Extended reality (XR) technologies have immense potential and make up one of the fastest growing sectors in the educational technology market (Mills, 2022; Eldequaddem, 2019). Hence, research concerning the development and implementation of XR-technology (i.e., virtual, augmented and mixed reality) in educational settings is a new and continuously evolving field.
From a teacher education point of view, teachers need to develop a sense of initiative and creative mindsets as well as new skills and competences to incorporate XR-technology in their classrooms. For XR designers, it is important to know which affordances need to be considered if their XR-technology is to be implemented successfully in learning environments. Hence, the Pedagogical Alliance for XR-Technology in (Teacher) Education (PAX) aims at stimulating the flow and exchange of knowledge between pre- and in-service teacher education institutions and XR enterprises to help establish new professional pathways. PAX sets out to strengthen the synergies between stakeholders by bringing them together to jointly develop a sustainable approach to teaching and learning which is student-centred and allows for problem-based experiential classroom settings and which will also be relevant for the design of XR technology (see Stürmer, 2017).
The consortium of six European universities and three XR developers follows an innovative approach that incorporates XR technology into the field of teacher education. The main outcomes of this European project are the development of:
1) the PAX-Framework for pre- and in-service teachers (i.e., a competence framework with competence descriptors for the use of XR-technology in classrooms, which will be included in the existing curricula of all partner universities), as well as
2) the PAX-Design Guidelines for enterprises who seek to design XR-technology for instructional use.
In jointly developing these outcomes, we will incorporate transversal competences required to implement XR-technology in teaching and learning settings. PAX works towards fostering innovation, new skills, a sense of initiative and an entrepreneurial mindset in both pre-and in-service teachers. To ensure the progress and quality of the project, leading representatives of each partner institution will attend regular PAX-Board Meetings (monthly digital meetings for the first 6 months of the project, quarter-yearly meetings for the remaining 2,5 years).
The PrAXis-Group, which is an international and interdisciplinary group of critics consisting of teachers, teacher educators, curriculum designers and policy makers , will try and test both outcomes in regular intervals and advise the consortium on the progress of the project.
