Oh, the memories. No matter how old you are, there are certain movies, books, video-games, and songs, that we spent so much time on as kids, and as a return, they chose to stay forever in our hearts, tickling our stomachs with sweet melancholy, every time we allow our adult brain to wander back in time, through the years of innocence. Among other concepts that impressed us, it was the perception of the Future World in the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s pop culture that got us hooked up for good. Our imagination galloped wild, with futuristic cities, flying cars, unimaginable technologies and neon lights leading to nowhere; and of course, Virtual Reality.
Literally hundreds and thousands of takes on the concept of a person living in a different world through their top-notch, grandiose glasses. Action heroes training on enemy territory, citizens of a burnt-out world digitally experiencing the glory of the long gone, green-blue ball, even people using it as a sort of entertainment. And we sat there, with a young, burning heart of what’s to follow, be lived and experienced in a few years’ time, when all this is to become reality, as promised from our innocent minds.
Breaking news everybody. Decades later, no flying cars, no aliens (yet!), no wasteland to roam with your extravagant, modified track. Something has been left out of the ‘not yet’ list though; Virtual Reality. Because it might be the only ‘future from the past’ concept that we have seen bits and bytes of through the years, but never something as completed and focused as now.
Virtual Reality and its practices make an impressive, 90’s-action-movie-hero entrance, stating loud and clear that the future in education, is present.
Look and Learn
Innovation in education is always a concept experts push themselves to move forward on and effectively, achieve. In simple words, how will the educational practices become fresh, non-boresome for learners, highly efficient, and ultimately, creative. Virtual Reality has arrived, including all the above mentioned words and concepts, and many, many more.
Imagine a Medical School student being able to witness a step-by-step medical procedure, pause it or rewind it, even intervene on the process, or a student of Mechanical Engineering with the ability to tamper with a complicated machine, in order to understand its aspects. The traditional ways of learning are not to be abolished certainly, but rather improve, by co-existing along with ground-breaking methods and tools that the Creative Teaching : Virtual Reality (CT : VR) project brings to the world of education. Practices that traditionally drive students crazy and are possibly not productive, according to modern day education, shall be shifted or dropped, giving their place to innovative methodologies. We might be living in the present, but adult education marches light years ahead.
Focusing Ahead
It is easily understood that adult education institutions have a drastic impact on the future of adults. Even though technology has altered our societies on every level, education has yet to fully embrace its tools. The covid crisis came to expose these weaknesses, creating the urgent need of digital tools implementation throughout the Curriculum.
CT:VR aims to create revolutionary and innovative teaching and learning practices by implementing VR classrooms in the adult educational process. Through its activities, adult educators shall be trained on how to implement VR classrooms in the educational process, thus creating an innovative and inclusive educational system, which will not only be creative by its nature, but also tackle the weaknesses that emerged on the distant education procedures during Covid.
The Results of Creative Teaching : Virtual Reality
- Research of VR tools and methodologies in adult education
An in-depth research of comprehensive materials, tools and best practices from the field of virtual and/or augmented reality in education. The research will lead to an overall report, based on National reports issued by the project partners, in order to present VR/AR tools and innovative methods that can be applied in adult education.
- CT : VR Curricula
The CT:VR Curricula will be digitally published, and it will consist of a list of procedures and methodologies regarding VR implementation on 3 levels:
- organizational,
- teacher/mentor,
- participant.It will act as a guideline on possibilities of different implementations and as a tutorial for future use by organizations or teachers. Creative distant learning education methods will be put into action, such as storytelling, script writing and artistic approaches, thus improving teachers and educators’ digital skills. Teachers will also acquire skills on creating new teaching modules.
- CT : VR – Guidelines with video tutorials
Project partners will collect and evaluate good practice examples of VR/AR implementation on all levels of educational organizations, with a focus on adult education. A research will be conducted on good practices, gathering knowledge and information from organizations and websites that are already using VR as part of their educational Curricula. The results of the research will be published on the CT:VR platform. The Guidelines will serve as learning material at first, encouraging the involvement of educational organizations, by offering an overview of VR/AR advantages. The CT : VR platform, which will include guidelines with videos, links, pictures, and other interactive material, will be offered as open-source to interested stakeholders.
The Target Groups
Primary Target Groups
- Adult educators
- Associations for adult education
- Professionals/experts in adult education
- Mentors
- Lifelong learning teachers
Secondary Target Groups
- Adult learners
- Participants in lifeong learning activities
- Stakeholders (adult education organizations, representatives of social partners, representatives of professionals of the educational chain, cultural institutions, etc.)
The Partners
- Centro San Viator – Spain
- Public University of Ptuj – Slovenia
- p-consulting.gr – Greece
- University for Adult Education of Murska Sobota – Slovenia
- Greta du Velay – France
The future is near! Stay tuned!
