Itales

ITALES is a 3 year R&D project funded by the European Commission's Information Society Technologies Programme. It specifically addresses a major European priority: the School of Tomorrow. As well as creating innovative authoring tools that let teachers produce personalised learning content for their pupils, the project is also developing a web-based 3D virtual reality learning and teaching environment. Teachers and pupils will be able to use the system not just as a vehicle for learning, but also to communicate and interact with one another using several new communication tools. The web-based user interface will use virtual reality technologies to present a metaphoric school building with rooms and other areas one would expect find in a real school. The overall objective of ITALES is to develop a European-wide virtual teaching and learning community whose key aims are the promotion of pedagogic content sharing and re-use, sharing of opinions and innovative approaches, and the provision of pedagogical and pastoral support for learners.

The developmental objectives of ITALES are to:

• develop a set of authoring tools that enable teachers to prepare digital content for personalised learning;
• develop new content management tools that can be used by teachers to plan and build their own online courses;
• develop a library of databases to allow content sharing and re-use;
• develop a web-based 3D virtual system for learning and teaching that can be configured in terms of both appearance and the tools and content available to learners.