{"title":"The long and winding road…","authors":"Francesca Helm","doi":"10.14705/RPNET.2018.JVE.3","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The long and winding road is a metaphor for a journey, often used to describe life journeys and the challenges encountered. The metaphor was used for the title of my keynote to refer both to the journey towards the current position of virtual exchange in education policy – but also the long road ahead. This paper aims to explore the emergence of virtual exchange in educational policy and how it has been adopted by non-profit organisations, educational institutions, and policy makers to address geo- and socio-political tensions. Though still a relatively new field, in recent years there have been some important developments in terms of policy statements and public investments in virtual exchange. The paper starts by looking at the current state-of-the-art in terms of virtual exchange in education policy and initiatives in Europe. Then, using an approach based on ‘episode studies’ from the policy literature, the paper explores the main virtual exchange schemes and initiatives that have drawn the attention of European policy makers. The paper closes by looking at some of the lessons we have learnt from research on the practice of virtual exchange, and how this can inform us as we face the long road ahead of us. The focus of this paper is on the European context not because I assume it to be the most important or influential, but rather because it is the one I know best, since it is the context in which I have been working.","PeriodicalId":107205,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Virtual Exchange","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2018-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"7","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Virtual Exchange","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.14705/RPNET.2018.JVE.3","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 7
Abstract
The long and winding road is a metaphor for a journey, often used to describe life journeys and the challenges encountered. The metaphor was used for the title of my keynote to refer both to the journey towards the current position of virtual exchange in education policy – but also the long road ahead. This paper aims to explore the emergence of virtual exchange in educational policy and how it has been adopted by non-profit organisations, educational institutions, and policy makers to address geo- and socio-political tensions. Though still a relatively new field, in recent years there have been some important developments in terms of policy statements and public investments in virtual exchange. The paper starts by looking at the current state-of-the-art in terms of virtual exchange in education policy and initiatives in Europe. Then, using an approach based on ‘episode studies’ from the policy literature, the paper explores the main virtual exchange schemes and initiatives that have drawn the attention of European policy makers. The paper closes by looking at some of the lessons we have learnt from research on the practice of virtual exchange, and how this can inform us as we face the long road ahead of us. The focus of this paper is on the European context not because I assume it to be the most important or influential, but rather because it is the one I know best, since it is the context in which I have been working.
The long and winding road是旅途的隐喻,通常用来描述人生旅程和遇到的挑战。我在主题演讲中使用了这个比喻,既指虚拟交流在教育政策中的现状,也指未来的漫漫长路。本文旨在探讨虚拟交换在教育政策中的出现,以及非营利组织、教育机构和政策制定者如何采用虚拟交换来解决地缘和社会政治紧张局势。虽然虚拟货币仍然是一个相对较新的领域,但近年来在政策声明和公共投资方面取得了一些重要进展。本文首先考察了欧洲教育政策和举措中虚拟交换的现状。然后,使用基于政策文献中的“事件研究”的方法,本文探讨了引起欧洲政策制定者注意的主要虚拟交换计划和倡议。本文最后回顾了我们从对虚拟交换实践的研究中学到的一些教训,以及这些教训如何在我们面临未来漫长道路时为我们提供启示。本文的重点是欧洲背景,不是因为我认为它是最重要或最有影响力的,而是因为它是我最了解的,因为这是我一直在工作的背景。