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4RD TRANSNATIONAL PARTNER MEETING FOR THE VRTEACHER PROJECT

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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://www.vrteacher.eu

https://www.facebook.com/VRTEACHERproject

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COLLABORATION BETWEEN PARAGON-EDU TECH AND CYPRUS UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY IN THE PROJECT VRTEACHER – Virtua Reality-based Training to improvE digitAl Competences of teacHERs

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PARAGON-eduTech and the Cyprus University of Technology announced on the 30th September 2022 their official collaboration under the European Erasmus+ project entitled “VRTEACHER – Virtual Reality-based Training to improvE digitAl Competences of teacHERs ” (2020-1-CY01-KA226-SCH-082707). PARAGON-eduTech will participate in the project VRTEACHER as an Associated Partner. This collaboration brings together two institutions that share a common goal of providing modern and technology-based teaching and learning approaches that will foster the digital transformation and modernization of education. PARAGON-eduTech will participate in the training activities and events as planned under this project. In particular, PARAGON-eduTech will be involved in the pre-service and in-service teachers’ training and use of the VR tool to be developed under the project. In addition, PARAGON-eduTech will contribute to the sharing and promotion of the project results. This collaboration represents the beginning of a long-term planning for future collaboration initiatives and partnership between the two institutions.

The VRTEACHER project 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 project involves six partners, Cyprus University of Technology (Cyprus / Coordinator), University of the Aegean, University Carlos III of Madrid (Spain), Fundación Siglo22 (Spain), Future In Perspective Limited (Ireland), Commonwealth Centre for Connected Learning (Malta). The project is coordinated by the Social Computing Research Center, through the Visual Media Computing Research Laboratory and Professor Dr. Andreas Lanitis and Post-Doc researcher Dr. Kalliopi Evangelia Stavroulia of the Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts, Cyprus University of Technology.

More details about the project can be found on the official page of the project https://www.vrteacher.eu/

VR TRAINING: UNDERSTANDING AND IMPLEMENTING VR-BASED APPROACHES IN TEACHER EDUCATION

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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://www.vrteacher.eu

https://www.facebook.com/VRTEACHERproject

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3RD TRANSNATIONAL PARTNER MEETING FOR THE VRTEACHER PROJECT

3rd transnational partner meeting Jul22

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://www.vrteacher.eu

https://www.facebook.com/VRTEACHERproject

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singlo22 fundacion
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KICK-OFF MEETING FOR THE PROJECT VRTEACHER – Virtual Reality-based Training to improvE digitAl Competences of teacHERs

kick-off meeting

The kick-off meeting of the European project entitled “VRTEACHER – Virtual Reality-based Training to improvE digitAl Competences of teacHERs ” took place from Wednesday 9 June to Thursday 10 June 2021. The VRTEACHER project is funded under Key Action 2 of the Erasmus+ program and will last 2 years (01/06/2021­31/05/2023) with a total budget of 219,589.00euro.

The VRTEACHER project 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 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 VR-based competence framework for teacher training and a state-of-the-art VR teacher training application that reflects real-life-based teacher training needs. The project will advance the state of the art in the relatively new area of VR-based teacher training and aims to support novel VR-based initiatives in teacher education. An extensive evaluation of the impact of the proposed VR- based framework and tool will be conducted providing at the end of the project guidelines for the use of the VR-based approaches in teacher education. The VR application will be integrated both in pre-service and in-service teacher training initiatives.

The project involves six partners, Cyprus University of Technology (Cyprus / Coordinator), University of the Aegean, University Carlos III of Madrid (Spain), Fundación Siglo22 (Spain), Future In Perspective Limited (Ireland), Commonwealth Centre for Connected Learning (Malta). The project is coordinated by the Social Computing Research Center, through the Visual Media Computing Research Laboratory of the Department of Multimedia and Graphic ArtsCyprus University of Technology. The Cypriot participation in the project also includes the Microsoft Computer Games and Emerging Technologies Research Lab of the Cyprus University of Technology.

More details about the project can be found here:

https://www.facebook.com/VRTEACHERproject