Two Vocational Training Centres in Granollers and Bilbao innovate in Education by betting on Virtual Reality
Granollers- Bilbao, June 14, 2023 – The CIFP Txurdinaga LHII and the IES Carles Vallbona, reference centres for vocational training in Bilbao and Granollers respectively, have announced a strategic commitment to promote innovation through Virtual Reality (VR) in their educational processes. This includes the adoption of the VIROO platform, developed by Virtualware.
The initiative, funded by the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training and the European Union – Next Generation EU, aims to harness the benefits of VR technologies for more participatory, collaborative, and experiential learning. It aims to bridge the gap between theoretical learning and its application in the real world.
As a result of this collaboration, the installation, and commissioning of the first two wireless Virtual Reality Rooms will allow virtual reality learning resources and activities to be deployed on a full-scale, and also remotely.
The new VR rooms, which have been leased until the end of the project, are equipped with Wifi 6 connectivity and HTC Vive Focus 3 viewers with wireless technology. This, combined with the VIROO® platform, provides users with a much more comfortable and fluid collaborative streaming experience, eliminating the need for the backpack PCs that are more common in this type of environment, known as LBE (local-based entertainment).
The CIFP Txurdinaga LHII and the IES Carles Vallbona have long been advocates of innovation in their educational work and are firmly committed to the potential of immersive technology to radically transform education and prepare students for the jobs of the future.
“Our ambition is to experiment with this type of space as a training tool for our students, knowing that these technologies will be used in the productive sector. The 4.0 and 5.0 environments will take advantage of these technologies to simulate and train different productive processes and services”
explained Jaime Corrales, Director of Innovation at CIFP Txurdinaga LHII.
Another aspect of the technology is the ability to create and deploy learning resources and activities in virtual reality autonomously. Thanks to the ease of use of the VIROO platform, teachers and students do not need extensive programming skills (low-coding).
This type of initiative promotes the quality of inter-professional training on a real scale, regardless of the geographical location, and encourages the methodological evolution of the vocational training centres.
“This project has opened a door to the world of virtual reality that will undoubtedly benefit our students and serve as a base camp for future achievements”
According to Miquel Altayó, project manager at the Carles Vallbona Institute.
CIFP Txurdinaga LHII
Located in the Bilbao neighbourhood that gives it its name, the CIFP Txurdinaga LHII is becoming a reference in Vocational Training, not only in Bilbao but also in Bizkaia and the whole of the Basque Autonomous Community. Pioneers in methodological innovation (Ethazi or High Performance Cycles), over the last few years it has continued its commitment to innovation with truly successful results that have placed this institute among the most innovative in Basque Vocational Training; For the academic year 2023-24 it will be working on different projects related to Virtual Reality, Artificial Vision, Cloud Computing and Big Data, Mixed Reality applied to students with special needs, Internet of Senses and Quantum Computing, with teachers and students from the departments of Chemistry, Computer Science, Social Integration and Commerce participating in these projects.
IES Carles Vallbona
The Institut Carles Vallbona in Granollers (Barcelona) is a reference center in the families of services to companies and their internationalization (Administration and management, Commerce and IT and communications) that is committed to innovation, knowledge transfer and the promotion of entrepreneurship. Since 2009, the center has held two quality certifications (ISO 9001 and 14001) and has been recognized as an e2cat quality educational excellence center. In the pedagogical field, it is present in all the programmers of pedagogical innovation in VET promoted by the Department of Education of the Generalitat de Catalunya, having obtained numerous awards and recognitions. To promote closer collaboration between the productive and training spheres, the institute has developed a charter of services for companies as of the 22/23 academic year.