The Online Abroad Initiative presents an innovative solution that dramatically expands student access to high-impact international experiences. By sending an online facilitator into the field with mobile web conferencing tools, this program allows students to actively participate in live study abroad activities from home or on campus.
Impact: Through three pilot programs, 39 students have now gained an international learning experience that previously had not been available to them. Evaluation studies of two of the pilot programs showed that students and faculty found value in the online model (Howard & Gunter, 2017; Howard, Perrotte, Lee, & Frisone, 2017).
Global Health Course Online Abroad in Brazil from Video@CDL on Vimeo.
Study Abroad Gear from Wendy on Vimeo.
Internationalize your curriculum with web conferencing from Wendy on Vimeo.
Resources: Through these online abroad programs came an opportunity to create and share digital open educational resources (OER). Photos and videos taken by the students, faculty, and the online facilitator have been curated into digital repositories on UCF STARS with a Creative Commons license.
Project Lead: Dr. Wendy Howard