Through International@home we aim to give our Student Teachers the opportunity to collaborate with peer students in other countries on important topics such as; adapted learning, critical thinking, intercultural communication, self-regulated learning and school and society. We want to do this by using digital tools like Padlet and digital platforms like eTwinning. We may also try more tools and platforms during the project period. By using digital tools and platforms we hope to make international collaboration easier and more accessible.
Internationalization and ensuring international perspectives in Teacher Education has been an important focus area at the University of Agder for several years, as it has been for all Norwegian Teacher Education institutions. Teacher Educators work continuously to ensure international perspectives “at home” and there are great opportunities for students to go abroad.
This past year the Covid 19-situation has made travelling very challenging, and the need to find alternative ways to ensure the international experience has become increasingly more important. The project idea for International@home actually started developing before Covid 19 became a part of all our lives, but the latter has perhaps forced us and our colleagues to look at internationalization in a different perspective.
The fact that all Teachers across the world now find themselves facing the same challenge of how to ensure good learning for students through home schooling and digital teaching, makes it perhaps even more valuable than ever to share experiences and ideas across borders. And we think it’s important to give our Student Teachers this experience. We hope that they’ll gain new perspectives, see the Norwegian school system and Teacher Education in a different light, and also to give them an opportunity to expand their own professional network.
You can read more about the project team in “about us”. If you find the project activities interesting and would like to collaborate with us, please contact us. Collaboration can happen on a variety of levels. For example the shared Padlets will be an easy way to give your students international perspectives by having them reflect on the same questions as students from other countries. It’s anonymous and it doesn’t have to be synchronized. However, it is possible to also synchronize Padlet collaboration if you want and schedules allow.
As for eTwinning projects, we encourage you to either join one of our projects or invite us to collaborate on an idea that you may have for a project.
