhaps co-creating a digital media product (O'Dowd, 2016).
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STEVENS INITIATIVE
2015
The J. Christopher Stevens Virtual Exchange Initiative (known as the Stevens Initiative) was founded in memory of the U.S. ambassador killed in Libya in 2012. Launched as a result of advocacy by the Virtual Exchange Coalition and managed by the Aspen Institute, the Stevens Initiative supports virtual exchanges between U.S. middle schools, high schools and universities with counterparts in the Middle East and North Africa ("a geographic area where the United States is investing heavily in public diplomacy initiatives to seek to improve how they are perceived by the general population" [Helm, 2018b].) The Stevens Initiative receives funding from the U.S. State Department, the Bezos Family Foundation, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates, Twitter and Vidyo (Aspen Institute, n.d.).
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UNICOLLABORATION
2016
Researchers and practitioners have made a concerted effort in recent years to bring greater coherence to the field. In 2016, a new international academic group was formed, called UNICollaboration, to promote “research and practice in telecollaboration and virtual exchange across all disciplines and subject areas in higher education” (UNICollaboration, n.d.). Sarah Guth (University of Padova, Italy) is the organization's 2018-2020 president, succeeding founding president Robert O'Dowd (University of León, Spain). In 2018, UNICollaboration launched an online, open-access, peer-reviewed publication, Journal of Virtual Exchange.
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Learn more on the UNICollaboration and Journal sites
ERASMUS+ VIRTUAL EXCHANGE
2018
The European Union launched its flagship virtual exchange program in March 2018 in response to growing racism and intolerance in Europe. The program of multi-week online intercultural dialogues is open to all young people aged 18 to 30 in Europe and the Southern Mediterranean (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria and Tunisia [European Youth Portal, n.d.]). It is implemented by a consortium of organizations working in the virtual exchange field: Search for Common Ground, Anna Lindh Foundation, Sharing Perspectives Foundation, Soliya, UNICollaboration, Migration Matters, the association of Mediterranean universities, UNIMED, and Kiron Open Higher Education, which offers free online learning opportunities for refugees and other underserved communities.
Learn more on the Examples page and the European youth portal
INTERNATIONAL VIRTUAL EXCHANGE CONFERENCE
2019
UNICollaboration has joined forces with the SUNY COIL Center and several other U.S. universities to create a new international gathering, to be held in even-numbered years in Europe and odd-numbered years in the United States. The first International Virtual Exchange Conference took place in October 2019 at the University of Washington in Tacoma, WA. The second is to be hosted by Newcastle University in the UK in September 2020.
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