Founded in 1962, Avipole Formation has trained over 1,500 poultry farming advisors and several thousand poultry farmers and employees. Based in Ploufragan, Brittany, at the heart of the Zoopole, this Qualiopi-certified reference center contributes to the development of French poultry farming. When their teams contacted us, the idea was simple yet ambitious: integrate virtual reality directly into examination procedures.
An Oral Exam in VR Immersion
The concept is unprecedented in agricultural training. Learners in the poultry farming advisor program have access to a bank of 360° images of poultry houses, supplemented by standard images. Their mission: build the correct virtual tour of a poultry farm using easystory360.
And the word "correct" matters. The image bank contains traps — views that do not correspond to a well-managed farm, anomalies to detect, mistakes to avoid. The learner must demonstrate technical judgment to select the right images, organize them into a coherent path, and build a tour that demonstrates their mastery of the profession.
It is an exercise that simultaneously engages technical skills (knowing best farming practices), analytical ability (spotting the traps), and pedagogy (structuring a clear and logical path).
From VR Headset to Oral Exam Before a Jury
Once the tour is built on easystory360, the learner pushes it to a VR headset. They put on the headset, find themselves in their tour at full scale, and begin their oral presentation. They navigate through the tour, comment on each stage, justify their image choices, and explain what they observe — exactly as they would during a real farm visit.
Meanwhile, the examiner follows the tour in real time on a tablet, thanks to the live screen mirroring. They see exactly what the learner sees and can evaluate the relevance of the path, the quality of the commentary, and the ability to identify key points in a poultry house.
This setup fundamentally changes the nature of the assessment. The learner is no longer simply asked to recite knowledge. They are asked to demonstrate practical skills in an immersive environment, just as they would in the field. The difference is that this field environment is reproducible, controllable, and assessable in a standardized way.
Why This Exam Format Works
In the poultry farming advisor profession, the farm visit is a fundamental practice. It is during these visits that the advisor observes farming conditions, detects anomalies, discusses with the farmer, and formulates recommendations. The ability to "read" a building — to spot what is right and what is wrong — is at the core of the professional skill set.
The problem with traditional exam formats is that they often assess this skill indirectly: written questions, paper-based case studies, PowerPoint presentations. The learner talks about the visit but never actually performs one.
With VR, the assessment comes closer to the real situation. The learner is immersed in a farming environment and must navigate, observe, comment, and justify in real time. The jury evaluates not only knowledge but also professional demeanor, observation skills, and the quality of the oral presentation.
A Tool Designed for the Training Field
The choice of easystory360 is no accident. The platform allows trainers to build and update 360° image banks easily, with no technical expertise required. They can add new farms, vary the situations, and introduce new pedagogical traps from one session to the next.
For learners, the tool is straightforward to use. They assemble their tour by dragging and dropping images, add points of interest if they wish, and publish to the headset with a single click. No development skills are needed to build a compelling immersive path.
The live screen mirroring on a tablet for the examiner is a key advantage. It enables real-time assessment without the jury needing to wear a headset. The examiner keeps their hands free to take notes, follow their evaluation grid, and observe the learner's posture.
Beyond the Exam: easystory360 for Farm Monitoring
The easystory360 platform is not limited to building exam paths. A major poultry industry group already uses easystory360 for daily farm monitoring.
An advisor or farmer can capture 360° images and videos of their buildings, timestamp them, archive them, and organize them into a structured path. Each farm visit becomes a documented record, viewable over time and comparable from one session to the next.
This immersive visual monitoring is particularly useful in several situations:
- Before an inspection visit: the farmer prepares a 360° overview and shares it online with their advisor to anticipate areas of concern
- After a visit: the advisor archives their observations as timestamped 360° images, creates a commented path, and shares it with the farmer for follow-up on recommendations
- Tracking over time: visually comparing the condition of a building between two visits, documenting improvements or deterioration
- Remote collaboration: sharing a path online with a veterinarian, auditor, or technician without requiring them to travel on-site
All without any technical expertise. The farmer takes 360° photos with a consumer camera, imports them into easystory360, builds a path, and shares it via a simple link. Archiving is automatic, and all creations remain accessible and organized.
What This Case Opens Up
The system deployed at Avipole Formation is directly transferable to other professional training contexts:
- Agriculture and livestock: virtual farm tours for other sectors (cattle, pigs, goats)
- Industry: diagnostic exams on a simulated industrial site in VR
- Healthcare: assessing the ability to "read" a care environment
- Construction and safety: risk identification exams on a virtual construction site
In each case, the logic is the same: assess observation and analysis skills in an immersive environment, rather than on a flat medium. VR does not replace the real world, but it offers an exam format that is closer to professional reality — reproducible and fair for all candidates.
Avipole Formation, a reference center for the poultry industry for over 60 years, shows that pedagogical innovation does not always come from the tech sector. Sometimes it comes from a chicken farm in Ploufragan — and that is where it is most tangible.
Avipole Formation website: https://www.avipole-formation.fr