by Zac Woolfitt, Inholland University, The Netherlands.
Reflections on an international creative student project in VR
What is it like to create connectively in Virtual Reality across international borders?
In March I joined a super cool Virtual Exchange programme. Students from Inholland in Amsterdam worked online with students from the Latvian Academy of Culture at Riga Tech. In this blog you can read about:
1 – Amsterdam-Riga VR Connecting Creative project
2 – Reflections on VR
3 – Some Pedagogical aspects of VR
4 – Some Technological aspects of VR
5 – Final reflections
1 – Amsterdam-Riga VR Connecting Creative project
Experience VR here!
Because it is hard for me to explain to you what VR is like, I suggest you watch the Video (01:45) to get an idea of what I’m talking about first. Then the rest of my story below may make more sense.
The project, ‘Connected Creativity – COIL Amsterdam-Riga 2025‘ was conceived, designed and developed by my Inholland colleague Dr. Kasia Głowicka, with input from Inholland colleague Esther Bouw. They were supported by Dr.oec. Ieva Zemīte Associate Professor at Latvian Academy of Culture and Avinash Changa founder of WeMake VR creative studio.
I participated in a ‘student’ role, and I share my observations and experiences here.
Creating across borders in VR
The Inholland students who joined were part of the Urban Leisure and Tourism Lab in Amsterdam (ULT Lab). Those from Riga Tech were following a course on creativity. The VR project explored creativity across international borders through the setting of virtual worlds.
This was an ambitious and challenging project, both technically and pedagogically. The goals were to: create across cultures, in Virtual Reality-based learning environments, to collaborate internationally, to interact through digital worlds and to establish a level of cultural empathy using technology.
Performance art, creativity and storytelling in the 4th dimension.
Over 10 days in March 2025, the two groups of students worked in five project teams to co-create a story/performance. Each group would lead all participants on a creative collaboration through different VR worlds.
We met the Riga students in a Zoom session and Inholland and Riga students were combined into groups of 6. We introduced ourselves to our group in a Zoom chatroom. We added personal background information on our team Miro board. Preparation assignments and further instructions were provided via an online course.
I was in Group 3, ‘Classroom of the Future’, and joined two students from Inholland and two from Riga. Together we developed a 7 minute storyline, to take both classes through different VR worlds. Over the next few days we refined the script.
Our story line was simple: World 1 -Traditional, boring, classroom, World 2 – Creative open world where we could co-create together in 3d VR.
5 stories in VR – the final group performance
For the final performance, all participants met in the first Virtual World. There were about 20 students in the 5 project groups (each a mix of Amsterdam and Riga), instructors from Amsterdam and Riga, and our VR guide Avinash.
Drawing flowers and butterflies together in a 3d space.
Drawing flowers and butterflies together in a creative and open space
Classroom of the future
In my project group, we led everyone through two ‘classroom’ settings in VR. First the boring classroom. Then we went to the fun classroom where we instructed all participants to ‘draw flowers in space’ using the neon crayons. Then each person added ‘butterflies’ to each other’s creations. A lot happened in a short while and before you know it, the entire 3d space was filled with neon line drawings in the air.
Co-Creating presentation in VR
We then continued the tour with the other four project groups. Below are some highlights of the VR worlds we visited and creative activities we did.
Picked up a blue guitar in the musi croom and strummed a few chords.
We carefullly arranged flowers together.
Showing our cool moves on the dance floor.
Flying helicopters together around New York.
Catching fish in a lake.
It was quite a trip.
Just checking you are still with me?
I’m not sure that I’ve been able to explain to you in a way that you can understand, what was actually going on. You’ll have to try it yourself to understand it further. Or go back and watch the video above!
Here follow my reflections on my first intensive VR project experience:
2 – Reflections on VR
All in all, it was an amazing accomplishment: 5 project groups in two countries leading each other through multiple VR worlds while co-creating in different ways.
Writing this blog: It was complicated to write this blog. So many things happen, so quickly, from so many angles, that explaining it to someone who has not been in the system, takes longer than simply experiencing it. The snapshot images in this blog are only a thousandth of the data that came via my VR glasses. Multiply this by the 20 users in our room for 2 hours. Into multiple dimensions. Then extrapolate out to what is going on.
