Using VR to break the ice in the classroom

Hello, my name is Elvira Luna and I’m a professor at Tec de Monterrey in the business school, in the strategic and management department. Today, I’m delighted to share my experiences on how to incorporate VR immersive technologies in COIL collaboration [collaborative online international learning] to enrich the student experience. COIL is all about interacting with peers from other universities and learning to collaborate remotely, and sometimes even in a different language than the native language, to achieve specific project objectives. 
 
From the idea of enriching this experience, we thought about introducing an immersive interactive tool in the form of virtual reality [VR] so students may enjoy this to the fullest. 
 
But why VR in COIL? VR is a new technology that allows students to interact, in this case with teammates from other universities, and get to know each other in a different environment. It is part of a gamification effort aimed at helping students engage, share and interact. 
 
Nowadays, conference platforms are part of our daily lives, and we thought it would be fun and different to set this type of activity on another platform. The students unfamiliar with gaming were able to learn how to interact in VR environments, extending the usage of this technology to a broader audience. Also, this is part of an effort to include different technologies in our teaching practices at Tec de Monterrey. 
 
Here are some tips to implement VR in COIL.
 
First, selecting the perfect partner. Not all partners may have the facilities or the expertise to run VR environments, but some of these resources may be run online without any special facilities. Even though the experience is not the same (they might set a different platform than usual), the important part is the will of the partner to endeavour in these types of technologies. 
 
Second, selecting the activity for implementing VR. The icebreaker for the students’ introduction is the perfect opportunity to implement VR since it is an open format for them to interact. 
 
Third, monitoring results. Feedback is of the utmost importance since it will help to learn and improve these types of experiences, especially with international collaborations. 
 
In one of our COIL collaborations, we assign an icebreaker activity using VR. We set up a stage like a stand-up platform where the students introduce themselves by mentioning their name, birthplace, major and, in this example, we selected a site called virtues project where they had to speak about the virtue they draw on and mention if they have that virtue in their lives, or if they need to work to incorporate it. 
 
In other instances, we ask them to mention their favourite place on campus and why. In the innovation class, we ask them to mention their favourite innovation in the retail industry in the last five years and how it was linked to SDGs 9 and 12. 
 
You have many options to choose from depending on the project you are collaborating on. The idea is for the students to get to know each other and their own perspectives on different issues. 

Here is an example of the setting of the VR room and the settings of each university. Students were able to experience first-hand the benefits of interacting using VR instead of just a conference platform, which enriched the experience and it was also fun. We hope this triggered new ideas on how to collaborate online. 
 
Thank you

Elvira Luna is a professor in the business school of Monterrey Institute of Technology.

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