The International Virtual Exchange Conference (IVEC) was meant to take place at Newcastle University in September but due to Covid-19 it will now be completely virtual. Participants will, however, still be able to explore the city.
Virtual guided walking tours of the area around the University, local music and even a pub quiz are indeed planned for the conference, which will take place 14 – 16 September 2020: organisers are still keen for attendees to soak up the culture of NewcastleGateshead.
Virtual Exchange (VE) is a research-informed practice that delivers structured participatory education programmes to individuals from different cultures and communities around the world. All VE programmes are delivered in a structured way with the support of educators or facilitators.
This is the second conference of its kind following the inaugural IVEC event which was held in Tacoma, Washington, USA in 2019. NewcastleGateshead was originally chosen to host the conference thanks to Newcastle University’s wealth of academic expertise in the field of VE learning.
“Virtual learning is a more sustainable and environmentally friendly vehicle for knowledge and idea exchange, and we hope that this conference will inspire the academic community to develop VE and its potential reach and impact further still.” comments Dr Müge Satar, Chair of the local organising committee and Newcastle University Lecturer of Applied Linguistics and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) at the School of Education, Communication, and Language Sciences.