On 9 April, from 6 to 7.30pm, the grand finale of the five-week edition of the Intercultural Virtual Societal Challenge took place in the virtual world of the University of Rennes 2. All our partners, as well as the students who took part in the challenge, their mentors and their teamchers, were invited to attend.
In partnership with the University's AIR project, second-year students from Rennes 2’s Language Didactics’ Master’s degree, created a brand new room on our augmented reality campus to showcase the videos created by IVSC participants.
The Virtual Room
The room had three main areas: a jitsi area where we met for the welcome and closing speeches, and two separate rooms for viewing the students' final productions - one for productions in French and one for productions in English.
Armed with their customisable avatars, all the guests were free to wander around this virtual space created to encourage intercultural interactions and re-watch their favourite videos, vote for their preferred projects or simply chat amongst themselves, either one-to-one or in small groups.
The participants
Two 5-week embedded versions of the IVSC were supervised by the University of Rennes 2 this semester, one in French, with 6 teams competing, and one in English, with 4 teams.
The French mixed teams were made up of students from:
- The University Complutense of Madrid
- The University Mateja Bela in Slovakia
- The University of Rhode Island, USA
- Saint George’s School, Rhode Island, USA
- the CIREFE, Rennes 2, France
The English mixed teams were comprised of students from:
- The University Joseph Ki-Zerbo in Burkina Faso
- The University Complutense of Madrid
- The University Mateja Bela in Slovakia
- The University Rennes 2, France
The participants were guided by teamchers from both the University Complutense and the University of Rennes 2 with the help of our mentors, who were 2nd year masters’ students from the University of Rennes 2.
A quick reminder: the IVSC
Our mixed teams, made up of students from our different partner universities, had to work together on choosing a theme (environment, race or gender) and imagining a project aimed at bettering the life of their campus. The project they came up with had to be translated into a three-minute video in which they explained the ins and outs of said project. The following videos were available in our virtual rooms:
For the English teams
- Group 1: Eco-brick, Protected environment = Healthy life
- Group 2: Inclusy, Underrepresentation of students of color at the faculties of UCM
- Group 3: Mind Changer, From bias to balance
- Group 4: From Awareness to Action
For the French Teams
- Group 1: Les Dragon Verts
- Group 2: Lights off for a brighter future!
- Group 3: Vert pour le changement
- Group 4: Oasis Verte, Respirer librement
- Group 5: “Sensitize”
- Group 6: Promesse Végétale
The course of the event
After a welcome speech, a few key pieces of information about the Virtual World were given, followed by a comprehensive tutorial on how to navigate the room. Next, an ice-breaker created by Marion Morvan, who worked with us on the creation of the event, allowed the participants to get to know each other by discussing areas for improvement at their university in groups of 3 or 4.
Then, for the main event, everybody was invited to wander around the room and watch the ten videos submitted by our participants. In each room, a whiteboard linked to a digipad (in French and in English) allowed the attendees to rate the projects and interact with them by commenting the videos. The interactions and votes were then counted at cut-off time so that we could announce the two winning teams.
We met again at around 7:20 in the jitsi space to reflect on the project and to welcome any questions the attendees might have following the viewing. The two winning teams were announced, and the event ended on final word and a final thank you, during which everyone was invited to answer a very brief questionnaire about the final.
The Winners!
The votes were counted on the digipad at the end of the viewing tour. The results were extremely close, once again highlighting the quality of the investment and ideas of our participants. However, the two winning teams, in terms of votes and engagement on the videos, are (drumroll please):
For the French edition: Promesse végétale:
For the English edition: From Awareness to Action
Congratulations once again to our winners!
Reflecting on the event
Overall, the Rennes2 team is extremely happy with the way the event turned out. Despite the time differences, almost 120 participants and partners from all over the world turned up, including a good number of teamchers, mentors and students who came to reap the rewards of their work. The feedback on our participants' videos and projects has been extremely positive, and the digipads have enabled everyone to suggest ways of developing and improving the exciting projects that were presented to us. The use of this innovative platform was seen as a positive contribution to the IVSC experience by an overwhelming majority of guests. The virtual room encouraged interaction and made it easier to immerse oneself in the IVSC final.
Although getting to grips with the platform requires a little practice, particularly for guests who are not used to digital environments, the open access to the room (via a link that doesn't require login credentials) and the tutorial provided have left no one excluded from the experience. Nevertheless, with the idea of extending this final event to other editions of IVSC, we are now working on improving the room's functionality for future versions. We’re looking forward to making it even easier to navigate, and to improving time management in order to leave more room for the heart of the event, i.e. video viewing itself and the Q&A section.
Thank you!
The Rennes2 team wanted to end this blog post with another big thank you to everyone who has been a part of this IVSC journey. Your contributions, whether as students, teamchers, mentors, partners, or curious observer of the project, have made the IVSC final a truly memorable occasion. We were incredibly grateful to have been able to showcase the high-quality productions of our participants and to have so many people join us for this evening filled with creativity, collaboration, and global connections which, once again, highlighted the importance of project-based learning and international cooperation in education.
If you would like to access the Genially summary of the event, a tutorial for the virtual world, a presentation of the teams, the YouTube channels for this year's and last year's editions, or if you want to find out more about the Espace des Langues, the AIR and the TRIP project, click on the following link: https://view.genial.ly/6613b8020575ed00147eb8c1/presentation-panneau-info-9-avril
Madelyn Lines