Newsletter – February 2022

Classy is a project conceived in summer of 2020, proposed in Erasmus+ call of October 2020, accepted to be financed in February 2021 and running since April 2021. Classy is about a digital classroom in which the user can attend classes, have interactional meetings, seminars, play games or even get virtual tours in a 3D environment. Its audio-visual based nature will help people with educational difficulties to better focus and learn by experiencing situations, rather than reading about them in a book. People with mobility issues will now have equal access to lessons with everybody, being able to attend without having to move to a real classroom. All Classy’s features are will also be available in VR mode with the respective commercial glasses.

Hearing the latest news of Facebook, changing to Meta, we feel very proud that the almighty social network had an idea that resembles ours! This shows in an emphatic way that we are walking on an innovative path and we are welcoming you all to walk through it with us all the way!

Classy has opened for the first time the EU “gate” for one of our consortium members, Virtual Solutions, the main technical partner of the project. Teo is leading Virtual’s effort and has some very interesting things to tell us!

– Teo, how does it feel to work for the first time in a EU Erasmus+ project?

– In a nutshell, it feels great, I can breathe the European air! Haha no really it’s so nice to be working in an international consortium having the support of the Erasmus+ committee.

– What projects had you been working on before Classy?

– Before Classy we, in Virtual, had been working with other projects that had to do with innovation in education, ICT-oriented projects that were helping instructors and students to establish a better connection among them, thus, improving the means of transmitting the intended knowledge.

– What differences do you find between Classy, being a EU project and other projects?

– The biggest difference is that now we work under the umbrella of an organized committee (the Erasmus+ committee) that provides clear guidelines and offers help whenever there is a need. It’s important to work in a controlled environment like this. In other projects it’s more often to get off track, get stuck somewhere and stop there of even months trying to figure out a solution. Being a small company we do not have the resources to deal with all the administrative barriers that may occur. So far, we are happy to see that all the administrative work is done by the project coordinator and the Erasmus+ committee

– How do you feel that your involvement with an Eramus+ project will affect your future career?

– For starters, just stating the obvious, it’s a very good resume entry for next partnerships. It’s good to show that you have been working for EU projects. Then it’s important that now we know all the procedures and things that need to be taken care of, giving us the experience to work in other EU projects with the know-how if I can say that. In addition, we get valuable ideas of the workflow, procedures that can be inherited in other projects too, and most importantly, we get in touch with companies that we wouldn’t have the chance to get to know them had it not been for Classy and the whole Erasmus+ involvement.

– Being the leader of the main development team, would you like to say a few words about Classy?

– Classy is big project that combines several utilities we’ve been working on lately. It’s great that we have the chance to put them all together in one and get funded for its implementation. Classy is about providing a virtual classroom where instructors of various subjects can teach with innovative means offered by the platform. For example the classroom can take the form of any virtual environment, like the deep ocean, space, an ancient period etc, where each student will be able to wander with their avatars, making the lesson a first person experience.

– What prospects do you see to Classy after it’s over?

– After the end of the project development, I’m confident that Classy will hit the market soon enough, as, from what I see, people are ready to embrace this new kind of digital education.

– Thank you very much Teo! We are looking forward to Classy’s updates, best of luck for your next steps!

– Thank you too, we’ll keep you posted