International exchange – I talked to some of my students afterwards. They had a lot of contact outside the project with their Latvian counterparts. One told me they expected the Riga students to be very different but realised they were similar. They did co-create together. In my group I did not have so much contact with the Riga students. But I was very grateful to join my fellow learners and create a visual experience.
Ethical questions – From an ethical perspective, I have some serious concerns about VR. To use the headset, I had to give Meta and Mark Zuckerberg permission to track my eye and head movements, along with my location and other information. I find it confronting that all of the information is being sucked up to go into the next algorithm. Who knows how that will be used to profile me (or others) in the future? For this single reason, I don’t intend to spend much more time in Meta’s VR worlds.
Energy use – I can’t even begin to imagine how much energy is being consumed during this process. The computing power to livestream 20 participants in 3d, with sound, movement, avatars, gravity, and more, must be enormous. I live in the Netherlands where there is a continuing discussion about large-scale, power-generating windmills, on land and at sea. They kill birds, make noise, and blight the landscape. We know we need them and they they generate ‘green’ electricity.
All our technology requires space on servers to store images, data, files and back-ups of back-ups and to run VR. Enormous facilities are built to store servers and the businesses running them proudly announce they are using ‘green energy’. The vast heat generated is continually cooled by local water supplies… OK, you get the point.
So should we be using all that energy to play in VR?
Over-sexualized avatars: It is also quite weird and distracting to be surrounded by multiple anime style figures who are actually your students in the real world. Many of them have totally distorted and unrealistic body shapes (Barbie+) or fish with pyjamas. In the VR world, it seems to be considered totally normal. To me, it’s quite strange, distracting and not very natural. For VR in an educational context, I would address this more directly and make sure that everyone adopted normal avatars. Afterwards I asked a student which was her avatar. She said, ‘I was almost naked. I kept trying to put clothes on my avatar but could not figure it out.’ Suggestion– make all default avatars normal to begin with. Then, if the user wishes to adjust, they can!
The darker side of VR – Take a moment to think how crazy some of the VR worlds might be. By mistake, I stumbled into the wrong VR chat room, something about ‘Black Cat’. I entered the lobby, and overheard a crowd discussing in English certain aspects of race identity. The conversation was quite negative and disturbing. That was only one glimpse I had. Everything that is said and done in these spaces translates to data for Mr. Zuckerberg. Knowing his track record on ethical issues the last 20 years, I’m not too hopeful on where this will lead (I’m not particularly neutral on this subject, see my book review 2019).
Attention Economy – 100% Jackpot – And where is your head in all of this? Locked inside a headset. In the attention economy, the aim of every business is to grab each millisecond of our attention, to sell us products and services. It’s a bit scary to think of what happens when you spend hour after hour with a headset on your head. With a screen a few centimeters from your eyes. Mark must be laughing all the way to the digital bank. Ker-ching! In the VR worlds I saw offers from advertisers to sell various products. The ability to upgrade, to fly, or have more advance VR moves (rolling, sprinting, moving smoothly, etc). First capture your audience’s attention, 100%, then sell them whatever you can.
Humanness and Health – Sitting in an enclosed room, with a screen a couple of centimeters from your eyes, for hours on end, can’t be good for you! It can’t be good for humanity. Since the VR worlds, systems and equipment are controlled by ‘you-know-who’, I don’t see a long-term positive outcome if only a few players dominate. Even though it super cool. So I’ll most definitely be handling this technology very carefully in the future.
So quite somethings to think about. But I’m very grateful I’ve been ‘in it’ and had the chance to experience it.
3 – Some Pedagogical aspects of VR
Clear instructsion from WeMakeVR: My compliments to our instructor Avinash. He was hired in for the project and led us through each of the steps for creating accounts, getting into the VR worlds, and functionality. Step by step, he patiently explained to each user who was having problems. I never thought we’d get there, but we did.
