Leveraging Interdisciplinary Collaboration to Improve Technology Dependency and Intercultural Competencies

Abstract

In this chapter, the authors discussed the use of virtual exchange (VE) courses in a global context to prepare college students, including journalism students and pre-service teachers, for technology dependency and intercultural competencies through the faculty-librarian-instructional designer collaboration. They shared the pedagogical and technological issues encountered when implementing the VE courses with their international partner professors and described their journey of an ongoing process of collaboration and problem solving prior to and during the pandemic. Concrete examples were provided to demonstrate how they used VE to produce meaningful student learning outcomes and to expand accessible international education. The authors also discussed future research and further implementation of the VE courses.