A Virtual Environment to Support Digital Education Readiness and Creative Skills

Abstract

The VIE (Virtual presence in higher education hybrid learning environments) is an Erasmus+ project which was approved in the extraordinary call during the COVID pandemic to support digital education readiness and collaborative skills. This project is aimed to design and implement a highly interactive digital collaborative learning platform. VIE envisions a digital work environment through which students will design solutions to learning challenges through brainstorming and synthesizing by building on each other's ideas. The VIE solution will simulate the way that students work together in a classroom towards design solution by taking notes on a common blackboard that all can see and update at the same time. The service functionality will include: avatar presence through which participants will be able to recognize their team members in the digital environment; sharing of ideas in the form of building blocks that all can see, review, edit, and combine simultaneously towards building a larger solution from smaller contributions; and project organization that allows the effective management and prioritization of tasks in a visual and engaging manner. Interaction will be supported through both desktop and mobile devices for maximizing access flexibility. © 2021 IEEE.