VrinVET -project started off during the worst covid period. It was funded in the Commission extra call, aiming to find solutions to help teachers in exceptional circumstances, when contact lessons are out of question.
And we sure have been through numerous unexpected circumstances!
Not only covid, but one cyber attack against Keuda in the fall 2022, shutting down everything for a week, and recovery process still underway. The most recent unexpected news was a schocker, too: Microsoft shuts down their famous, free VR-environment Altspace. Which was one of the 2 VR-environments we tested and piloted in VRinVET…
What using new technology seems to take from it’s users is agility! We learnt the hard way that using solutions not tied to any specific environment is a good idea! What this means in practise?
Whatever VR-environment you use, it should be easy to create content and to download it onto the VR-environment. For example, 3D-models, or photos. If the VR-environment for one reasons shuts down – company goes banckrubt…is bought by another company and user policy and/or pricing changes…they just shut it down and don’t tell what will come next…you name it – then you don’t loose any of the content.
If some programming is required and you want to create your own VR-environments, make sure to use unity, and keep it light. Unity packages can be brought into any VR-environment, altough it is not evident that all functionalities always work the same way in all VR-environments.
Altspace was free of charge, and would have been in that way accessible to anyone. Bringing VROOM to any other VR environment will evidently mean some costs for users – this is a point we are now looking into during the remaining 2 months that we still have left of the project.
We’ll share the final solutions in MURROS -event on 18.4.2023, register here and join us online.
by Katriina Lammi
This text was also published in the Magazine March 23 Magazines – European Forum for Vocational Education & Training (efvet.org)