VRAILEXIA- Partnering Outside the Box: Digital and Artificial Intelligence Integrated Tools to Support Higher Education Students with Dyslexia Erasmus Project

Project Title

VRAILEXIA- Partnering Outside the Box: Digital and Artificial Intelligence Integrated Tools to Support Higher Education Students with Dyslexia

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 higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; Research and innovation; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

VRAILEXIA “Partnering Outside the Box: Digital and Artificial Intelligence Integrated Tools to Support Higher Education Students with Dyslexia”

Students with dyslexia encounter several difficulties during their university career, leading to a greater rate of drops out with respect other kinds of students. Nowadays, tools for dyslexic students are mainly focused on primary and secondary school; conversely no standard methodologies are proposed for Higher Education. Starting from the attitude to visual thinking and creativity of dyslexics and their evidence neurodiversity. VRAILEXIA will develop learning tools and services for University dyslexic students to assure equal access and opportunity of success during their academic career and their lifelong learning experience.

VRAILEXIA by using virtual reality and artificial intelligence will implement an e-learning adaptive digital tool (BESPECIAL) for supporting students with dyslexia. As a long-term objective VRAILEXIA will propose a sustainable teaching and training pattern for HEIs to allow them to boost their own strengths counteracting their seeming weakness.
Moreover, VRAILEXIA wishes to emerge the mastery of thinking out of the box exploiting the ability to explore creative and unusual ideas that are not limited or controlled by rules or tradition.

VRAILEXIA outcome is a network of HEIs piloting Hub engaged on a MoU for developing inclusion strategies for dyslexic students and enhance their opportunity of success during the academic career and integration into the labour market.

VRAILEXIA’s general objective aims at changing the perception and implementing a tool to overlap dyslexic’s main difficulties with a positive impact on empowering their motivation and self- esteem. Consequently it will breed a common procedure within European Universities to assure services and learning environment based on student-centred vision and Universal Design Learning. The perspective is to enable Universities to develop strategies for inclusion of untapped students’ talents and strengths.

Specific applied objectives:
1. Design, develop and validate of “BESPECIAL” a digital tool for supporting students affected by learning disabilities, dyslexia in particular, through an e-learning platform based on artificial intelligence (AI) to automatically customize itself and adapt its contents to the dyslexic students’ needs.
2. Develop Virtual Reality test for the assessment of dyslexia profiles and for monitoring the level of motivation, anxiety, development of soft skills after the use of BESPECIAL.
3. Implement 2 training pilot paths for HEIs in order to implement respectively: a) training course for HE teachers to respond to the lack of competences and awareness in student- centred teaching methodology such as UDL b) a Pilot Crash Course on Creativity and Entrepreneurship for university students in order to boost up their visual thinking and mind-set skills.
4. Assure the transferability of competences acquired during the training course in order to spread the student-centred approach within the HEIs;
5. Build an OER Repository with a categorization of teaching and learning materials based on Universal Design principles available on line and specific contents developed within the project;
6. Set up a MoU for clustering the actors/stakeholders to generate a European Network fostering a common strategy of inclusion within Higher Education targeted for students, teachers, administrative staff and as well Associated partners.

VRAILEXIA leads to the following tangible results:
— sustainable tools to support Higher Education providers in implementing inclusive learning approaches for dyslexic students;
– an adaptive learning environment based on Informed Artificial Intelligence for supporting students with dyslexia;
– a set of VR tests and a ‘strategy based on student- centred methods’ in order to motivate them in their lifelong learning process;
– a common pattern shared within the network of Piloting Hubs fostering Universities capabilities to become innovative centres in supporting all students in their academic and job career.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 446697 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DELLA TUSCIA & Country: IT

Project Partners

• AEVA – ASSOCIACAO PARA A EDUCACAO E VALORIZACAO DA REGIAO DE AVEIRO
• UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI PERUGIA
• PANTEIO PANEPISTIMIO KOINONIKON KAI POLITIKON EPISTIMON
• TIBER UMBRIA COMETT EDUCATION PROGRAMME
• GIUNTI PSYCHOMETRICS SRL
• UNIVERSIDAD DE CORDOBA
• CENTRALESUPELEC