Civic education in primary schools increasingly demands approaches that promote active participation, democratic engagement, and community awareness. However, recent studies reveal gaps in how civic learning is delivered to young learners, often due to limited pedagogical models and inadequate digital tools. MetaCivicEdu addresses these gaps by developing metaverse-enriched civic education scenarios, a dedicated XR platform, teacher training pathways, and pilot studies across Ireland, Greece, and Cyprus.

This presentation introduces participants to the project’s pedagogical foundations, which combine experiential civic learning, XR-supported inquiry, and age-appropriate immersive activities. Participants will first explore examples of metaverse-enabled civic scenarios created within MetaCivicEdu, such as virtual town halls, digital citizenship quests, environmental stewardship missions, and simulated community-decision exercises. These scenarios illustrate how immersive environments can make abstract civic concepts—rights, responsibilities, community roles, and democratic processes—accessible to children.

Following a guided demonstration of the platform under development, we will also present preliminary insights from pilot case studies, highlighting how metaverse-enriched civic education impacts student engagement, collaboration, and understanding of civic concepts. Practical considerations—teacher readiness, safety protocols, inclusivity, accessibility, and XR classroom integration—will be discussed openly.

The session is ideal for primary educators, school leaders, XR developers, civic education specialists, and digital-pedagogy researchers.

This research brings together three higher education institutions (HEI) to explore the transformative potential of immersive technologies for higher education with considerable transdisciplinary application in the design and delivery of learning for multiple industries. This collaborative initiative between the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT), Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design & Technology (IADT) and South East Technological University (SETU) aims to empower faculty to integrate Extended Reality (XR) technology into their teaching practices, significantly enhancing student engagement and knowledge retention. This paper outlines preliminary steps upon which the pedagogical lens will contribute to the design and development of the application and the steps toward implementation within the classroom, specifically in relation to educators knowledge and skill and microcredential curriculum design.

In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, integrating emerging technologies like XR into education is crucial for enhancing student engagement, improving knowledge retention, and developing future-ready skills. Despite the recognized potential of immersive technologies, their widespread adoption in higher education is limited, often due to high costs, lack of technical expertise, and time-consuming content development.

Recognizing these barriers, the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT), Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design + Technology (IADT) and South East Technological University (SETU) with the support of HEA launched a collaborative initiative to empower faculty with the skills, resources, and confidence to integrate XR into their teaching practices. Central to the initiative is a co-development model that brings students and faculty together to collaboratively create XR learning content, fostering mutual ownership, innovation, and a stronger connection to the curriculum.

Through intentional shared COIL (collaborative online international learning), professional development, curriculum development, joint teaching activities and practices, are being designed. This paper presents the initial steps that will ensure that the design meets the collaborative vision for inclusive, disruptive progression of pedagogical innovation in higher education.

Higher Education (HE) graduates are expected to demonstrate strong communication skills and apply them with confidence in high-pressure, real-world situations. A central challenge for educators is identifying effective strategies to help students not only practice these skills but also build resilience and confidence in using them.

This presentation will share details of an international project between Ireland and Canada which examines how immersive technologies, specifically virtual reality (VR), can be utilised to enhance the development of communication skills. Guided by the project mentors, academic leaders carried out an action research (AR) project (McNiff, 2013) with their students, capturing their feedback at the end of each action research cycle, to inform the design of the learning experience using VR. Two AR cycles have been completed to date and the presentation will include findings from student surveys, academic leaders' reflective logs and user-generated data available on the VR platforms.

The project is informed by key literature in immersive learning. For example Queiroz et al. (2025), argues that the use of virtual reality to develop communication skills has shown promising results. Noting that virtual reality provides authentic, immersive learning simulations, the study claims that participants’ emotional and behavioural involvement increased as a result of using virtual reality for communication skills training. Helle et al. (2025) conducted a qualitative study with health and social care students to explore the use of virtual reality for individual learning, concluding that VR had significant potential in enhancing professional competencies. The potential of virtual reality to develop nursing students’ communication skills was explored by Shorey et al. (2020), who concluded that VR enhanced student confidence and preparedness for clinical performance. However, the study also noted that challenges were associated with poor speech recognition and conversation flow, which impacted the overall experience for students. These were important considerations for the present study.

Additionally, identifying where immersive learning experiences with VR fit within the curriculum was a key factor in promoting student engagement (McDermott et al., 2024). The presentation will also share considerations from the research on aligning the chosen immersive learning pathway with core competencies required by students, and reflections on using VR as part of an international project team.

Resource constraints in analytical chemistry education often limit students' opportunities to practise with expensive instrumentation. This exploratory study investigated third-year undergraduate chemistry students' perceptions of, and engagement with, a newly developed virtual reality (VR) application—Immersive ChemLab—featuring a digital twin of an Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (AAS) instrument implemented as an interactive pre-laboratory preparation activity. The application comprised three mini-modules covering instrument setup, optimisation, and quantitative analysis. Using an explanatory mixed-methods design, we collected student perceptions through two surveys (N=25, N=18) administered after VR training and after completion of the physical laboratory session, supplemented by focus group data (N=10). Quantitative data were analysed using non-parametric statistics, and qualitative data underwent thematic analysis, with integration yielding three overarching themes. Students reported that Immersive ChemLab enhanced their preparedness for the physical laboratory, with perceived benefits including improved understanding of AAS theoretical principles and instrument operation, increased familiarity and confidence, and self-reported efficiency compared to other instruments supported by traditional pre-laboratory materials. Despite technical challenges and limited prior VR experience, students maintained positive attitudes towards VR as a learning tool. Strong correlations emerged between module experiences and perceived learning benefits. However, significant methodological limitations constrain interpretation: reliance on self-reported perceptions without objective performance measures, absence of a control group, and small sample size prevent causal claims about VR effectiveness. The findings suggest potential value for VR-based pre-laboratory preparation, whilst highlighting implementation considerations for chemistry educators. Rigorous controlled studies with objective learning outcome measures are essential to substantiate these exploratory findings.