What is Virtual Exchange?

Giving young people the knowledge, skills, and experiences they need to prosper in an interconnected world

Students participate in World Learning group activity

Educators and other facilitators work together to design collaborative learning programs

Young people use a variety of technology tools to connect with each other in real-time and asynchronously over a sustained period

Participants at virtual exchange forum chatting with each other.

Participants build global competencies and other skills and knowledge they need to participate in the workforce and in society

By combining technology with proven educational techniques, virtual exchanges make it possible for every young person to have access to a meaningful cross-cultural experience.

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How do we know virtual exchange works?

Researchers studying the impact of virtual exchange programs have found that virtual exchange can increase the extent to which young people perceive people from other backgrounds to be similar to themselves. The Stevens Initiative is investing in research to better understand the impact of virtual exchange programs on young people’s acquisition of global competencies, digital literacy, project-based learning as well as their perceptions of each other. The Initiative is also surveying the size of the virtual exchange field and cataloging common practices.​​

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Evaluation

​The Stevens Initiative is working with experts to develop tools and indicators to measure the effectiveness of virtual exchange programs. These programs have been developed by educators and others in a wide variety of contexts around the world, using different technology, serving young people at different stages of development. The Stevens Initiative seeks to give this diverse community of practice a shared means of talking about goals and intended outputs and outcomes that are common across programs, as well as a means of determining which methods seem to be working.

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