Pedagogy – In my experience as a teacher, the most valuable tool I have is the opportunity to read non-verbal communication of those learning, to look them in the eye, to engage. That’s out of the question in VR. You can wave to each other, but you’ve got no context of where they are, how they are sitting. We’ve gone through this discussion during Corona with Zoom and online classes. Now we’ve returned to the physical classroom we know how important it when we are in the same physical space, and to have insight into the state that the learners are in. I suppose I’d have to experiment with giving classes in VR before I can comment further.
I’ve highlighted 4 pedagogical spaces for this VR project.
Pedagogy 1 – The real world, classroom sessions
Pedagogy 2: Physical/Virtual – collecting and learning to use your VR headset
Pedagogy 3: Online – Instruction from Avinash via Zoom before going into VR
Pedagogy 4: VR Avatar teacher – Instruction from Avinash, in the VR world, from an avatar.
Each of these pedagogical approaches operate with their own requirements and combining them in one project was certainly ambitious. I won’t go into the ‘affordances’ of each pedagogy here, but may touch on that at a later stage.
It’s very intense and quite overwhelming. For the final session, I was in VR for 2.5 hours . That’s a long time. It took me an hour sitting in the daylight in my garden to get back to some kind of balance. As I type this, I still feel parts of my balance or vision are somehow out of sync and it feels a bit weird. There are settings you can change and tricks to be less disorientated. And with each hour you spend in VR these symptoms can be reduced.
Experience – I felt sick the first time. But after a few goes, I had less nausea. It took me a while to understood the controls better, and I felt less insecure in the later sessions. Concerns include wondering if your headset will run out of battery, or your internet will freeze, and being ‘left behind’ in a strange virtual world, not being able to find your group. That in itself is quite stressful. But once you figure out how to send a message to someone to invite you into the world where your group currently is, then you can always catch up if your headset freeze. That happened to me a couple of times. Luckily the group was ‘waiting’ for everyone to be in the new world before we moved on.
4 – Some Technological aspects of VR
There are many aspects of the technology I could go into in more detail. But for now, I would highlight a few points.
Technical accomplishment – Firstly, my compliments to my colleagues Kasia and Esther from Inholland, from Riga colleagues, and Avinash from We Make VR. It was a supremely ambitious project and experiment, and they pulled it off. Getting students from Amsterdam and Riga to collaborate on creative storytelling in VR. At one point I did not think it would be possible with all the technological steps, log-ins, permissions, handsets and more. But with the good preparation of the instructors, and calm guidance from Avinash (our VR guide), we made it through.
VR sets and log-ins: Getting everything up and running is complicated. Includes getting the headset, making sure its charged, fitting it to your head (with glasses, I’ve got my normal glasses far sighted with a near sighted prism), then my computer screen glasses. If the headband is not exactly correct and my glasses are not aligned with the screen it is not in focus. When you take the headset off, you are quite disorientated, I need to change glasses, and I’ve got a whole bunch of stuff on my desk with multiple channels open. For this project, the VR sets were hired in from an external company. However, due to the strict log-in rules of our university, we could only access the VR from our home network. That meant we could take them home but was not ideal for the training session.
VR terminology is off the deep-end – The terminology gets out of hand quickly ‘Dropping a portal’, ‘Re-spawning’ ‘XY AB buttons’ ‘VRchat settings’… ‘Virtual World audio control settings’. But after you’ve been ‘in VR’ for a while, it starts to make sense.
5 – Final reflections
Its complex to write about VR
This was one the most complex blog I’ve ever written. So much goes on, and there are so many levels of activity. Particularly if you try to explain it to someone who has not experienced it. Let me know what you think.
For the purpose of brevity, and readability, I’ve left out many details. If you want to know more, or discuss things further, get in touch.
Thank you for reading this far
Thanks to students from Inholland and Riga, and to Kasia, Esther, Avinash, and Riga colleagues.
Thank you for reading this far.
Comments, suggestions, or corrections, please contact me directly at zac.woolfitt@inholland.nl.
Author
Zac Woolfitt, lecturer and researcher, Inholland University in the Netherlands
Editor’s note: This article appeared first on Zac’s blog which you can check-out here.
