Virtually Here was a project led by Artist Jojo Hynes assisted by Jennifer Cunningham. They worked in 5 Galway-based primary schools exploring the educational, creative and innovative uses of 360° imaging and VR software to explore their locality.
Carrabane National School, Claregalway Educate Together N.S, Oranmore Boys School, Windfield N.S AND Scoil Mhuire NS. Clifden researched their own unique local landscapes, captured imagery of its defining features and used this media to construct VR environments representing the imagined past, present and future environments surrounding them locally.
This collaborative project was support by a number of bodies the artist were funded by Galway 2020. Each school was also provided with tailored support by a PDST Digital Technologies advisor, along with access to PDST equipment to use throughout the project. Cisco provided each participating school with a Cisco Webex board for the duration of the project so that schools could engage in online workshops and link in with each other. The research and development phase of the project was also supported by the School of Education in NUI, Galway.
It is hoped that this site provides a legacy for the Virtually Here project whereby other schools can gain insight into the journey undertaken by the the schools who participated in this project and draw from the resources provided on this site in exploring the innovative uses of VR within their own contexts.
