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The final transnational meeting of the European project entitled “VRTEACHER – Virtual Reality-based Training to improvE digitAl Competences of teacHERs ” took place on Tuesday 9 May 2023 in Limassol, Cyprus. It was a hybrid meeting hosted by the Cyprus University of Technology (CUT), the project coordinator.

The final meeting provided an opportunity to review and evaluate the project’s progress, accomplishments, and challenges. Team members discussed the overall performance, identify lessons learned, and gather feedback to improve future projects. The meeting also allowed the project team to provide a comprehensive status update on the project’s remaining tasks, deliverables, and milestones. The meeting also involved discussing future steps beyond the project’s completion including planning for follow-up initiatives, or considering how the project’s outcomes can be leveraged for further improvements or new opportunities.

More details about the project can be found here:

https://vrteacher.eu

https://www.facebook.com/VRTEACHERproject

In the context of the European project VRTEACHER – Virtual Reality-based Training to improvE digital Competences of TEACHERS (Grant Agreement: 2020-1-CY01-KA226-SCH-082707), in which the Cyprus University of Technology is the coordinator, joint training activities were organized by the Cyprus University of Technology and the Pedagogical Institute Cyprus using Virtual Reality technologies for in-service and pre-service teachers. Over 100 in-service teachers participated in the educational activities and had the opportunity to be trained in issues related to the use of virtual reality in education as well as to use the virtual reality pilot application created in the context of the VRTEACHER project by the Cyprus University of Technology in collaboration with the Carlos III University of Madrid.

The pilot VRTEACHER application aims the cultivation of teachers’ skills, such as empathy, self-esteem, adaptability, and critical thinking. The teachers, during the training, had the opportunity to experience the scenarios through the eyes of the teacher, but also experience the same incident through the eyes of their students through a change of “virtual body”.

The educational activities were divided into three phases: initially, an online lecture was organized in early December 2022, where the VRTEACHER project was presented to teachers and an introduction was made regarding the use of Virtual Reality in education. Afterwards, the participants were divided into small groups and took part in lifelong training that took place at the Pedagogical Institute (Nicosia), the Cyprus University of Technology (Limassol) and the Aradippou 4th Primary School. In this training, teachers had the opportunity to use the pilot VRTEACHER Virtual Reality application and provide feedback on their experience. Finally, in January 2023, the last online meeting with the teachers who took part in the process followed, to reflect on the experience and exchange opinions about the use of Virtual Reality in teacher training. During this last online meeting, the teachers expressed the positive thoughts they got from their training with the pilot application created in the context of the project and proposed new topics that can be included in the future, as well as other suggestions for improvements. The planning and implementation of the training were delivered by the scientific manager of the project, Dr Kalliopi-Evangelia Stavroulia.

The University of Technology, as the coordinator of the project, would like to emphasize the important contribution of the Cyprus Pedagogical Institute to the successful co-organization of the educational-training activities and to warmly thank Assoc. Director Dr Eleni Chatzikakou and Professor Dr Christos Rousias for their valuable support and assistance. Our cooperation in the VRTEACHER project will form the basis for further cooperation both for the specific program and for new initiatives.

Finally, we would like to sincerely thank the teachers for their interest and participation, the time they devoted to all the activities that took place and the valuable comments and thoughts they shared with us.

The VRTEACHER program involves six partners from five countries: Cyprus University of Technology (Cyprus), Aegean University (Greece), University Carlos III of Madrid (Spain), Fundación Siglo22 (Spain), Future In Perspective Limited (Ireland), and Commonwealth Center for Connected Learning (Malta). The coordinator of the project is the Social Informatics Research Unit, through the Visual Media Computing Lab of the Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts of the Cyprus University of Technology.

More details about the program are available on the official project page https://vrteacher.eu/  and https://www.facebook.com/VRTEACHERproject.

