Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) - A self-experiment

As part of the MA in Technical Communication & E-Learning I was given the opportunity to take part in a Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) project, run in cooperation by the University of Limerick and Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway. Apart from an initial orientation meeting in Microsoft Teams, the project took place entirely in Oslomet's virtual campus built in OpenSim VR. Oslomet have built an entire virtual university consisting of classrooms, conference rooms and lecture theatres which can be accessed using the Firestorm VR software.

Neil's avatar and the virtual presentation. Source: Author's own screenshot from OsloMet virtual world.

The purpose of a COIL project is to give students a virtual exchange experience, allowing them to meet with other students from foreign countries and develop intercultural skills without ever having to leave the comfort of their own homes. COIL projects can be on any subject and don't have to take place in a virtual world. Oslomet have however a lot of experience using virtual worlds for diverse subjects like sign language and interpreting so it was a great opportunity to experiment with the technology.

In our COIL project, a group of about twenty students (four from Limerick and the rest from Oslo) discussed the future of education and how we imagined technology-enhanced education would develop in the next five to ten years. Following the initial introduction meeting with our lecturers, we meet alone in Teams to discuss our ideas. After brainstorming possible topics, we then divided ourselves into groups of two or three to produce a slide on our chosen theme. The international aspect of COIL was emphasized by the fact that I could attend a meeting while on holiday in Scotland, and my Norwegian partner attended one meeting while visiting family in Turkey. Once we were happy with our slides, we submitted them to be uploaded into the virtual world and then met the day before our big presentation to practice.

As far as the international element is concerned, working with the Norwegian students was a pleasure. Having shared a flat with some Norwegians as an undergraduate, I knew that our partners' English would be excellent, and it was. Only one hour of time difference between Ireland and Norway also made it very easy to arrange meetings. The Norwegian students also seemed to be well-organised and focussed on getting the most out of the project. This might also have been due to the fact that most of them were mature students who already had experience working in the real world.

The technology itself was a little bit more complicated. Going by the huge array of menu items and controls, Firestorm is obviously a very powerful tool with lots of possibilities. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to master anything else beyond basic movement and chatting. The way that the software handles PowerPoint presentations also meant that they were shown purely as individual still images, and it wasn't possible to include animations or other effects. When we gave our final presentation, we also had a problem with the audio and couldn't be heard or hear what the other group was saying. This led to them (thankfully for us) repeating their presentation.

As a virtual experience, I did still feel a bit disconnected from the experience and not immersed in it. Perhaps this was because I was still getting used to the controls and the environment. I think if I had been using it from a first-person perspective with a virtual reality headset, the feeling of actually being there would have been more convincing. Watching the presentations on a smaller board within a virtual environment was also not as satisfying as watching them full-screen like in a typical video conferencing tool. I also didn't have the feeling that the presenter was really addressing me directly because it is difficult to arrange the avatars and camera so that you can face the audience but also still view your own slide. Perhaps future versions of the software can improve on that.

Despite these criticisms, participating in the COIL project was an interesting and rewarding experience. I can definitely see potential for the technology and meeting other students was very interesting too. I hope the project continues, and other students get to learn collaboratively online too.