VIRAL SKILLS

One of the main aims of the VIRAL SKILLS project is unlocking this potential and equipping adult education trainers with necessary know-how about VR technology and available software applications suitable for educational purposes. A partnership of seven European organisations from Austria, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Cyprus and Spain has developed three intellectual outputs that cater to the needs of pedagogic personnel, especially those involved with adult learners as well as low-skilled and low-qualified learners: 1) The VR Digest, which is a comprehensive survey report of the state of the art in Virtual Reality, presents the knowledge and estimations of further developments in this sector of technical experts in all partner countries. It is complemented by an in-depth VR hardware analysis including SWOT analyses that shed light on the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of VR solutions in an educational setting. One main outcome is that VR hardware solutions differ in their performance, hence they need to be used with care and the safety of learners must be guaranteed during any VR training session. 2) In the VIRAL SKILLS Compendium, the partnership has created a versatile handbook for educators featuring a technical introduction to VR, a pedagogic point of view on VR and learning, a country comparison of the international state of the art in VR, results of a broad target group survey amongst adult educators in all partner countries and a specific focus on the application of VR when working with low-skilled and low-qualified persons. Furthermore, the Compendium is complemented with a collection of suitable VR software applications including description of content, application potential, recommendations for use and more. 3) In order to foster the VR skills of adult educators even more, the VIRAL SKILLS Training Programme enables participants to get familiar with VR solutions and learn how they can include this new technology in their didactic teaching and training repertoire. Experiences during the VIRAL SKILLS project show a great demand for innovative teaching methods and when the collaboration between the education sector and the software developing sector intensifies, a huge increase of specific educational VR software is expected. Become a pioneer and start spicing up your training now – the materials are right at your hands.