A virtual interactive community platform supporting education for long-term sick children

Abstract

Analysis of existing ICT-based solutions for the education of long-term ill children reveal several weaknesses with respect to social and cooperative involvement, cost of development, and mobility issues. We present a scalable and affordable solution that supports both the social needs and learning process of these children. An educational platform was created based on the concepts of 3D networked virtual environments and Virtual Interactive Communities. In this work we describe the system architecture, network setup and protocols, and how we implemented the educational support. Our solution incorporates innovative hardware, software and connectivity features, set in a user friendly user interface based on networking and 3D technologies. It helps to establish high quality involvement of the long-term sick children in a communication based scenario between the place where the child stays/has been moved and their original classroom learning setting.