It’s a general fact that same concepts may be viewed differently in different cultures, what is self-evident in one culture may seem strange or unacceptable in another and vice versa.
The virtual mobility course I’ve enrolled in 2007 enabled me to recognize the potential advantages and pitfalls of cross-cultural communication without passing any country’s borders. In addition it allowed me to reflect on my own language and culture making me one time more aware of uniqueness of each single nation and its culture within todays unified Europe. A bit clumsy at first, students from 4 different countries (Slovenia, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Finland) had soon become confident at their virtual inter-cultural interaction, through on-line communication learning the aspects of sociolingustic conventions and cultural norms as perceived in each individual cooperating country.
All together virtual mobility was an extraordinary experience and would recommend it to any curious, open-minded and knowledge ‘hungry’ individual that would know how to fully appreciate the concept of virtual travelling across cultures.
Anusa Hojnik