Virtual Reality Archive Learning Erasmus Project

Project Title

Virtual Reality Archive Learning

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

In 2018, Europe is celebrating diverse cultural heritage – at EU, national, regional and local level. The aim of the 2018 European Year of Cultural Heritage is to encourage more people to discover and engage with Europe’s cultural heritage, and to reinforce a sense of belonging to a common European space.

With a starting point in the archives and cultural heritage across Europe’s post-industrial communities, specifically using five archives from Dornbirn (AT), Wuppertal (DE), Osijek (HR), Torres Novas (PT) and Coventry (UK), and the adult educational skills of all the partners the project VIRAL aimed to enrich the key competences of adults facing fewer opportunities through new adult education programme for using virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and 360-degree movies (360) technology tools and documentary methods. Across Europe, post-industrial heritage sites have been the centre of their local community for 10s or 100s of years. Often everyone had a friend, a neighbour or knew someone that worked in the factory, mine, harbour or agricultural practice etc. A working-class neighbourhood often grew up around it; maybe there was a kindergarten/school in the factory; the industry concerned imposed a rhythm and style on the community. This is a phenomenon common to the whole of Europe. The factory may have closed, the machines may have gone, maybe the buildings have been demolished, but the stories, can still be collected, listened to, recorded and retold. This special relationship can be used in Adult Education to build bridges over social, gender, ethnic and age ethnical gaps and different social classes.

Nowadays, EU societies and economies are experiencing significant digital and technological innovations as well as labour market and demographic changes. Old professions, such those factory jobs mentioned above, no longer exist; many of today’s jobs did not exist a decade ago; and many new forms of employment will be created in the future. Without these skills many are at higher risk of unemployment, poverty and social exclusion, particularly among adults already facing fewer opportunities. The new Commission “Recommendation on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning” (2018) are: – STEM; – languages; – digital competences; – literacy; – cultural awareness and expression; – entrepreneurship; – civic; and – personal, social and learning.

The VIRAL project targeted 3 groups and addressed the following needs:
1) Adults facing fewer opportunities such as economic (e.g., ex-workers at post-industrial sites, long-term unemployment) and educational (low-skilled and/or low-qualified) obstacles, with the need to develop new key competences to be better prepare them for changing labour markets and active citizenship in more diverse, mobile, digital and global societies, and raising awareness of how their cultural heritage can be a vehicle for lifelong learning;
2) Adult educators lacking heritage education skills and technical competence in how to use VR/AR/360 in training;
3) Professionals in adult education department within cultural heritage lacking informal, non/formal and andragogic skills and technical in how to use VR/AR/360 in cultural and/or learning environments.

The project VIIRAL supplied high quality individual learning oppurtunities for adults and competence development for adult educators in the fields of Virtual, Augmented and 360 video Reality production. This was carried out in the context of utilising archive material and the physical places and environments of post- industrial landscapes. We exploited the often deep interest for the individuals local environment by exploring old industrial factories, mines, harbours, agricultural production centres that once stood at the centre of local communities but are now long gone. Investigating a heritage site is an excellent way of exploring cross-curricular themes in adult education and developing key concepts, competences and processes.

The project produced five intelectual outputs:
1. A methodological framework in the form of a handbook will be developed to boost the key competences of adults
2. A Learning Outcome MatrixIt according to the European Qualification Framework (EQF) as a set of learning outcomes (LO) – in terms of knowledge, skills and competences.
3. A set of virtual reality (VR), 360 degree-movies (360) and augmented reality (AR) training resources for adult education in a context of safeguarding the memories of their local industrial heritage
4. A continuous professional development (CPD) course for adult educators and adult educators at cultural heritage institutions will be developed.
5. A multilingual learning platform providing open and instant access to the full suite of project’s outputs will be developed, including the eLearning space, to support the access to the CPD course.

Project Website

https://www.viraltraining.net/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 360765,67 Eur

Project Coordinator

Stadtgemeinde Dornbirn & Country: AT

Project Partners

• ELearning Studios Ltd
• COVENTRY UNIVERSITY
• Stadt Wuppertal, Der Oberbuergermeister
• Muzej Slavonije
• Associação para a Defesa e Valorização do Património Cultural e Natural da Região de Torres Novas
• ELDERBERRY AB