VIRTUAL REALITY AS AN INNOVATIVE AND IMMERSIVE LEARNING TOOL FOR HEIS IN PALESTINE

Abstract

Education and technology are an interconnected. While education has not changed for years in terms of applied teaching approaches and techniques, we are witnessing a continuous innovation in terms of instructional technologies, ICT infrastructure, and the delivery methods related to education. The article presents the project TESLA - Virtual Reality as an Innovative and Immersive Learning Tools for HEIs in Palestine, supported by European Commission under the programme Capacity building in the field of higher education. The TESLA project originated from a critical need or challenge to provide a solution for some taught courses where not only traditional learning is considered to be obsolete but also the current used technology is not sufficient to offer the optimal quality of teaching/training for a certain category of courses where the human perception and immersion are two master components for learning. The idea grew up when other Palestinian HEIs join the initiative launched by Al-Istiqlal University to develop a collective virtual reality component, giving it more depth and more challenges to overcome, especially that each university has already its own courses, vision, and objectives.