FRAMES Podcast
Listen to the original FRAMES podcast where practitioners share their experiences with Virtual Exchange integration and accreditation. Hear all about their VE integration efforts, from the challenges they encountered to the best practices they’ve adopted.
Episodes
What is Virtual Exchange?
In this episode, we talk to practitioners about what they understand Virtual Exchange to be, how it differs from other forms of online education, and what their first experience with Virtual Exchange was.
Engaging Staff
Engaging teaching and administrative staff is crucial to get your Virtual Exchange project integrated and accredited. What are the tips and tricks of our practitioners, and what do they see as important factors in getting this done?
Roadblocks
Who are the most important actors to get institutional buy-in from? Are they HE leaders, or internationalization officers? And what are their biggest hang-ups when it comes to Virtual Exchange?
Impact
The impact of Virtual Exchange is diverse but is often presented in dry figures and tables. Here we discuss some personal examples of the impact our practitioners have encountered. Let’s hear some stories about changing lifes!
Who you’ll hear in the podcast
Bart van der Velden
Bart van der Velden is a Senior Research Officer for the Sharing Perspectives Foundation. His research has focussed on the impact of Virtual Exchange on participants, with an emphasis on transversal skill acquisition, and the development on intercultural competencies . He has published extensively on the field of Virtual Exchange, and has been active in the field for nearly a decade. Combining his professional expertise with his enthusiasm for podcasts, Bart is the perfect host and producer of this audio project.
Marta Giralt
Marta Giralt is a Lecturer in Applied Linguistics and Spanish at the School of Modern Languages and Applied Linguistics, University of Limerick, Ireland. She teaches Intercultural communication, Language & Technology, teacher training and Spanish. She is a practitioner and researcher on Virtual Exchange and currently is a member of the FRAMES consortium
Ana Beaven
Ana Beaven teaches English as a Foreign Language at the University of Bologna (Italy) Language Centre. She was one of the lead UNICollaboration trainers with the Erasmus+ Virtual Exchange initiative. Her main areas of interest are intercultural language learning and teaching, virtual exchange, the use of technology for language learning, and Open Educational Resources. She is also a trained Dialogue Facilitator with Soliya. Together with Francesca Helm, she co-edited the open access book Designing and implementing virtual exchange – a collection of case studies (Research Publishing, 2020).
Sara Pittarello
Sara Pittarello is Outreach Officer and Project Manager for UNICollaboration. She is also currently tutor of expert evaluators and has been Expert Evaluator of EU projects on Higher Education for the Italian National Agency since 2016. Sara has also been co-tutor for the eTandem E+VE project carried out by the Padova University Language Centre. She worked for the International Relations Office of the University of Padova for 10 years (2009-2019) as project manager and advisor in most of the EU programmes and initiatives. She has recently participated as trainer and speaker on VE in major national and international events.
Anita Barmettler
Anita Barmettler, PhD, teaches German language, culture and history at the University of Limerick. Her major research interests are intercultural communication, different approaches to teaching languages, and Jewish literature and poetry after 1945. She was a co-trainer in the ‘Online Training on Virtual Exchange and blended mobility integration’ offered by the FRAMES project.
Alicia Betts
Alicia Betts leads international strategic projects at the Universitat de Girona (Spain), mainly focusing on university strategic partnerships, community engagement and virtual exchange initiatives.
Before joining UdG she was project manager at the Catalan Association of Public Universities (ACUP) where she was responsible for the joint internationalisation strategy and activities at ACUP and at the Global University Network for Innovation (GUNi) where she participated in the coordination of the worldwide GUNi Reports and international conferences. Alicia is also an elected member of the Cooperation for Development Expert Community of the European Association for International Education (EAIE) since 2018.
Anna Turula
Professor Anna Turula is an experienced CALL / EFL teacher and teacher trainer. She is currently based at the Pedagogical University in Krakow, Poland, where she is Head of the Technology Enhanced Language Education (TELE) Department.
Her research interests include: new technologies in language learning and teacher training; Online Intercultural Exchanges in language learning and teacher training; cognitive and affective factors in CALL; e-classroom dynamics. She is the proponent and organiser of the PL-CALL conference (2013, 2014, 2016, 2019 in Warsaw and Krakow) and the editor of Peter Lang series Studies in Computer Assisted Language Learning.
