Nine things you need to know about immersive technologies for education: part I

Immersive technologies like virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality reality (AR) create distinct experiences by merging the physical world with the digital. They offer the opportunity to engage audiences with cultural heritage in new ways, and offer exciting possibilities for education. 

These possibilities have been fully demonstrated by Built with Bits, a mentoring programme and educational challenge for students and educators, organised by the Europeana Initiative. The second edition, run by partners Macedonia Studio, took part in the second half of 2022. It trained 262 students and 19 educators and cultural heritage professionals to use Mozilla Hubs (a virtual world platform) to develop virtual spaces which used cultural heritage resources to offer a creative solution for a local issue. In doing so, the programme fostered collaborations between schools, universities, local museums and libraries, digital artists and UX designers, researchers, historians, architects, local authorities and tourism centres.

The projects developed for the programme are varied and inspiring and provide rich answers to the question: why use immersive technologies in education? 

1. Immersive technologies allow you to bring digitised items together in one space to engage students (and communities) in their cultural heritage. 

This is what Ioannis E. Tsioptsias, a primary school teacher in Ptolemaida, Greece, aimed for with his institution’s Virtual Museum of Natural History project, which created the first immersive cultural experience of his city. Together with nine students in primary education, Ioannis made 2D and 3D digitisations of exhibits from the local city museum to create a digital museum on Mozilla Hubs. The project was awarded the Best Digitisation project prize.  

Ioannis says, ‘The Virtual Museum of Natural History envisions a museum open to the local community. It is a fantastic digital version of my city's museum. As a teacher interested in creating bonds between the students, parents and local community, I proposed it because it created an excuse to involve all the students of my school in a united proposal to ask the local municipality to repair the actual museum. In this way, we spread the message of cohesion in the community’.

2. Immersive technologies offer a way to test new digital solutions, services and products for people with special needs, making cultural and educational offerings more accessible to them.  

Finding a place to teach life skills to students with disabilities was the main aim of Maria Antónia Brandão, teacher in Aves Portugal - Agrupamento de Escolas D. Afonso Henriques School, who created the project Virtual Flat. 

‘This is a project which consists of a digital "space" for disabled students to be in contact with basic household skills, like vacuuming, sweeping, dusting, setting and clearing the table, washing and putting away the dishes, caring for family pets. As a headmaster deputy responsible for the teaching and learning of children with specific needs, I thought it would be interesting to provide this space that could stimulate the autonomy and confidence of those children and young people’.

To establish the basics  for the space, she asked colleagues including Elisabete Sousa (coordinator of the multidisciplinary inclusive education team at her school) what they thought students needed, consulted with students and invited parents to express their opinion. The project came to reality thanks to the technical assistance of two external collaborators: Guillermo Medrano, PhD Engineer and Master in Teaching and Raul Gomez Hernandez, Graduate Teaching Assistant at Complutense University of Madrid. Their joint effort received the Best Special Needs project award. 

3. Immersive technologies allow you to bring architectural beauty and uniqueness to new audiences in a different dimension, by recreating a real space and site. 

This is what Donata Federici and her 17 students in their third year of high school from Liceo Linguistico N. Copernico Bologna (Italy) planned for their project Bologna Untold, which won the Best Architectural Recreation project. 

She says, ‘The project aimed to provide a sustainable, virtual tour of Bologna, a town in Northern Italy, to help people appreciate its beauty and nature. As Bologna is already a pedestrian-friendly town, thanks to its many porticoes (which are part of a Unesco World Heritage Site), with my students and Estefany Duran Fonseca (Digital Product Designer & Project Manager), we created a tour of the most iconic places in the town, which can be visited easily on foot or by bicycle. Some of these spaces, like Le Serre or Piazza Carducci, are well-aligned with the principles of New European Bauhaus, given they are eco-friendly, accessible and inclusive. Going on a sort of treasure hunt to a few, selected spots which are well represented by the pictures found on the Europeana website, the visitors will discover the endless opportunities Bologna has to offer to tourists and city-dwellers alike’.

Find out more and get involved!

We hope that this post has convinced you of the value of immersive technologies in education, and shown you what has been achieved in the Built with Bits programme! But if not, never fear - we will be sharing two more posts with six more reasons in April, so keep an eye on Europeana Pro news. 

You can find out more about the training, resources and activities which the Europeana Initiative provides for educators on our Education page. And if you would like to learn more about working with Mozilla hubs, you can explore the Built with Bits tutorials.