Abstract:

OBJECTIVES:
The SimAULA specific aims and objectives are:

1. Design and development of an innovative ICT-based simulation environment for virtual practicum training of future teachers in their pedagogical skills, integrating existing best practices, outcomes recommendations concerning the classroom practicum of teachers and teachers-to-be;
2. To design a model for successfully expressing and integrating multiple levels of detail, fidelity and simulation, with learner-to-virtual-agent interactions that will enable student- and in-service teachers to improve their teachers skills through critical thinking, creativity, &learning by doing in a virtual training environment;
3. To test and evaluate the impact of the novel virtual practicum approach to teaching and pedagogic methodologies on the students’ and teachers’ learning outcomes in different EU states and educational levels;
4. To enhance networking between teachers and professors across educational levels and EU countries concerning the practical classroom training of teachers and the possible positive roles of ICT in it;
5. To disseminate the project results to other European countries and their schools and universities through development of sound practice of coordination and cooperation between all concerned actors, stakeholders, and policy-makers for encouraging the best use of project results, innovative products and procedures;
6. To exploit the potential of the project outcomes for further development and commercialization, thus aiming to achieve sustainability and further development and exploitation of the project results beyond the EU funding period.

All of the above will contribute to the following objectives of the LLP:

1. Development of innovative ICT-based services, pedagogies and practice for lifelong learning
2. To encourage best use of results, innovative products and processes and to exchange good practice in the fields covered by the LLP, so as to improve quality of education & training.

SimAULA PROJECT STAGES:

1. SimAULA – Requirements definition
• Modelling student and pedagogical strategies
• Select the scenarios that are representative for each country, try to represent conflictive situations and the most problematic ones
• Select pedagogical strategies to be implemented
• Design a flexible tool - a prototype with limited scenarios and situations but with capabilities to upload and create new scenarios by the user
2. Pedagogical Concept and Workflow Design
• Definition of the Virtual World platform
• Definition of Theoretical Model: Student Model, Pedagogical Model, Class Model
3. Virtual Learning simulator development
Development of:
• Virtual World platform
• Software agents for the simulation of pupils, teacher and classroom
• Authoring tools for the creation of practicum environments by assembling 3D objects, Educational contents, assessment quizzes.
4. Pilot realisation and End-user evaluation
• deploy the SimAULA platform where the user and test and validate it; define and develop the simAULA pilot sites
• to evaluate the results of the pilot tests

PARTICIPATING COUNTRIES:
• Spain
• Italy
• Bulgaria
• Greece
• UK