Introduction

The Padova-Albany Exchange is a short 4-week exchange between last-year Master's level degree students in English at the University of Padova, Italy, and students in Global Communications at the University of Albany, USA. The overall aim of the project is for students at the University of Padova to provide constructive feedback to students at the University of Albany for an international conference they are organizing and in doing so for all students to exchange cultural knowledge, in English.

Trends in Global Communications - Albany

The Global Communications class at the University of Albany focuses on organizational communication. It is an upper level course so students may have had coursework in organizational communication, intercultural communication, and/or computer mediated communication. In addition to the course content, the course aims to develop students' intercultural communication skills and computer-mediated communication skills. The former will be developed via readings on the matter as well as exchanges with students at the University of Padova, Italy. The latter will be developed by using blogs, wikis and/or online meetings both within the class and as part of the exchange. Students will develop the skills needed to communicate online with a non-native English speaker and how to use technology effectively to achieve a work task.

The class of 25 is broken up into 5 groups, each of which is organizing a different aspect of the conference. The purpose of the conference is to inform an international audience about new trends in global communications. One group, the logistics group, is coordinating communication between the other 4 working groups (Partners and Sponsors, Topics, Audience, and Technology). Each of

the other 4 groups will be researching and making recommendations for the conference on each of their areas.

Click here to download Global Communications_syllabus.doc.

EFL 2.0 and Intercultural Competence - Padova

The EFL 2.0 and Intercultural Competence class at the University of Padova is an advanced English language course for students in their last year of a Master's Level degree in Lingue Straniere per la Communicazione (Foreign Languages for International Communication) and Letteratura Moderne Euro-Americane (Euro-American Modern Literature). This class is the language component of a 3 module course. The other two models focus on English linguistics and phonetics. The class aims to improve students' English language skills (all 4) through the use of Web 2.0 tools and social software, as well as in-class discussion. 'Social software' is a term used to speak about a new generation of web-based tools that facilitate human expression, communication and collaboration. This course uses several different social software tools to help students develop their technological and collaboration skills while at the same time improving their English. The tools we will be using are weblogs, wikis, social bookmarking, feed aggregators, and other tools for video, image, slide and audio sharing.

A secondary aim of the course is to develop students' intercultural competence. Culture, both one's own and 'the other', is the overriding theme of the entire course and the focus of the in-class discussions. Students are given the opportunity to develop this skill through reading, reflection, writing, speaking, listening, watching, and, most importantly, exchanges like the Padova-Albany exchange where students' will have direct interaction with peers from another culture.

The class of 60 students meets once a week in the classroom and once a week in a computer lab. Students are divided into two groups for the in-class meetings for scheduling reasons. Those attending the earlier Monday class (the larger group of 30-35) will be those involved in the Padova-Albany exchange. Students use a course blogs to receive and, sometimes, complete weekly tasks called e-tivities. Students also have personal blogs to complete other weekly e-tivities and to reflect on their learning experiences. Students are divided into 8 groups to interact in the completion of the weekly e-tivities and for classroom discussions.

Click here to download a Course_description_07_08.pdf

The Exchange

aims

Students in the Global Communications Trends class at the University of Albany are preparing an international online conference. Students at the University of Padova are going to serve as international consultants for the students in Albany. The aim of this exchange is to provide students at Albany with useful feedback on the development of the conference and how it would be received by Italians giving both groups of students with the opportunity to exchange ideas and reflections on similar and different aspects of American and Italian culture. The exchange will provide students in Padova with the opportunity to practice their English and students in Albany the opportunity to communicate with non-native speakers of English.

activities and calendar

Mon 12/11-Sun 18/11 - students complete the questionnaires, read the information about the people in their groups (and others if they want), find something that strikes them and discuss these things in their group forum.
Mon 19/11-Sun 25/11 - students in Albany pose 1-3 questions to students in Padova and they discuss them in the forums.
Mon 26/11 - Sun 2/12 - idem
Mon 3/12 - Sun 9/11 - Closing activity, coming to conclusions, final evaluation of conference and students' work.

Week 1 - Mon 12/11-Sun 18/11

1. Go to the online forum we will be using for the exchange (it is a free public forum so you'll have to put up with the ads at the top of the page). It is the same forum used in the Tulane-Padova exchange last year. Feel free to look around or just go directly to the forum we will be using: Padova-Albany Presentations. Register to contribute to the forum.

2. Click on the first discussion: Presentation Questionnaire. Rather than doing the usual 'paragraph about me', we're going to have you complete a questionnaire "stile intervista iene". Read the first message in the discussion and follow the instructions for responding carefully. Feel free to NOT answer any question you do not feel comfortable answering. Post your message.

3. Read the posts made by other people in your group (see groups below). While reading, take note of answers that struck you, things you had in common, things you didn't have in common, etc. Go to your group forum and start a discussion by asking other members in the group questions. The aim of these discussions is both to help you start to get to know each other and, if possible, to start identifying points of cultural similarities and differences.

Buon lavoro!