The main objective of this project is to collect and exchange information concerning Virtual Reality (abbreviated: VR) and Augmented Reality (abbreviation: AR) in context of education and training of people with visual impairments. The increasing use of VR and AR systems in education and vocational trainining, will become an important factor in the process of digitisation. It is therefore essential, that this technology quickly finds its way into the education and vocational training of visually impaired people, to avoid any disadvantages for this group. Especially the integration into the labour market is difficult for visually impaired people. It is therefore imperative that this target group will be introduced to the new digital technology in order to be competitive on the labour market. However, in order to educate and train the target group adequately, the educational staff must be qualified accordingly. In the context of vocational training and education of people with visual impairments, VR and AR systems are not in the focus yet. The project aims to change this situation by exploring suggestions for the meaningful and effective use of these technologies in the education of visually impaired people.
Virtual reality (abbreviation: VR) is already an integral part of vocational training. Especially in the training of technical professions, VR is used for cost reasons and to avoid health and accident risks. The development in this area is rapid. VR systems are becoming increasingly powerful, user-friendly, compact and cost-effective. The experiences of learning success with VR (so-called immersive learning) have been proven in scientific studies. The increasing use of VR systems in education and the expected increase in turnover in this sector (cf. Eurofund 2020:14) lead to the assumption that this technology will become an important factor in the digitalisation of education. It is therefore indispensable that this technology quickly finds its way into the education and vocational training of visually impaired people so that they do not experience any disadvantages. Especially the integration into the labour market is difficult for visually impaired people. 75% of this group in working-age are unemployed (European Commission, 2019). It is therefore imperative that this target group is introduced to new digital technology, to be competitive on the labour market. Therefore the training staff has to be qualified accordingly.