Extended Reality Technologies and Social Inclusion: The Role of Virtual Reality in Includiamoci Project

Abstract

In recent years we have witnessed a great change in the school and education system, that shifted from a culture of integration to a culture of inclusion, aimed at creating a condition of equal opportunity and making the uniqueness of individual, strength, and enrichment for all. Digital technologies are important to support the social inclusion of people with physical and mental disabilities because they enable the overcoming of some real-world barriers, and among these technologies, Virtual Reality plays an important role. The purpose of this paper is to examine the partial outputs of the activities carried out by the Augmented and Virtual Reality Laboratory (AVR Lab) as part of the “Includiamoci” project and to discuss the first results. In particular, the contribution concerns the implementation of a virtual museum aimed at ho using the works of art created by participants as part of Art Therapy sessions: within this, participants are active subjects, prosumers of the experience, as they generate it, narrate it and enjoy it, by means of a Virtual Reality (VR) headset.