Virtual Exchange Facilitated by Interactive, Digital, Cultural Artefacts: Communities, Languages, and Activities App (ENACT)

This chapter is based on a workshop at IVEC 2020 which presented a model of Virtual Exchange (VE) facilitated by interactive, digital, and cultural artefacts created using a progressive web app developed by the EU-funded ENACT project team. The model offers an innovative approach to online intercultural exchange through the opportunity to create, share, appropriate, and re-create cultural artefacts. Drawing on Thorne's (2016) concept of cultural artefacts, the app is designed to enable artefacts as catalysts for intercultural exchange while "artifacts and humans together create particular morphologies of action" (p. 189). The ENACT project aims to develop Open Educational Resources (OER) that will foster intergenerational and intercultural understanding within and between communities; promote opportunities for intergenerational, intercultural interaction; and offer a real-world, immersive learning experience that brings culture to life. The web app is built on the well-established H5P.org interactive media engine tailored for the creation of, and engagement with interactive digital media for task-based exchange of cultural activities promoting linguistic, digital, and intercultural communication skills development. This chapter outlines how the ENACT app can be implemented in VE at higher education to facilitate deeper, immersive, virtual intercultural exchange experiences that go beyond talking about culture and that offer hands-on cultural experiences based on learning by doing to ensure equitable experiences to all students. [For the complete volume, "Virtual Exchange: Towards Digital Equity in Internationalisation," see ED614868.]