Interpersonal competences in relationship building, collaboration and teamwork are essential both in F2F education and in distance or hybrid styles of education. In the face of the COVID-19 crisis, as well as previous trends, some or all of the higher education didactics were transferred to the online environment. In this context, the Online Collaborative Learning (OCL) model, now known as collaborativism, is gaining importance. This research aims to diagnose and compare the level of interpersonal competences and attitude in the OCL model among students preparing for the profession of an educator, pedagogue or teacher in the autonomous region of Madeira and in Poland. Quantitative studies were conducted using the Interpersonal Competence Questionnaire by D. Buhrmester, W. Furman, M.T. Wittenberg and H.T. Reis—as adapted by Poland and Portugal. In addition, the respondents expressed their views on OCL in the self-written questionnaire. According to the research findings, the highest level of competence in the Portuguese group was achieved by the respondents in terms of: Emotional Support (EW), Conflict Management and Resolution (RK) and Negative Assertion—Asserting Influence (AO). In the Polish group, EW was the lowest. The highest level of interpersonal competences was observed for Conflict Management and Resolution (RK), Disclosure (US) and Initiation (IR). The largest group of the surveyed students in both countries expressed a positive attitude towards implementing OCL in their courses of study and declared their willingness to be a member of a group that learns online together.

At the threshold of emerging parallel immersive environments and metaverse worlds, the use of social media to build interpersonal relationships is a common phenomenon. This study aimed to diagnose, describe, and compare the use of social media to build and sustain interpersonal contacts and to refer to the level of interpersonal competences among students of pedagogical courses in two selected universities in Poland and Portugal. The studies were quantitative and employed the Interpersonal Competence Questionnaire by D. Buhrmester, W. Furman, M.T. Wittenberg and H.T. Reis, as well as the author’s own questionnaire. The analyses show that social media play a major role in building interpersonal relationships for Polish and Portuguese students in areas such as establishing new contacts, maintaining offline relationships, mutual learning and self-presentation. Non-face-to-face relations may interfere with establishing contact face to face. The analyses also show that the level of interpersonal competences among the respondents in terms of the skills and readiness to provide emotional support to others is differentiated by the way and scope of social media usage in the area under consideration. It can be assumed that in the group of respondents, the more they are willing and able to provide emotional support to others, the more effective and balanced way they use social media in building interpersonal relationships.