While technological advances such as Virtual Reality (VR) can assist educators in the classroom, ensuring that the pedagogical underpinning informs the design of learning activities is of the essence. (Stockwell, 2019) Even though VR allows users to see and interact with virtual environments providing a sense of presence (Allcoat & von Mühlenen, 2018; Steffen et al, 2019) that presence needs to translate into active learning. Furthermore, it is important to consider the affordances of VR (Minocha et al. 2017) so that it will aid students in the acquisition of intercultural literacy. For this study, the researchers will utilize VR to construct a Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) course in which students in Japan and the US will need to evaluate the complex concept of harmony (wa 和) and its prevalence in Japanese culture virtually visiting two Japanese gardens, one in Tokyo, and one in Florida. In this hands-on interactive workshop, while the researchers will demonstrate how they have successfully created and implemented virtual exchange collaborations, utilizing VR to contribute to students’ acquisition of intercultural literacy, the participants will contribute and exchange ideas by developing active learning activities with VR for their classrooms.