Project Description
The context of the project is to enable students to take virtually part in cultural events all over Europe. The project attaches great importance to the use of tangible and intangible heritage to enhance European identity but at the same time to be a tool for teachers in their lessons for a variety of subjects in a way to make it more attractive to students.
The project is based on the Immersing Reality (IR) experience, which is a relatively new form of media, that uses Virtual Reality technology to provide the users with an almost-real life experience that they are in another part of the real or imaginative world, seeing and listening what they would see and listen if they were actually there. As a result, Immersing Reality gives the sense of teleporting in space and time. In the proposed project, we intend to use Immersing Reality technology and inexpensive equipment to “teleport” students to take part in local customs and festivities organised by other countries.
The project aims to create a tool that will encourage students as well as the surrounding community to discover the cultures of other European countries by taking part in the events, learn about the cultural elements and the historical background, discover the similarities among the civilizations which will lead to enhance their European identity. Moreover, the project aims to develop material that teachers will use in their lessons (e.g. to teach history and literature).
By the proposed system the local cultural events and customs in each country are turned into a multimedia cultural world, where someone is “participating” by virtually being on the spot following the traditions. For example; this means that when you are using the application and choosing a cultural tradition; the application will present you the event with 360 videos and images and all the necessary information regarding the custom. However, instead of just reading about the event or viewing videos on youtube, the produced 360 material and the use of Immersive Reality equipment will take the experience to another level that will hold students’ interest in the learning process.
Objectives
The main goals of the proposal are:
– to familiarise the students with a new and fascinating media. The students will be familiarised with Immersing Reality, not only as users but also as content creators, using easy-to-use equipment and software to create VR experiences. In this way, we can provide them with their first steps in a career in the booming media creation industry.
– to allow them to take part, virtually, in festivities and local customs, thus learning first-hand about the local culture of the other members of the proposal, creating bonds and feelings of empathy and sympathy that can lead to a better, united, and harmonised European Community
– to give teachers and educators the tools to learn how to use Immersing Reality in their lessons as part of their pedagogical plan
– the use of heritage to teach various lessons like history, literature, and social science education in Primary and Secondary Education.
Main Results
The concrete results that this project is planning to produce are:
– A Cultural Platform that will include a selection of cultural events in all partner countries that will be presented in 360 videos prepared both for VR technology and plain electronic devices. The cultural events will be accompanied by detailed historical background and with interviews on how local people value those cultural events in their life. All the information will be available in all partner languages and in English.
– An Educational Platform that will include lesson plans, worksheets and examples to be used with the material stored in the cultural platform. The Educational Platform will be available in all partner languages and in English.
– A Training Platform to be used by teachers who want to implement the project’s methodology and use the above material or create their own material. The Training Platform will be available in all partner languages and in English. The platform will provide all the necessary material for any school or individual teachers to learn how to use the immersive reality methodology from scratch.
