The VRECH - Virtual Reality Education Center is a cooperation project
The project is supported by the Lower Saxony Ministry of Culture.
Hanover RegionOverall coordination
Project coordinator for digital work and education in the Hannover Region's economic and employment promotion department since 2020. One focus is the initiation and support of projects to promote digitalization at vocational schools, especially with regard to key technologies such as AR/VR or robotics.
The VRECH cooperation project impressively demonstrates what can be achieved together with strong partners:
From the idea in the Strategic Advisory Board for the promotion of digitization at BBSn to today's implementation by the Hannover Region, the NLQ and supported by the Lower Saxony Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs. With this concentrated expertise, we want to bring the potential of immersive technologies closer to schools in the Hannover Region and, in the long term, to the whole of Lower Saxony and, as the first VR education center in Lower Saxony, also make progress with good practice scenarios for other regions.
Felix Andreas BlaseCoordination of technical equipment and operation
since 2020 for cross-school topics/projects in the field of digitization/system administration in the schools department of the Hannover Region
As a system administrator at MMBbS, I came into contact with AR/VR/360° 3D technologies for the first time through the school's international exchange program and built the first learning environment in this area in 2017, creating virtual tours of the school.
I have been creating 360° tours for restaurants, hotels, art galleries and real estate sellers as a sideline since 2017
Thanks to the three-dimensional stereoscopic impression and the acoustic and haptic feedback, virtual and augmented reality can be used to create learning situations that can be truly "experienced" through sensation and emotion.
In this way, learners can be inspired, contexts can be illustrated in a variety of ways and networked thinking can be strengthened.
And all this with a large portion of fun!
C.ChristelPedagogical Project Manager (Focus School)
I see huge potential in XR technologies in the education sector to completely rethink and redesign educational processes. Anyone who knows how profitably good visualizations can be used in the classroom will immediately understand where this potential lies.
Initially, it does not matter whether it is only passively consumed or actively interacted with. However, the additional option of active interaction in virtual space is ultimately what makes this medium so special.
It helps to not only passively absorb learning content, but to actively shape it and thus learn and understand better through an emotional connection. That's why I want to explore and try out precisely this potential in VRECH and share it with other teachers.
Hanover RegionTechnical project manager (company focus)
Tim founded the 360° & VR studio timmersive in 2016. He studied in Göttingen and Berlin with study visits to New York and Silicon Valley and has now been working with VR and AR for a good 10 years.
Tim has been working as a coordinator for digitalization at the Hannover Region since 2019 and is also a lecturer for innovative media formats, VR & 360° at the North German Academy for Marketing, the ARD.ZDF medienakademie and the University of Leipzig. Here, he is also doing his doctorate on the use of virtual reality in school education and researching the impact of VR in teaching.
Immersion in virtual worlds opens up new possibilities for imparting knowledge. Experience it instead of just reading about it - do it yourself instead of just talking about it.
Learning in virtual reality is fun, engaging and much more memorable, as the learning experience generally generates emotions. Exploiting this potential and helping to shape these new learning worlds motivates me.
With the Virtual Reality Education Center Hannover, we show teachers and trainers everything they need to know and be able to do to leverage the potential of these immersive media.
© J.OodesCoordination of technical equipment and operation
Since 2020, I have been responsible for setting up and managing a region-wide school IT system in the schools department of the Hannover Region. As a graduate computer scientist, I can look back on almost 30 years of experience in the IT sector.
In my 25 years as Head of IT at both Deloitte Consulting and Hanover Airport, I have always worked in a highly interesting and highly specialized technical environment. At the airport in particular, projects on topics such as augmented/virtual reality, AI and autonomous driving were a particularly exciting challenge.
I am fascinated by new technologies per se. Helping to shape how they are used in everyday life in a practical and supportive way is what drives me.
As a founding member of the VRECH project, I am particularly enthusiastic about the fact that, with the Education Center, we are creating both the technical basis and providing the know-how in the form of training courses/workshops to anchor XR technology in the education sector as a further element of modern knowledge transfer.
