We sure love our acronyms at FITS HQ. If we’re not talking about D2L (our LMS), or DOTS, or MoLI, or our CRM, we come up with emoji to get our messages across.

My FITS colleague Jan Costenbader and I recently discovered another acronym with a much wider reach, a global reach, if you will. Globally Networked Learning Environments (GNLE). GNLEs are online learning settings in which students from far-flung countries convene as classmates to learn about the topic at hand in addition to exploring one another’s cultures.

Imagine, if you will , two undergraduate screenwriting courses: one based in the US, the other based in Ghana. The script is co-written by Ghanaian and American students, but the main reel is shot in Ghana on mobile devices. The b-roll is shot in the US, also on mobile devices. The raw files are uploaded to a cloud-based open-source video editor. One student from Ghana and one student from the US form the editing team.

The results are electrifying.

What was once a budgetary and logistical impossibility is now a truly bicultural production. And, in the making, students have learned how to co-write a screenplay, shoot video according to each other’s specs, communicate with stakeholders in another country, and work through all of the associated challenges together. In the process, they have not only learned about another culture, but they have also become more objective about their own cultures.

Jan and I just returned from the Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) conference at the SUNY Global Center in Manhattan. Organized by COIL director Jon Rubin, it the most substantive and inspiring ed tech conference I have ever attended. (I’m probably not alone in saying that. Jon received a very enthusiastic standing ovation at the closing session.) The entire conference focused on the development and implementation of GNLEs.

Simple stuff, right? No sir.

Wanna get your hands dirty? Try designing a collaborative online learning module with the following constraints in place:

• fourteen-hour time difference between students
• active, political unrest between the countries
• neither group is fluent in the other’s native tongue
• online access is limited to one computer in one classroom at one of the universities
• plagiarizing text from an online resource is acceptable to one professor, but not to the other

As an instructional designer and “citizen of the world,” I cannot think of a more complex and compelling space wherein to roll up my sleeves and help build bridges. Isn’t that the core of what we do as instructional designers?

Instructors—–Technology
Instructors—–Students
Students—–Students
Course content—–Students
Course content—–Technology
?Culture——Culture?

Student feedback on GNLEs has been highly positive. Keep in mind: not all students can manage or afford to spend a semester or a year abroad. Quite the contrary: only 1 percent of college students in the United States study abroad each year. There persists an enormous divide between those with passports and those without. There is no doubt, however, that all students can gain a great deal from virtual and curated interactions with students from distant lands.

What’s more, it has been proposed that students may experience more impact and better outcomes from a GNLE than a semester-long immersion experience .

Of course, the GNLE would not, and cannot, host the same sensory impact one experiences in a new locale. I don’t expect an online module about gelato would be as tasty or enriching as the real thing in Florence. Study abroad programs will continue to flourish and grow. But, they can be further fortified by GNLEs.

Imagine spending your freshman and sophomore years studying Japanese language and culture with your peer group in Japan. Come junior year, when you set out for Tokyo, you already have a group of people waiting to meet you face to face, and your understanding of manga is far deeper than any two-week study abroad prep course could have provided you.

In sum, think of all of the challenges and benefits of online learning, and raise them by a power of ten. Your result is a GNLE.

What’s in it for faculty, you ask? Not to be coy, but for some instructors, it may seem to be too large of a project to tackle. But, assuming the college or university leadership is in favor of curricular internationalization, GNLE integration could lead to faculty advancement, tenure opportunities, travel opportunities, and more. If GNLEs interest you in a meaningful way, explore your ideas with your department chair, review your university’s mission and vision statement, and connect dots where you are able.

At DePaul we have begun to explore GNLEs. Partnerships with universities in India, China, Turkey, England, and Mexico have already borne fruit, as it were. Word is spreading, and members of FITS are developing a program to prepare DePaul faculty to harness both technology and pedagogy to collaborate online internationally. If you are a DePaul faculty member interested in collaborating with a faculty member overseas, please contact fits@depaul.edu and we will happily connect some dots for you.