The title of the project is a question: Ready for virtual mobility? What we would like to achieve with this project reflects the answer to the question which is at the same time the acronym of the project: MoreVM! (More virtual mobility). Let’s see how things have developed and where we are now.

The year started at Doba with a new project: we adopted one of our Bachelor courses Business Communication and Intercultural Dialogue to a virtual mobility course and offered it to our partner schools. We hoped to pilot the course with one group of 30 students and then started the course with 54 students (!) from four countries: Finland, the Czech Republic, Lithuania and Slovenia.

With our partners we started this project. A group of virtual mobility ambassadors full of plans and ideas on how to promote virtual mobility and initiate development of virtual mobility community. Our mission in this project is therefore two folded: to promote virtual mobility and to prepare for it.

 

At the Eracon conference our colleague in the project, Jana, distributed leaflets with information about MoreVM project products. She passed out 500 of these leaflets.

 

I was invited to present our college's experiences and plans related to e-learning at a symposium organised by the Slovenian Institute for Adult Education. A colleague of mine, who is also involved in e-learning, told me during the break that the very first time he heard about virtual mobility was when his two colleagues returned from the 2008 Eracon conference.

It was the first time that one session was dedicated to virtual mobility at this year’s EDEN conference. With a paper Managing Virtual Mobility. A Case Study, in which a colleague of mine, Nataša and I presented Doba’s experience with a pilot virtual mobility course. I was among 4 presenters. I was quite surprised to see 20 – 25 people in the audience. Questions followed after each presentation. After mine, people were most interested in the introductory course for students that we are preparing within the MoreVM project, a colleague from a university in Mexico would have even 6.000 potential students for the course!

 

Two days after we invited Erasmus coordinators to join the preparatory course for coordinators there were no free places left. Moreover, some Erasmus coordinators have already received applications from their students for the introductory course for students that starts in February 2008.

 

So, how ready are we (you) really for virtual mobility? The answer is not straightforward. The interest is quite high and I’m happy to see so many interested people on this boat to explore virtual mobility. As every new thing, it takes time for critical mass to develop, so to recognize and accept the potentials of a new innovation. Therefore time will reveal what it really brings along and what lies behind this interest. Meanwhile, keep spreading the news!