Collaborative Teaching and Learning Projects

Apart from developing and sharing electronic teaching and learning resources Virtual Dutch regularly undertakes collaborative teaching projects. A virtual learning environment (VLE), to which all participating institutions subscribe, with its discussion board and chatrooms, enables students from UCL, Sheffield and Cambridge to collaborate on joint projects which are backed up with videoconferencing sessions.

Two such projects run every year for a period of five to eight weeks each. One concerns cultural studies, the other translation from Dutch into English. The translation project is built around the year’s Writer in Residence, who is based in London but visits the other two universities. In fact, the writer is the only person who sees everyone involved: the students themselves only meet in cyberspace and on the videoconferencing screens! But in the process they pick up more than academic wisdom. They learn communication and negotiation skills quite different from those acquired in a classroom, they appreciate the technological experience as a career skill, and more often than not they make friends at a distance.

Last modified: 24.03.2009
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