Virtual reality for children with special needs

While virtual reality technology is already widely used in business and culture for immersion in new worlds of experience, virtual reality (VR) in the field of special and inclusive education is still not widespread. Students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) are often externally determined to various degrees in their lives. To cope with everyday life independently, practicing action skills is necessary. In a real-world physical environment, this is not always easy. Virtual reality offers a possibility to acquire skills without restrictive conditions.Within the project “Virtual Reality for Children with Special Needs” the potentials of virtual reality for students with IDD are explored. This research and development (R&D) project is a collaborative effort of the University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW Winterthur), the University of Teacher Education in Special Needs (HfH Zürich), and Vivala as the Foundation which supports persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities

Is Cloud Computing the Silver Lining for European Schools?

Cloud computing can be a key driver for innovation and transformation in learning and teaching. The School on the Cloud network aims to explore new, dynamic ways to educate. The 57 partners involved in the project bring insights from 18 European Countries. They investigate how education should respond to the potential of Cloud-based tools and technologies, the impact they are having on education stakeholders and the longer-term impact they will have on the education sector as a whole. The network has published 59 case studies of good-practices based on their analysis of the perspectives of the role played by both teachers and learners. Firstly, the research explores the impact of the Cloud on the roles of learners and discusses how new technology can be used by teachers as a value-added component in education. Secondly, the study presents a manual on how to implement Cloud-related learning and teaching