Blogging with the Facebook generation : studying abroad with Gen Y

Web 2.0 technologies create opportunities for distance learning with particular promise for students while they are on international exchange. The current generation of students departing for study abroad is electronically literate or 'digital natives', who have thoroughly integrated internet and communication technologies into their daily lives. But their modes of interacting may not be adequate to really gain all that they might learn through study abroad. Many international exchange programs, at the same time, have not kept pace and are missing significant opportunities to reinforce intercultural learning while students are sojourning abroad. This paper reports on qualitative and strategic findings from the project 'Bringing the Learning Home,' an Australian Learning and Teaching Council funded pilot project to develop reflection-based curriculum for improving study abroad outcomes. In particular, we discuss qualitative findings from in-country blogging and re-entry workshops using photo elicitation, reflection-based learning, and meta-cognitive teaching strategies, with intercultural skills and professionalization as primary goals. Perhaps most importantly, we found that online tools and visual literacy, with adept instruction and practice, could produce a virtual 'third space' where students could better reflect on cultural differences, sharpen their own intercultural skills, and gain the metacognitive skills necessary to become life-long learners from experience.