Off the beaten path with ePortfolio & virtual conferencing

Pioneer projects in Humanities & Social sciences

Abstract

Facing an on-going transformation of classical research strategies and current occupational profiles due to an increasing amount of digital sources and tools, students of more traditional humanities need to be taught media-oriented and must develop new online competencies to be set for a successful future path. The blended learning projects “Great Depression online” and “Sociology of Education Intercultural” give an example of how the flexible usage of ePortfolios and virtual conferencing can broaden each student’s mind.

To enhance traditional history teaching means to adopt new methods in doing research, in distributing findings and teaching regarding the increasing amount of digital written, oral and visual sources. “Great depression online” demonstrates how the usage of ePortfolio and virtual conferencing can offer intercultural learning experiences by teaching history-specific questions such as source criticism of digital documents within a blended learning setting. The aim is to teach historical online competence to prepare history students for their academic and vocational future.

“Sociology of Education Intercultural” offers students of social sciences a new, intercultural learning experience and supports them in developing online competencies within their subject. They practice using online resources and the qualitative method “interview” by using ePortfolio and virtual conferencing. An international peer-review also is offered by the use of virtual conferencing.