What Is Experiential Digital Global Engagement?
EDGE, a subset of what is commonly referred to as globally networked learning and international virtual exchange, is a project-based teaching and learning approach that promotes the development of intercultural competence across shared multicultural learning environments through the use of Internet-based tools and innovative online pedagogies. EDGE fosters meaningful exchanges between instructors and students with peers in geographically distant locations and from different lingua-cultural backgrounds.
EDGE courses, which link a class at Penn State with one abroad through a collaborative project, are co-equal and linked by instructional partners who collaborate to develop a shared course module that emphasizes experiential and collaborative student-centered learning. It is not a shared course; it is a shared module containing a collaborative project. While the international component of the course takes place solely online, the individual courses may be fully online or, more often, are offered in blended formats with traditional face-to-face sessions taking place at both schools.
How Does an EDGE Course Differ from an Online or Distance Learning Course?
An EDGE course is specifically designed to link students who have different cultural and geophysical perspectives and experiences. A typical online course may include students from different parts of the world; however, an EDGE course engages students in learning course content both through their own unique cultural lens and also by exchanging their cultural and experiential lenses as they complete a collaborative project. By helping students to reflect with each other, you and your partner instructor will be facilitating a cross-cultural dialogue that brings a global dimension to your course content.
What Is Specific to the EDGE Course Model?
EDGE courses emphasize the collaborative process between both teachers and students. While podcasts, webinars and video-streaming may be ways to reach an international audience, we believe that it is the actual negotiation of meaning from the creation of the shared module between teachers, through the use of social media, to the development of collaborative project work between students where the stakes are raised as participants work to create shared experiences and understanding. By committing to a bi-directional process which is often multi-lingual, cross-cultural discoveries are made and these courses begin to model relativistic, less hegemonic approaches to meaning and truth.
Another important aspect of EDGE courses is that they aim to exploit the multimodal potential of online communication. Although they do not allow collaborating students to meet over coffee, through social media partners can still engage in informal communication with their distant peers in much the same way as they do with their local peers using social media tools such as Facebook or messaging apps such as What’s App.
Finally, EDGE is different from other models of globally networked learning in that it offers neither a platform nor a specific set of tasks and activities. Each EDGE course is as unique as the course content, the individual institutional resources and support, the country context, and the relationship between the partners.
