On April 23rd, 2021 the VALEU-X project held the E-Tutor Qualification Kick-off Meeting addressed to students and academic staff from the Albanian partner universities.

On the one hand, the aim of this training is to qualify students to become E-Tutors and virtual community managers with a deep understanding of the dynamics and facilitation of technology-mediated teamwork for effective virtual collaboration in communities of inquiry (students) and communities of practice (professionals). This meets the need of this target group for modern qualification on technology-enhanced learning and working and grant them technology, media, management, and leadership competencies they need for study and professional success in the global economy.

On the other hand, the training aims to allow members of international offices at Albanian HEIs to adopt and recognise Virtual/Blended Mobility as an element of Internationalisation at Home for their institutions. This addresses the need of this target group by providing it with flexible instruments to extend their international offer for Albanian students and academics and increase international visibility and attractiveness of Albanian HEIs for European and international students and academics.

After a welcoming speech from Prof. Dr. Eric Schoop from Technische Universität Dresden, participants were then introduced to the course supervisors, VCL concept and task forces. A special attention was paid to the overview of qualification topics and schedule which was followed by a thorough explanation of working environment on the virtual platform.

After the kick-off event, participants will attend more workshops and self-study assignments in between. The flipped classroom format will allow students to access e-lectures and learn self-paced their contents. Self-evaluation tests will be used to test the acquired knowledge.

In brief, VALEU-X Project works tenaciously to assure know-how transfer for an adequate and effective use of Virtual Collaborative Learning (VCL) pedagogical method. Another step forward in this direction has been taken.