Gaspare Lipari
Awarded
Distinguished Teacher
of the Year 2023
Greenwich Public Schools
A few highlights from 2022
My Journey to The Education Metaverse
When I was 8 years old, I got my first computer. It was a Texas Instruments TI99-4a desktop. I learned to code in Basic, and was hooked! From there, I got a Commodore Vic 20 & 64, then, in High School, learned programming languages like Assembly, Basic, Fortran, & Turbo Pascal while in High School. Then I stopped.
But I didn't stop loving technology and computing. Now I share my love of technology and innovation with my students, hoping to inspire, motivate, and prepare young minds for what comes next.
Technology and Education
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Could've. Would've. Should've. In order for an idea to come to fruition, risks need to be faced and the journey needs to begin. So, when I learned about the Greenwich Alliance for Education's grant awards, I did exhaustive research, ideas came to life and I filled out that first application. My vision became a reality and turned into something spectacular. Three grant awards and $115,000+ later and Unbound Innovations is a thriving growing program. It has been a challenging journey and I am excited about the direction it's headed.
So what's next, what's our goal, what are we doing...
Starting as an after-school enrichment program, Unbound Innovations has become a highly sought-after and desirable program at Western Middle School. In the last year, hundreds of middle school students have had the opportunity to experience this innovative approach to learning.
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Unbound Innovation XR embeds the immersive tools of Virtual and Augmented Reality into many middle school academic and elective classes, offering a distraction-free multi-learning style approach to the topics being studied. The power of Virtual Reality to provide students with an environment rich in visuals, original audio, and interactivity creates a memorable experience where students are introduced variety of new ways to consume content and raise the level of learning. From reliving history as part of the crew of a bomber flying over Germany, learning a variety of languages through real-world experiences, producing music, building new content, gliding through space while making stops at every planet and satellite, performing dissections and other lab experiments, or taking tours of Anne Frank's hiding spots, students are being introduced to an immersive transformative education.
Tools of the Trade
From heavily loaded gaming PC's with wide-screen monitors to 360 Cameras and the latest Oculus and Vive headsets, students have access to some of the latest tools to create and explore an all-encompassing experience in XR.​
HARDWARE
50 Oculus/Meta 2 Headsets
15 Oculus/Meta 1 Headsets
2 HTC Vive Pro 2 Headsets
1 Vive Flow Mobile VR Glasses
1 Vive Elite XR Headset
2 Oculus Rift Headsets
6 Oculus Go Headsets
2 Microsoft Hololens 2 AR Glasses (on loan)
Kai's Clan XR Robotics - Class Kit
12 Samsung Tablets & iPads
2 Complete BHaptics Suits
2 Dremmel 3D printers
1 HP Sprout Desktop
4 iBuyPower Fully-Loaded Gaming PCs
4 36" Widescreen Monitors
4 insta360 Cameras
1 insta360 Pro II Camera & Kit
1 Mavic Pro 2 Drone
86 Merge Cubes and Headsets
24 VR Gaming Matts
Various Accessories
16 PC Laptops for Unity Game Design
Self-Built VR Charging Carts
SOFTWARE
Unity
PrismsVR Math
EngageXR App
Spoke by Mozilla
ZOE
FrameVR
Icosa Gallery
EyeJack AR
Polycam AR
Halo AR
Kiri Engine
Artvive
200+ Meta Applications
75+ Steam VR Applications
PLATFORMS
ManageXR MDM
CoSpaces Edu
Merge Edu
Kai's Clan
Oculus/Meta
Victory XR
Engage XR
Organizational support and awards
The Greenwich Alliance for Education | Greenwich Public Schools
Grant Awards in excess of $115,000 | Yale Medical School's Play4Real XR Lab/XRPeds
APE Labs | Kai's Robotics | Skills21 AR Project Award - 2nd Place ​| Greenwich Library Innovation Lab
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