Milli mála - 2019, Page 76

76 Milli mála 11/2019
TELECOLLABORATION HI-UB
a. Participation and involvement in the learning process.
b. Answering on time and respecting delivery dates.
c. Completing the self-reflection diary.
The first two criterias are particularly important in a project like this,
as the students do not meet face to face, hence the lack of commun-
ication or not answering in time can lead to problems in communica-
tion. To avoid this situation, the three professors in charge of the
project had, right from the start, to emphazise the collaborative work
and the autonomy of the learning process. The three professors from
both universities also had to monitor constantly the telecollaboration
progress to encourage students, to follow up if goals were achieved
and to find solutions if problems arose. They acted like guides and
they were expected to “be there”, to offer support and in some occas-
ions mediate group/pair works; in other words, to remind the parti-
cipants that the project’s success relied on everybody’s participation
and involvement. The text below (translated into English by the
writer of this article) is an example of this monitoring process done
by the teachers. Dr. Olivia Espejel, one of the teachers from the UB,
published an announcement in Google classroom that could be seen
by all the participants. In the message, she reminded them how imp-
ortant it was to keep up the communication with their colleagues and
to report any possible difficulty that could arise to the teachers in
charge.
“Dear student. I hope that the projects have started well and you are all in
close contact with your colleagues. We advise keeping the communication
channels very open and not to forget that close and friendly connection
that you have been establishing with your colleagues.[...] Do not hesitate
to make the changes that are necessary to adapt to the situations that arise
and contact us to be informed about anything that could happen.[...]
Greetings and good luck!”
The third criteria, completing the self-reflection diary after each task,
had a main purpose which was to foster a reflexive discourse about
the learning process. This introspective process was necessary to ref-
lect about what they had learnt during the task and how they have