About ARAVET
In 1995, the use of the Internet has spread and the transition to the digital era has begun. We should speak the same language of digital natives but the teachers have been trained by a traditional system of education before the digital age and the traditional educational techniques and materials fail to meet this need.
Nowadays, technology and knowledge are within easy reach. Although technological literacy is widespread in society, the majority of teachers still use traditional methods and materials.
There are a number of issues we will analyze below:
• Digital natives have grown up with the Internet have a greater visual perception than previous generations. For this reason, a lesson purely verbal attracts little attention from students and brings down their interest.
• The schools do not all have the same technological opportunities. The creation of physical environments with appropriate equipment requires high costs, space and staff.
• While providing these opportunities, there are still too many risks for students, such as high-voltage, cutters and sharpening machines, hazardous chemicals, and sometimes they do not know their educational values.
• A laboratory becomes obsolete in a matter of one or two years because technology moves very quickly. The update of these laboratories involves a financial burden for schools and waste of materials.
• A primary need of modern society is time, people need to be able to gain knowledge anywhere and at any time.
• Teachers can’t make appropriate use of new technology products, such as smart boards. The main cause of this problem is the lack of material on digital resources.
• Students can get any kind of knowledge or materials at school during formal education. In a lifelong learning perspective, these opportunities will be sought well after graduation. Even businesses need to inform staff and suppliers on a new product or technology. Hence the need to create a training center that can provide the necessary information with a waste of money and time.
These problems can lead to two situations: with the former pupils of vocational / technical scholls fail to produce a valid active learning in the perspective of lifelong learning after formal education; in the second case the academic skills achieved by students are lower than those required by higher education.
A careful analysis shows that we can’t find a solution to the second problem because the testing system is based on legal arrangements, so we prefer to take as the target active learning and support lifelong learning.
One possible solution to some of these issues could be the implementation of modeling and simulation technologies ICT in teaching. In this way, the visual and audio material can be used regardless of time and space.
In perspective of Europe 2020, our ARAVET project contributes to achieving the primary objectives of Europe: (http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en).
The overall objective of European research and innovation information and communication (ICT) as part of the Horizon 2020 is to extend the benefits of progress in these technologies to citizens and businesses in Europe.
Overall, the ICT sector accounts for 4.8% of the EU economy. It generates 25% of total business expenditure on research and development (R & D) and investment in ICT account for 50% of European productivity growth.
All applications produced with AR technologies within the ARAVET project will be shared for free on virtual platforms. In this way, anyone can learn a topic at anytime and anywhere.
The ARAVET project copes with these issues in the field of education.