Photo: EdTech Hackathon Release.

The undergraduate student in English Language and Literature  at UFSC, Vitor Pluceno Behnck, was part of the award-winning team of the first edition of German-Brazilian EdTech Hackathon – Digital Education, which took place between 22 and 24 August at the Goethe-Institut, in Sao Paulo. The event gathered  German mentors and organizers with skilled hackers from all over Brazil.

The project created by the team is called Tech_Ia and proposes the development of an application for teaching music in an accessible manner. In addition to Behnck, the team was composed by professors and students from several institutions: Igor Borges, from the Universidade Estadual de Campinas; Priscilla Prueter, from the Universidade Federal do Paraná; Johanna Kirchner, from the Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná; Alice Xavier, from the Universidade Federal de Itajubá; and Igor Niemeyer, from the Universidade Federal de Lavras.

“Tech_Ia is an educational solution to introduce music education, especially for children. It is a project of a website that has challenges and teaches you the basics of music notation and rhythm, step by step. In addition, there is the possibility of using a low-cost keyboard that we developed”, explains Behnck.

The event aimed to promote debate on news and experiences with digital transformation in teaching at universities and schools. It was organized by the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster (WWU), by the start-up re:edu, by the Society for Academic Study Preparation and Test Development (g.a.s.t.), by the Technische Universität München (TUM), Freie Universität Berlin (FU Berlin), and by the Goethe-Institut São Paulo, in addition to the collaboration of the German Center for Research and Innovation in São Paulo (DWIH-SP).

The 29 participants proposed technological solutions to current challenges in digital education. During three days, they carried out activities such as workshops, lectures, pizza dinner, hacking sections, project pitching sections, evaluation by the jury, and an award winning ceremony on the last day of the event.  The winners received a certificate and an invitation to participate in the German-Brazilian Innovation and Sustainability Congress, organized by the German-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which will be held on 29 and 30 September, in São Paulo.

According to Behnck, the Hackathon was an enriching experience. “I was able to see my field of study intersecting with several others, which was very important for me since I am enrolled in the last semester of the program. I recommend everyone to follow SINTER’s website and social media to get to know the opportunities beyond the university walls, which was what I did”, he affirms.

Click here to go to the UFSC International Opportunities page.

The Institutional Center for Languages and Translation (NILT) offers the course “La carta de motivación en Español” [The motivation letter in Spanish]. The aim is to guide participants on how to prepare a motivation letter in Spanish to apply for academic mobility programs. The course will cover the following topics: analysis and identification of the parts of a motivation letter; formality and informality; forms of address; greeting and farewell formulas in Spanish; selection and organization of information relevant to the letter; lexicon and appropriate contents.

• Course type: online, through Moodle Groups.

• Period: from 14 September to 7 October.

• Time: synchronous classes will take place on Wednesdays, from 3 to 5 pm, and the asynchronous activities on Fridays.

• Registrations: from 24 August to 12 September, through the link http://inscricoes.ufsc.br/carta-motivacao-espanhol-nilt.

• Note: materials, classes and activities will be in Spanish. Thus, the participants must have reading and writing proficiency in Spanish.

• If you have any questions, please contact espanhol.nilt@gmail.com.

Welcome to the French Conversation Group! If you are interested in news related to the francophone world and its different cultural aspects, this discussion group is for you. In weekly meetings, we will discuss and work together on several themes associated with the francophone culture. Thus, you will be able to practice your French while learning how to structure your arguments during a debate. The meeting will be in table ronde [round table] format, in which everyone will have to defend their arguments to strengthen their critical thinking and train their debating skills in French.

Course objective: This course aims at engaging the students, offering them the possibility of giving their opinions in French about subjects pre-defined by the teacher or by the participating students.

DATES: every THURSDAY from 10 to 11:30 pm. The meetings will be held in-person,  in the Institutional Center for Languages and Translation (NILT), Rectorate Building II (Av. Desembargador Vitor Lima, no. 222)

Start date: 5 September 2022.

Register here until 2 September.

The Office of International Relations (SINTER) held a Welcome Session, on 22 August, for international students arriving at UFSC for the second semester of 2022. The session took place at the Rectorate Building Auditorium, on the Trindade Campus, in Florianópolis. The event aimed to broaden the reception to the entire international student community at UFSC. Thus, in addition to the exchange students, the event was also targeted at all degree-seeking international students on campus.

From left to right: Prof. Dilceane Carraro, Prof. Irineu Manoel de Souza, Prof. Joana Célia dos Passos and Fernanda Leal.

UFSC community gathered at the Rectorate Building Auditorium to welcome international students.

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What is francophony? How far does the French language go? What are the different university models? These are the issues we will try to tackle in this course, establishing our first contact with this multi-faceted culture.

The classes are targeted at students, faculty members and administrative staff interested in undertaking mobility in one of the French-speaking countries. The aim of the course is for participants to broaden their knowledge of the French language and become familiar with the francophone university education system. Registrations are open until 2 September 2022.

Level required: B1

Total hours: 8 hours

Two groups will be offered:

• Morning period: Mondays and Tuesdays, from 10 am to 11:30 am. Classes on 5, 6, 12 and 13 September. Register here.
• Afternoon period: Wednesdays and Thursdays, from 2 pm to 3:30 pm. Classes on 7, 8, 14 and 15 September. Register here.

Course description by Prof. Clarissa Oliveira: Ce module se déroulera en deux temps. Pour commencer une partie plus culturelle, où je vous présenterais la francophonie en général, pour ensuite me concentrer sur les spécificités reliées à la Belgique, le Canada et la France. Évoquer les stéréotypes reliés à ces pays, pour pouvoir à terme en faire une description la plus authentique possible. La deuxième partie du module, dans la continuité de la présentation de la Francophonie, va être concentré sur la présentation des différents modèles universitaires francophone. Nous nous concentrerons plus spécifiquement sur le système universitaire Belge, Français et Canadien, qui sont les plus demandés par les étudiants étrangers.

The Director of International Relations at UFSC, Fernanda Leal, is one of the collaborators of the book “Decolonizing the Internationalization of Higher Education in the Global South: Applying Principles of Critical Applied Linguistics to Processes of Internationalization”, accepted for publication by Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group. The book, which is organized by Kleber Silva (UnB) and Lauro Pereira (UnB), will be part of the Routledge Research in Decolonizing Education series. The chapter signed by the director is entitled “Confronting colonial imaginaries: The limits of the Eurocentric critique to internationalization of higher education and the possibilities of decolonial inflection” and presents a decolonial perspective for the study of internationalization of higher education.

On Monday, 22 August 2022, SINTER´s Office will be closed between 2 and 4 p.m. due to the International Students Welcome Session  – 2022.2.

The Welcome Session will be held at the Rectorate Building Auditorium, Trindade Campus, Florianópolis. To learn more about the event, click here.