Powering vocational education and training with technology

Demo of the Static AR app, which allows apprentices to see and understand the forces acting on a roof structure. Alain Herzog 2017 EPFL - For more than 15 years, researchers have been exploring ways to improve training for apprentices. The findings are summarized in a recently published book and a website for teachers, and new educational technologies are currently being developed. Switzerland is known for its fondue, its punctual trains and its watchmaking industry. But the country has another claim to fame: its vocational education and training (VET) system. At the end of compulsory schooling, apprentices join a threeor four-year program that combines on-the-job training in a host company with classes at a vocational school. "The Swiss official discourse places VET somewhere close to Roger Federe" quips EPFL professor Pierre Dillenbourg, who spent 15 years as head of the Leading House DUAL-T, in the recently published book Educational Technologies for Vocational Training: Experiences as Digital Clay.