Educational Innovation in Times of Crisis: Learner Voices from the Albany-Caracas COIL Exchange

In the digital era, where everything seems to move at the speed of light, unfortunately certain regions and countries are limited by economic, political, social, or cultural circumstances, as is the case for Venezuela. New technologies are particularly fundamental in the educational field, and every day Venezuelan students need to deal with the second worst Internet in the world (according to a study conducted by Speedtest in 2019), sporadic blackouts, a hyperinflation that makes almost impossible to upgrade equipment, and all the stress and trauma that come along. Despite these challenges, at the Andrés Bello Catholic University (UCAB), ranked number one in the country, a class of communications students were assigned a crucial task: take a joint 100% online Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) program with students from the State University of New York (SUNY) located in Albany, United States. The final product was a meta-documentary, while the real outcome was an enriching cross-cultural experience. This chapter complements Jiménez and Kressner's (this volume) chapter, and presents the learner voice from UCAB. [For Jiménez and Kressner's chapter, "Building Empathy through a Comparative Study of Popular Cultures in Caracas, Venezuela, and Albany, United States," see ED615964. For the complete volume, "Virtual Exchange: Towards Digital Equity in Internationalisation," see ED614868.]