Have you ever wondered whether a virtual exchange you facilitated years ago had a lasting impact on your students? Have you ever felt curious about what happened to them and the connections they made, years after the program ended?
Recently I was thrilled to receive a delightful surprise from Richard DeStefano, one of my first partners in a collaborative online international learning program, who I must say was an exceptional collaborator. He sent me a photo he had received from a former student of his who recently met her ePal partner (a former student of mine) in person in New York after staying in touch online for 13 years! It is immensely gratifying to witness the long-lasting impact of our collaboration in 2010 when these two students, Colleeen and Shelly, were in tenth grade - one in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in the US, and the other in Kiryat Bialik, Israel.
Colleen and Shelly meet in New York in 2023
Sustainability is often challenging to achieve in such programs due to various reasons, but this heartwarming experience demonstrates that the impact of intercultural learning can go beyond the program's duration. While most research on collaborative online international learning (COIL) is based on students' perceptions at the end of the exchange, it's important to recognize that intercultural learning is a lifelong process. Finding ways to evaluate the impact of virtual exchanges over time is crucial.
These students' connection was made possible as a result of a fruitful collaboration with Rich. I had met him on the ePals platform and collaborated with him over the course of three years. His classes studied World Cultures and one of the units was on Israel. Therefore, our collaboration contributed to their learning about our country, while Israeli students benefited from practicing and improving their English in an authentic way. Both higher order thinking skills and creativity were promoted in various ways. Our classes shared a Moodle site where students could engage in different activities and tasks, such as a forum for discussion of topics related to each group's culture and digital storytelling. I remember that one of the topics that intrigued the American students was the two to three-year compulsory military service in Israel, and an interesting discussion developed on this issue. The Israeli students themselves were curious about the Amish who lived close to their ePals.
Michelle Shelly's motivation became evident when she contributed a logo she created on her own initiative for the shared site during the Passover break.
Logo created by Shelly Meir for our Moodle site, 2010
This meeting between two former teenage students, now young women, is a testament to the power of virtual exchange programs in developing intercultural competence. It's heartening to see the impact of our efforts to facilitate such programs years after they have ended.