Publication
SafeChild: An Intelligent Virtual Reality Environment for Training Pedestrian Safety Skills
Yecheng Gu; Sergey Sosnovsky; Carsten Ullrich
In: Design for Teaching and Learning in a Networked World. European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning (EC-TEL-15), 10th, September 15-18, Toledo, Spain, Pages 141-154, Springer, 2015.
Abstract
Training children safe behavior in traffic situations is both important
and challenging. One of the problems is children’s limited perceptual-motor abil‐
ities and associated difficulties with important cognitive skills required to be safe
pedestrians. Existing traffic education programs focus more on theoretical knowl‐
edge, while training practical skills in the real world is dangerous, expensive and
hard to organize. This paper presents a promising alternative – an intelligent
virtual reality training environment that allows children to practice their pedes‐
trian skills. It describes the interface and architecture of the system, as well as the
skill model of the pedestrian safety domain. The results of the conducted pilot
study show that children of the target age group rarely have problems with
applying (and acquiring) “basic” pedestrian skills in the developed virtual envi‐
ronment. However, when applying and learning “advanced” skills, they require
additional support.