Project Echolocation for Visually Impaired People (EchoProVIP) aimed to introduce and develop new and innovative competence for educators of visually impaired people – orientation and mobility instructors – in area of human echolocation skills tailored to special needs of blind people. It was realised by transfer and extended development of training curricula for orientation and mobility instructors (on how to teach this skill to visually impaired people), compendium of knowledge and resources related to that field and set of recommendations supporting its incorporation in existing programmes. The area of human echolocation use is still not widely implemented in the world in rehabilitation of people with vision problems but its tremendous advantage is proved by many research and practice. It is growing field especially in United States of America but still very little recognised and particularly little applied in Europe. Due to activities foreseen in our project, the significant advancement in echolocation training for visually impaired people has been achieved. Hereby project also has contributed to further development of blind people confidence which is main factor for their motivation, activeness and empowerment in all areas of life. The adequate rehabilitation or habilitation training for people is a condition for their mobility, independence and in consequence their capability to more reasonable and ambitious educational choices, employment and civil activity. Our project has resulted with three main outputs: 1. Curricula of Echolocation training for specialists teaching visually impaired people; 2. Compendium with selection of articles, elaborated texts and resource materials 3. Recommendations – presenting detailed and practical possibilities to incorporate in the most effective way the new type of training in the standard orientation and mobility training experienced so far. The direct results of our project included not only tangible innovative outputs but also: - A group of 12 orientation and mobility instructors for visually impaired people (4 from Lithuania and 8 from Poland) that have completed intensive echolocation training, - Group of partners representatives who gained advanced expertise and experiences in echolocation for blind people, - The group of minimum 24 visually impaired adults who benefited from testing training and actively participated in evaluation process, - Significant group of orientation and mobility instructors and representatives of visually impaired population in partner countries (at least 255 in total) who have increased their competences but also awareness in the field and can serve in future as good examples and promotors, - The basis to continue expansion of echolocation competence as one of very important and very powerful skill for visually impaired people. The international partnership consisting of 4 partners included: Institute for Regional Development Foundation – FIRR (Poland), applicant, Instituttet for Blinde og Svagsynede – IBOS (Denmark), Kommunikationscentret, Region Hovedstaden – KC-RH (Denmark) and Kauno Prano Daunio ugdymo centras (Lithuania). The expertize of Danish partners was transferred and together with contribution of partners experiences, combined with intensive research, exchange and sharing of know-how, practice , ideas, wide evaluation through testing training and its important practical part, as well as innovative input coming, among others, from foreseen experts and stakeholders wide consultation. International context also brought about the availability of few language versions of materials in the project (partner countries languages and English as working language) what was facilitating not only their application in partner countries but also facilitate wide dissemination process of our achievements. Our project results are not only to influence extremely the area of adult education for people with visual impairments and their educators qualifications but also have a potential to be transferred to other sectors as for example higher education of those professionals (who were consulted on various stages of our project), as well as other target groups who might benefit a lot from implementation of new training in their regular work.

Due to the visual handicap and the requirements for assistive devices, blind and visually impaired people are usually at a disadvantage when it comes to modern digital education. However, digital competence will continue to be a key factor in the probability of placement on the labour market in the future.Another aspect is that tactile teaching and learning materials are still essential tools in the education of blind and visually impaired students. Such tactile materials are used in lessons of natural sciences, mobility training and all-day living skills. In vocational training tactile models are used in medical and technical subjects.Until now the production of tactile materials has been expensive and time-consuming. The more simple solution to work with swell paper, however, offers strong limitations in the three-dimensional representation and sufficient reproduction of details. The development of ever cheaper and more powerful 3D printers offers new opportunities for the individual production of versatile and affordable teaching materials. In addition, 3D printing technology is an emerging innovation in the context of digitalization, which in particular educational organizations need to address in order to be able to transfer the knowledge in a second step to their students. However, in order to meet this requirement, trainers must be able to recognise and operate the technology in question and its potential. However, it is necessary that this topic is not limited to the STEM subjects, as is usually the case.This project is an initiative to improve the digital education of visually impaired students and their digital competence by implementing 3D technology. These two objectives will be achieved by a two-step strategy. 1. In the first step, teachers and trainers for visually impaired persons will be introduced in the utilization of 3D printers themselves. This step should enable the trainers to create tactile teaching materials and tools for their participants and gain practical experience by using this technology regularly.2. The next step is to enable the trainers to use their acquired experience to instruct their students in 3D printing according to the methodological requirements of visually impaired students.As an additional result, the products that have been developed during the project will be published on an already existing 3D printing portal (Thingiverse) and on a new and open portal for products for the visually impaired, which will be developed and continuously hosted by the Austrian partner.The starting point for this project are the experiences of the applicant, who has already successfully realized this procedure in his own company. In the results of this project, the special experiences and requirements of the project partners will be considered and transferred.During the project a curriculum for the trainers and a curriculum for the students will be developed. The development of the corresponding teaching materials in the languages of the partner countries is also part of the tasks. The education of trainers into 3D printing will take place within two one-week lasting training events.The products developed here can be used by other educational institutions and teachers for people with sensory disabilities.

<< Objectives >>The aim of the project is to investigate areas of application of virtual reality systems (VR) in the context of vocational training for visually impaired people and to implement this technology in the partner organisations. The first step is to introduce the trainers and the technical staff to this technology so that they can identify new areas of application for the target group from a technical point of view. This approach is innovative, as VR has not yet been considered for this target group.<< Implementation >>Four activities will be carried out in this project. In the first phase, fields of VR applications in vocational training and research will be identified. This also includes finding possible applications for the vocational training of visually impaired people. Three hybrid conferences with the participation of external experts, specialists and researchers will be held as further activities. These will address their own experiences and potential uses of VR in vocational training and other fields<< Results >>As a result, the project publishes comprehensive information about existing and potential areas of VR applications in the vocational training for visually impaired people, ophthalmological diagnostics, simulation, and vision training. This publication is available digitally under Creative Commons Licence and includes multimedia examples of VR applications for the target group of visually impaired people. Innovative areas of application for VR systems in this field are also presented.