On 8-9 February 2024 the VALIANT consortium held a conference in collaboration with UNICollaboration on the theme of “Exploring the impact of Virtual Exchange on Teacher Education”. This event brought together teachers, teacher trainers, student teachers, researchers and policy makers interested in Virtual Exchange and how it can be employed in Initial Teacher Education and Continuous Professional Development.
A call for papers for the conference was published and over 110 proposals were submitted. Finally, 100 presentations and 6 posters were accepted. 200 participants from 30 countries registered for the conference and of these 150 attended.
The conference website can be seen here and the conference programme here.
The conference included 4 sessions where the results of the project were presented to the audience. This included a session led by the public authorities in which they reported on how the project and the use of VE had impacted on their regions and countries. Other important events were a keynote by a Ukrainian expert on VE who spoke on the theme of ‘Virtual Exchange in times of crisis’ and another keynote by the president of UNICollaboration who explained to participants how the organisation was setting up Special Interest Groups which would allow teachers and teacher trainers from the VALIANT community to continue to network and collaborate together.
Video recordings of the plenary sessions – including the results of the VALIANT project – can be seen here.
At the conference, Melinda Dooly and Xavier Fontich Vicens from the UAB Barcelona carried out flash interviews with in-service teachers at the final conference in León. These were brief and spontaneous interviews aimed to gather immediate reactions, opinions, or insights regarding the VALIANT project (output, materials, activities, etc.). You can read the interviews and a summary of the main coinclusions here.
Some photos of the event can be seen here. Video recordings of the plenary sessions will also be added soon.
The conference had keynotes by Shannon Sauro and Yuliana Lavrysh
