The consortium announces the release of the VRTEACHER Handbook, a valuable resource designed to empower educators with the knowledge and strategies to integrate VR technology into their teaching practices. This comprehensive guide provides practical insights, best practices, and innovative approaches to enhance classroom experiences through immersive VR simulations. From creating engaging virtual environments to fostering empathy and addressing diverse student needs, the VRTEACHER Handbook equips educators with the tools they need to unlock the full potential of VR in education. Explore the VRTEACHER Handbook and start your VR journey.

The VRTEACHER training activities took place in all partner countries (Cyprus, Spain, Greece, Ireland, and Malta) between December 2022 and February 2023. The structure of the training activities was the following: Introductory online workshop, face-to-face training groups, and follow up online workshop. During the face-to-face training sessions the participants had to answer a pre-questionnaire before the VR implementation and a post-questionnaire after the VR implementation to investigate the impact of VR-based training. The final online session took place four weeks after the VR intervention and the participants were asked to fill in a follow-up questionnaire to investigate the long-term impact of the VR intervention.

In total more than 300 in-service and pre-service teachers were trained and had the opportunity to pilot test the VRTEACHER application. The consortium will elaborade on the results and feedback received to identify the impact of the VR training tool and its potential in teacher education.

The 4^th Transnational Project Meeting of the project took was held in Malta on Friday 11 of November, at the Valletta Design Cluster a 17th Century building that has been restored. The project partners had the ability to pilot test the final prototype of the VRTEACHER application, discuss the current state of the project, and plan the training activities.

Universidad Carlos III De Madrid (UC3M) organized the Short-term joint staff training event (LTTA), on the premises of the University, situated in Madrid, Spain. The Short-term joint staff training event took place from Monday 20 June 2022 to Wednesday 22 June 2022. This training aimed to familiarize the staff of the partnership with virtual reality (VR) environments and equipment. Three participants from each organization attended this training event and will be responsible to deliver the training to the target audience of the project the following months.

In total more than 300 in-service and pre-service teachers were trained and had the opportunity to pilot test the VRTEACHER application. The consortium will elaborade on the results and feedback received to identify the impact of the VR training tool and its potential in teacher education.

The VRTEACHER project has the ambition to provide effective education responses related to educators’ training via using a novel YR­ 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’ key skills and competences through a Virtual Reality (VR) training method and tool. The innovation of the project lies in addressing challenges related to class management in crisis situations, such as a pandemic, with the vision to equip teachers with key skills (e.g. empathy, perspective-taking, self­ efficacy, adaptability, etc.) through immersive and experiential training experiences that reflect real-life scenarios and situations faced during a crisis. The main target groups of the VRTEACHER project are pre­ service student teachers (higher education students, Ph.D. candidates, etc.), and in-service educators/ teachers. The main outputs of the VRTEACHER project will be a YR-based competence framework for teacher training and a state-of-the-art VR teacher training application that reflects real-life-based teacher training needs.