Digital-supported teaching has not only found its way into schools since the Covid pandemic. Learning opportunities are quickly available, they arouse students' interest or enable collaborative and independent work - and they change the spectrum of learning opportunities for the better as well as for the worse. Currently, we know very little about the long-term effects of digitally supported teaching and whether analogue experiences can be replaced by digital offerings. Future Live addresses the question - What learning opportunities do Virtual Reality (VR) learning environments offer compared to real ones? Using the example of the Madagascan cockroach, the direct experience with living animals is compared with the corresponding confrontation in virtual space and systematically analysed how the learning setting affects the acquisition of cognitive and affective knowledge as well as memory performance.

Involved school partner

School partners of secondary level 1 – MS Zirl, PHT MS

Running Time

2022 - 2024

Involved researcher

Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Suzanne Kapelari, MA

Lucas Weinberg, MA 

Dr. Susanne Rafolt

Elisabeth Carli

Devices used

VR camera, VR glasses, PC, Madagascar cockroaches (animal loan)

Key technologies

VR animal models (VR modelling software), animal loan

Used innovation labs