Abstract:

Introduction:
The TESLA project originated from a critical need; it is the first governmental higher education structure specialized in training future homeland security staff for the Palestinian Authority’s Institutions. Virtual reality (VR) is quite a new area in Palestine not only on universities but also on the institutional level. The project involves four Palestinian HEI’s (Higher Education Institution): Al-Istiqlal University, Arab American University-Jenin (AAUJ), Al Quds Open University (QOU) and Palestine Polytechnic University (PPU) and the participation of three European Universities: Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra (SUA), University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest (UPB) and University of Patras (UPAT).

Objectives:
The main challenge is to provide a solution for some taught courses when not only traditional learning is considered. Moreover the currently used technology is not sufficient to offer the optimal quality of teaching for a category of courses, as for instance where the human perception and immersion are primer components for learning like crime-scene investigation.

Methodology:
The solution here presented is based in the techno-pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK). Methodology is based on the instructional design process with four steps:
(1) setting up the capacity-building of the team,
(2) development of the project,
(3) implementation process and,
(4) piloting and conducting the change inside the Palestinian HEI’s.

This project will make use of the lessons learned on previous projects of the group related to using VR in education.

Results:
Ninety-five academics and 760 students from the involved Palestinian Universities (Al-Istiqlal, QOU, PPU and AAUJ) have answered surveys to identify their needs for using VR in education and learning. Two scenarios for the crime scene identification are already detailed and the construction of the virtual 3D world has started. With the TESLA project, VR is expected to provide outstanding visualizations that aren’t possible in the traditional classroom. Another expected outcome is the risk-free controlled simulations and realistic learning scenarios.

Conclusion:
TESLA can improve Palestinians education using new technologies lowering costs and risks. This can be seen as an importante use of internet and Virtual Reality for learning and specially to be used in the concept of smart cities.

Keywords:

Virtual Reality, 3D Virtual world, virtual education, learning technologies, teaching environment, smart cities.