Department of Italian embarks on E-Learning EU Project
The Department of Italian has recently embarked on an EU e-learning project with the Universities of Barcellona, Warsaw, Pecs and Perugia. The coordinating body is ICON [Italian Culture on the Net – University of Pisa]. The Department has been entrusted to produce modules on-line on Italo-Maltese comparative literature and the teaching of Italian through literature. The project leader is Prof. Joseph Eynaud, Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Arts helped by junior researchers, Dr Sandro Caruana and Dr Sergio Portelli. The project ELLEU - E-learning per le Lingue e le Letterature Europee , aims to:
- study an organizational model for the teaching of Italian language, literature and culture abroad within the European Union. This model will integrate e-learning into traditional teaching methods in a perspective of international co-operation
- strengthen the existing bilateral Erasmus/Socrates exchange agreements endowing them with an e-learning dimension, thus transforming them into open multilateral relations of virtual mobility
- develop a joint curriculum of Italian Language and Culture among Italian and foreign Universities leading to the international recognition of University credits and Academic qualifications of I and II level.
- support this curriculum with e-learning methodologies and technologies, starting from the experience of ICoN, a Consortium of 23 Italian Universities that issues on their behalf an online Degree Course in Italian Language and Culture for Foreigners
- jointly plan and produce online teaching materials in the field of Italian Studies with particular focus on the relations between Italian and Hungarian, Polish, Spanish, Catalan and Maltese culture, stressing the European added value inherent in the comparatist approach
- test teaching interactions both asynchronous and synchronous between teachers and students belonging to all partner universities, using the ICoN platform, the learning materials produced on purpose, and the online resources for the study of Italian language and Culture that ICoN already has.
- evaluate the results of the project and make them available not only to other Italian and foreign Universities involved in the study of Italian Language and Literature, but especially to other University Systems in order to promote of the study of other national languages and cultures within the European Union
- disseminate a model that can be extremely useful for the languages less strong in the international “language market” - such as the languages of the new member countries of the EU, thus helping to defend plurilingualism and pluriculturalism in Europe.
Addressees of the project are both teachers and students.
The project aims at spreading e-learning culture among teachers thus enabling them to plan and produce teaching courses and materials and to manage a blended presence and distance teaching activity in a co-operation framework of physical and virtual international mobility. Teachers will be given the possibility to benefit from the experience of the ICoN staff.
The project also aims at actively involving students in the distance teaching activity integrated with the presence teaching activity and into the evaluation of the experience. Maltese students can register free of charge for the modules offered on line as from the next academic year 2005-2006.