CHAPTER 12: Connecting University Students from Israel and Germany

This chapter describes a collaboration project between graduate students from Israel and Germany which used mobile devices such as laptops, tablets, and mobile phones to work together. The chapter reports on the advantages and challenges that evolved during the online collaboration and shares lessons learned. The online cooperation between the two university campuses in Tel Aviv and Kassel took place in two cycles in the winter terms of 2013/2014 and 2014/2015. Over each of the two study cycles, diverse student groups were formed on each occasion. Each group consisted of three students from the campus in Tel Aviv and three from Kassel. All students on the Tel Aviv campus were enrolled in a technologyin-education program. The majority of the students on the Kassel campus were enrolled in teacher-education programs, some in an English and American language and business program preparing them for the workplace. Specific online environments were created to allow the groups productive and creative work on the topic of distance learning. The highlight of the online cooperation was a video conference which was held at the end of the project. English was used as a lingua franca to allow group communication.