The fourth transnational partner meeting of the European project entitled “VRTEACHER – Virtual Reality-based Training to improvE digitAl Competences of teacHERs ” took place on Friday 11th November 2022 in Valletta, Malta. It was hosted by the Commonwealth Centre for Connected Learning (3CL), one of the project partners.

The Malta meeting discussed one of the most important intellectual outputs of the project, i.e. the research on the VR teacher-training application that will be held in the partner countries in the coming weeks. The final version of the application was presented during the meeting and the organisation of the multiplier events was discussed in detail. These events in partner countries will make it possible for the VR application to be integrated both in pre-service and in-service teacher training initiatives since these educators are the main target groups of the project.

The beta version of the VR application and the train-the-trainer learning, teaching and training activity (LTTA) was held in Madrid, Spain, in June 2022.

The two-year project (2021-2023) has the ambition to provide effective education responses related to educators’ training via using a novel VR-based pedagogical approach for virtual practicum. It will address the need for modernization and digital transformation of teacher education and training and reinforce educators’ digital skills and readiness through a Virtual Reality (VR) training method and tool. The training and tool are being defined at this stage of the project.

The next physical partner meeting, which will also be the last one of this type, will be held in Cyprus in April 2023, to close the project.

More details about the project can be found here:

https://vrteacher.eu

https://www.facebook.com/VRTEACHERproject

The first in-person Learning, Teaching and Training Activity (LTTA) by the VRTEACHER Project was held in Madrid, Spain, between the 20th and the 22nd of June 2022. It was hosted by the University Carlos III of Madrid, and 18 people from the partner organizations participated. The main objectives of the LTTA was to familiarize the staff of partner organizations with VR technology, pilot-test and evaluate the beta version of the VR application, and provide guidelines to the partners on how to implement the VR tool. The training sessions started with an introduction to Virtual Reality in education, highlighting the potential and challenges and showcasing affordable immersive technologies for this important sector. Then came the much-anticipated session where the trainees could immerse themselves into the VR application developed by the project and also test some other VR applications. The response from the trainees was very positive and their testing resulted in valuable feedback on how to improve the VR application. This piloting will enable the developers of the application, University Carlos III and the Cyprus University of Technology, to release the final version to be used in the multiplier events targeting pre-service and in-service educators to be held in the partners’ countries in the coming months. The VR application will be accompanied by a training manual, an evaluation framework and impact assessment tools, and an online platform to create a community of practice for educators using VR in education. All these are part of the intellectual outputs of the project.

More details about the project can be found here:

https://vrteacher.eu

https://www.facebook.com/VRTEACHERproject

The third transnational partner meeting of the European project entitled “VRTEACHER – Virtual Reality-based Training to improvE digitAl Competences of teacHERs ” took place on Thursday 23RD and Friday 24th June 2022 in Madrid, Spain. It was hosted by the University Carlos III, one of the project parters, and it was the first time the partners could meet in person after most of the pandemic-related restrictions were lifted in the EU.

This meeting came exactly halfway through the two years of the project, which has the ambition to provide effective education responses related to educators’ training via using a novel VR-based pedagogical approach for virtual practicum. The project aims to address the need for modernization and digital transformation of teacher education and training and reinforce educators’ digital skills and readiness through a Virtual Reality (VR) training method and tool.

The meeting covered the usual administrative aspects and the progress registered with the intellectual outputs, especially the VR-based competence framework for teacher training and the state-of-the-art VR teacher training application that reflects real-life-based teacher training needs. The meeting discussed the outcome of the learning, teaching and training activity (LTTA) held in the previous three days that presented the beta version of the VR application. The application will be used in the training of educators in partner countries in the coming months. These multiplier events in partner countries will make it possible for the VR application to be integrated both in pre-service and in-service teacher training initiatives since these educators are the main target groups of the project.

The next physical partner meeting will be held in Malta in November 2022 while online meetings have already been scheduled.

More details about the project can be found here:

https://vrteacher.eu

https://www.facebook.com/VRTEACHERproject