Title: Virtual Reality for STEM Entrepreneurship Training

Funding: Erasmus+

Start date: February 2016

End date: January 2018

Web site: http://vr4stem.ro/index.php/en

Description:

VR4STEM project aims to assist young people to gain entrepreneurship skill in STEM domain and the related ICT industry through the courses that will be created and through the educational activities and the learning approaches in the innovating 3D virtual world educational environment, that will be developed. The project will also promote learning through Open Educational Resources (OER) in different languages. The project main aim is to offer an educational environment for teaching/learning STEM entrepreneurship aspects that will use advanced ICT-based educational methods, like 3D virtual reality. This will lead to more effective ICT-based teaching and training and will also offer new and more attractive ways of teaching, through the Virtual 3D World that will be developed. VR4STEM project will offer to young people the chance to improve understanding and skills on STEM entrepreneurship, through the use of advanced ICT (like virtual reality technology) and will contribute to improve the quality of learning. Through all its activities the project will modernize and enhance the performance and effectiveness of STEM entrepreneurship education and will reinforce the efficiency and attractiveness of youth training with the utilization of innovative educational ICT, will offer innovative educational approaches and training activities in the 3D Virtual world environment. The outcome of the project will support self-learning as well as formal (synchronous or asynchronous, virtual or blended) learning. This is going to enhance participation in formal and non-formal education and training. The Virtual 3D World that will be developed is going to be a learning platform available from anywhere, so it is suitable for people with mobility difficulties or living in isolated areas. The project will modernize and enhance the performance and effectiveness of youth entrepreneurship education in the field of STEM and also can reinforce the effective and attractiveness of Europe’s youth education with the utilization of innovative educational technologies.

Objectives and Results

    The project has three phases: Design, Implementation and Evaluation. Design will take place during the first eight months with main objectives to identify the needs in Entrepreneurship Training for young people interested in STEM domain and then design a suitable curriculum for addressing them by utilizing state of the art technologies. Implementation of the STEM Entrepreneurship courses will take place next, with an aim to prepare the learning material and integrate it in a 3D VW educational environment that will be developed. The final phase regards testing extensively the developed educational environment through various pilot learning activities, evaluating it and using the results to improve and finalize it. The main results are: -Requirements analysis report on STEM Entrepreneurship Training and State of the Art reports on the use of Virtual Reality in Education and especially for youth training -A curriculum for STEM Entrepreneurship Training based on the Analysis and taking into account the about state of the art reports and capabilities of Virtual Worlds -Open Learning materials (texts, presentations,multimedia,3D objects) for courses -Project website and Content Repository, hosting all the learning materials -The 3D VW educational environment is the main output of this project, hosting all the STEM Entrepreneurship learning materials as well as the learning scenarios -User’s Guide for using the 3D VW -Plan, Report and Evaluation of The Piloting activities carried out to ensure the quality of the 3D VW, the learning materials and activities The project will modernize and enhance the performance and effectiveness of youth entrepreneurship education in the field of STEM and also can reinforce the effective and attractiveness of Europe’s youth education with the utilization of innovative educational technologies.