The increasing complexity of current and future technical processes requires training that meets the demands. Skilled workers are confronted with increasingly complex systems that can only be mastered through experience and training. The training period ties up personnel and thus entails costs and should be minimized as much as possible. With their service-oriented view, companies are also confronted with these issues and are looking for solutions. For vocational training and thus for skilled workers 4.0, this development raises questions about content and methodology. The technologies of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality can provide support in this endeavor. This project aims at establishing practice-oriented cooperation between vocational schools and companies and developing concrete teaching material in this promising area. The cooperation takes place on a national as well as European level in order to establish a broad exchange of experience on VR and AR technologies and possibilities of their application. Thus, in this project, participating partners from Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain explore and test AR and VR technologies to prepare them for use in school lessons. An interdisciplinary approach pursued in this project enables most diverse disciplines and departments from local, regional and European levels to develop the AR and VR technologies with their own views and procedures, against different backgrounds and levels of previous knowledge, and to disseminate them as innovation multipliers. The five participating partners are technical vocational schools from Germany (BBS Osnabrück-Brinkstraße), the Netherlands (ROC Friese Poort, Sneek), Finland (Tampereen Kaupunki, Tampere), Italy (ISIS "Città di Luino - Carlo Volonté", Luino) and Spain (I. E. S. Politècnico de Vigo). A total of 40 students and 18 teachers were recruited for the project. The companies in various industry sectors were selected to join the project according to their interest and their opportunities to support in the area of AR and VR. A joint workshop LTAA1 lays a common content and technological foundation and serves as a basis for developing possible applications of AR and VR technologies in the local and regional setting. Against this background, students, assisted by the company and school, create and independently implement company-based learning situations. From these learning situations, they develop learning arrangements for school lessons, test them in their own school and adjust them for the upcoming LTTA2. In the next step, the students implement and analyse the adjusted learning tasks at the LTTA2 in mixed European groups. These evaluated learning tasks are subsequently implemented in all partner schools, adapted to their own needs and conditions. The results and adjustments are finally evaluated together with all project partners. In the end, the finalised teaching material is presented in a local setting and made available to the general public via the project website. Targeted project results: • teaching material in the form of concrete learning situations from the cross-sector industrial environment with real company-based problems and tasks at local, regional and European level • initiation, dissemination and deepening of workplace-based and self-organized learning (VET 4.0) • expertise in the field of AR and VR The long-term benefits of the project include: • development of ideas on new teaching and learning methods in the context of VET 4.0 • implementation and consolidation of the partners’ “best practice” strategies • optimization of cooperation between companies and schools • intermeshment of practical and theoretical training • strengthening of the European cooperation between schools and companies • improvement of cooperation between learning locations in VET • building and strengthening of transnational networks at different levels • development of new ideas for improvement of operational processes • further development of participants’ professional skills, problem-solving skills, social skills and personal responsibility
The project was aimed at examining the applications of innovative AR and VR technologies from the European environment and preparing them for use in vocational training by testing and evaluating them at local, regional and European levels by means of innovative teaching and learning methods. The technological basis was created in collaboration with the European partners who also identified the necessary learning content across disciplines. In collaboration with the companies students identified concrete current operational problems and tasks from very different industries, questioned them and developed company-specific solutions. This promoted and perpetuated cooperation between different learning locations. At the European level, this involved initiating, disseminating and deepening workplace-related and self-organized learning. Teaching materials in the form of concrete learning situations from the industrial, cross-sector environment at local, regional and European levels were created, tested and optimized.
The increasing complexity of current and future technical processes requires vocational training that meets the growing requirements. Skilled workers are being confronted with more complex systems and machines that can only be coped with through experience and training time. This training time ties up personnel and therefore costs and should be minimized as much as possible. Companies are facing these issues with their service-oriented view and are also looking for solutions. The technologies of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality can provide support in this matter. For vocational training and thus for skilled workers 4.0, this development raises questions about the content and methodology of learning. One aim of this project was to establish practice-relevant cooperation between vocational schools and companies and to develop concrete teaching material in this future-oriented area. The collaboration took place at both national and European level in order to enable the broadest possible exchange of experiences on VR and AR technologies and their application-specific possibilities.