IAAD IAAD

Virtual Reality: a new tool for education?

Team Leader: Jacopo Gottlieb

NEWS!

Dates
19-24 February 2024

Location
IAAD. Turin

The workshop will analyse the application of Virtual Reality (VR) as a supporting tool in the educational field. Among the project’s goals are: the definition of the operational project for the trial of a VR experience in a high school, the development of tools to measure its impact on learning, and the identification of further scenarios for the application of VR in the educational field. The activity will use the immersive experience Space Atlas VR as a case study. The development team will be part of the workshop.
Space Atlas VR is an immersive edutainment experience on astronomy and space exploration developed in Unity for Meta Quest virtual reality systems. Space Atlas VR allows the user to acquire information about the universe, the solar system, and the Earth through interactive exploration of various virtual environments. For example, the user can visit the various planets of the solar system, study the main characteristics of each, and the exploration missions that have visited them. Similarly, the user can study the three-dimensional map of exoplanets discovered so far, visit the surface of the Moon and Mars, or view the orbits of the most important artificial satellites orbiting the Earth.
The broader goal of the workshop is the evaluation of the effectiveness of Virtual Reality as a tool for training and in-depth study.

Jacopo Gottlieb

Master’s degree in Telecommunication Engineering from the University of Genoa (2003). 4 years as information system and internal process optimization manager at Accademia Nazionale di Medicina (Genoa), a scientific association involved in training and updating in the medical-health field. Master’s degree in Systems for Space Development and Exploration jointly organized by PoliTO – Supeaero Toulouse- UniBremen (2008). 5 years as Systems Engineer at Thales Alenia Space Italia (Turin, Italy), dealing in a first time with feasibility studies for human space exploration systems and – in a second time – with Exomars 2016. Master’s degree in Business Administration from the European School of Management and Technology (Berlin, 2015). 2 1/2 years dedicated to the creation of ‘location-based’ virtual reality experiences, mainly in the field of science popularization, at The Virtual Lab, a start- up created between Genoa and Berlin as a spin-off of the communication agency Iconomia. Finally, 3 and 1/2 at Forum Service srl (Genoa) – a service and technology company for training and dissemination – first as digital transformation manager and, since January 2020, as managing director.

Forum Service

Forum Service is a company specialized in training and cultural dissemination, with a particular focus on activities in the medical-scientific field. Forum Service has three main areas of expertise: organizing training events in person (e.g., courses, workshops, congresses), creating traditional and digital editorial projects (e.g., books, magazines, video-lessons), and developing and managing hardware and software for frontal teaching and digital publishing (e.g., apps, web portals, virtual reality).
Forum Service (www.forumservice.net) is based in Genoa and employs 25 people.