1. ‘Telecollaboration 2.0’ New directions in Higher Education .
Tina Waldman, Kibbutzim College of Education
Efrat Harel, Kibbutzim College of Education

2. Background
Study situated in an intercultural collaborative learning setting in the context of English language teacher training.
The collaboration, herein telecollaboraton: 3 exchanges; 3 semester courses; 3 groups of participants: student English teachers at Kibbutzim College of Education and Karlsruhe University of Education, Germany.
Invites culturally relevant pedagogy enabling access to diverse points of view, nurtures critical thinking, analytical skills and reduces stereotypical and biased perceptions in favor of social justice and equity (Hurtado 2007, Banks 2004, Gurin, Dey, Hurtado & Gurin 2002).

3. Telecollaboration 2.0
English as an international language: a neutral medium of communication among intercultural speakers; creates authentic need for intercultural communication
Technology in language teaching: social media for communication is revitalizing EIL teaching; appeals to younger teachers.

4. Participants: 78 student teachers of English in their third year of study. Ages from 21 – 40 (teaching is a second profession in some cases). Mostly Hebrew L1, 3 English L1, and 2 Arabic L1. English proficiency – C1, C2

5. Participants: 56 student teachers of English in their third year of study (teacher training). Mostly German L1, others with Turkish or Croatian L1 English proficiency C2, C2

6. Timeline Tina Benchmarking: can-do statements
Unicko work meetings on product
Virtual exchange, & personalized intro
Class video conference
Unicko Peer review S1
S2,3
S4-9
S10,11
S12-13
S14
Tina
Class video conference
Student reflection essays
Computer mediated TBL
Reflections on process and vote for best products
Unicko, team formation: name and philosophy
Digital tools
Final revisions

7. Our Aims
Enable participants to gain firsthand experience of the context, organization, process, technology, products and assessment of telecollaboration.
Document experiential learning process
Foster participant reflection on intercultural collaboration
Primary research question: does experiencing online intercultural collaboration in EIL teacher training increase students’ self-efficacy to integrate telecollaboration in their prospective teaching?

8. Transcending classroom walls

9. Multi-cultural proficiency
TinaBeyond understand ways in which EIL is handled by different countries. What does it mean to be a global teacher – cultural proficiency: ability to sustain intercultural dialogue - can foster tolerance. Also can be demanding and difficult in some circumstance
Picture on left, Some of our students decided to identify with Germans before Christmas holidays, came to class with hats, asked them how they celebrated, told them that we celebrate a different holiday - found parallels between family celebrations – open discourse
Picture on right, more difficult – courageous conversation – a German student wanted to open discourse with the Israeli partners on WW2 and shared pictures of her grandparents in their nazi uniforms. For her this was an act of responsibility that led to some difficult conversations about values, diversity, justice between team members.

10. Critical issues
Students were made aware of the complexity of telecollaboration when critical issues arose. More than once they dealt with the issue themselves citing their team philosophy.
“By setting rules of conduct in my group and the team philosophy, I was able to mediate between my partners' wills and my own ones” (Almog).
TinaWhen critical issues arise - read
Other students wrote in their reflections about using team philosophy to deal with conduct issues.
But there was an emphasis on dealing with issues rather than letting them fester.
Through practicing teamwork they built strong verbal and nonverbal relationships. Through working together they learned how to communicate clearly and compile the entire teams ideas in order to build trust.
Part of our philosophy is that the team deals with critical issues. They used their philosophy as groundwork for handling conflicts. The philosophy written in advance opens the channel of communication