The Development of an Empathy Curriculum (Empathy in Health) for Healthcare Students Using VR Technology

Empathy in Health is an Erasmus + funded project, which aims to design a curriculum for empathetic skill development in healthcare practitioners and home carers based on up-to-date evidence and cutting-edge technology tools. A literature review was carried out that focused on empathy in health care using VR technology. The results of the literature review helped develop a focus group guide for the purposes of the qualitative part of the need assessment exercise. The data from the focus groups were transcribed and analysed using the methodology of content analysis. The themes that emerged from the analysis of the focus groups’ data lent themselves to three major working areas. These informed the development of the qualification framework, which in turn informed the development of the detailed curriculum. The Empathy in Health curriculum involves 21-hour classroom teaching, 3-hour Asynchronous Electronic Learning and 6-hour Directed Self Learning for graduate students or final year undergraduate students or Health Care Professionals. The curriculum covers understanding empathy and competencies necessary for empathy, understanding empathy in relationships and information exchanges in different health care contexts/environments, showing empathy in diverse environments and overcoming barriers/challenges to empathy

Enhancing children's literacy skills: designing the Q-Tales ecosystem for children's e-book design and publication

Digital media, interactive storytelling and e-books are ubiquitous in contemporary education, and consequently play an increasingly important role in the development of children s nascent and emergent literacy. Digital storytelling technologies are also changing rapidly and becoming more sophisticated, in terms of possibilities for creative, interactive narrative, and augmented by the capability to incorporate proven pedagogical strategies and techniques, specifically to enhance children s literacy. This raises questions around how we best design and deploy these powerful, high-potential technologies; what concepts and principles undergird the effective design of pedagogically impactful e-books for children? This paper has emerged from research undertaken within the Q-Tales international consortium project of the EU s Horizon 2020 Programme for Research and Innovation, where the aim was to facilitate key stakeholders - illustrators, storytellers, children, parents, educators, sound artists - to collaborate and participate in the online production and publication of high-quality, educational e-books for children. This paper outlines the synthesis of the Q-Tales pedagogical framework. As well as informing the design of the Q-Tales infrastructure for children s e-book design and publication, we hope the guidelines and pedagogical activities enumerated here will be widely useful for those designing and developing digital, interactive narratives, particularly e-books to enhance children s emerging literacy.Research for this paper was funded by the EU's Horizon 2020 Programme for Research and Innovationpeer-reviewed2019-07-2

Enhancing children\u27s literacy skills: designing the Q-Tales ecosystem for children\u27s e-book design and publication

Digital media, interactive storytelling and e-books are ubiquitous in contemporary education, and consequently play an increasingly important role in the development of children s nascent and emergent literacy. Digital storytelling technologies are also changing rapidly and becoming more sophisticated, in terms of possibilities for creative, interactive narrative, and augmented by the capability to incorporate proven pedagogical strategies and techniques, specifically to enhance children s literacy. This raises questions around how we best design and deploy these powerful, high-potential technologies; what concepts and principles undergird the effective design of pedagogically impactful e-books for children? This paper has emerged from research undertaken within the Q-Tales international consortium project of the EU s Horizon 2020 Programme for Research and Innovation, where the aim was to facilitate key stakeholders - illustrators, storytellers, children, parents, educators, sound artists - to collaborate and participate in the online production and publication of high-quality, educational e-books for children. This paper outlines the synthesis of the Q-Tales pedagogical framework. As well as informing the design of the Q-Tales infrastructure for children s e-book design and publication, we hope the guidelines and pedagogical activities enumerated here will be widely useful for those designing and developing digital, interactive narratives, particularly e-books to enhance children s emerging literacy.Research for this paper was funded by the EU\u27s Horizon 2020 Programme for Research and Innovation2019-07-2

The Development of an Empathy Curriculum (Empathy in Health) for Healthcare Students Using VR Technology

Empathy in Health is an Erasmus + funded project, which aims to design a curriculum for empathetic skill development in healthcare practitioners and home carers based on up-to-date evidence and cutting-edge technology tools. A literature review was carried out that focused on empathy in health care using VR technology. The results of the literature review helped develop a focus group guide for the purposes of the qualitative part of the need assessment exercise. The data from the focus groups were transcribed and analysed using the methodology of content analysis. The themes that emerged from the analysis of the focus groups’ data lent themselves to three major working areas. These informed the development of the qualification framework, which in turn informed the development of the detailed curriculum. The Empathy in Health curriculum involves 21-hour classroom teaching, 3-hour Asynchronous Electronic Learning and 6-hour Directed Self Learning for graduate students or final year undergraduate students or Health Care Professionals. The curriculum covers understanding empathy and competencies necessary for empathy, understanding empathy in relationships and information exchanges in different health care contexts/environments, showing empathy in diverse environments and overcoming barriers/challenges to empathy

Towards Enhanced Understanding and Experience of Landforms, Geohazards, and Geoheritage through Virtual Reality Technologies in Education: Lessons from the GeoVT Project

International audienceVirtual reality is a technological development that, among others, has revolutionized Earth sciences. Its advantages include an opportunity to examine places otherwise difficult or impossible to access and it may also become an important component of education, fostering a better understanding of processes and landforms, geohazard awareness, and an appreciation of geoheritage. This paper reports on the GeoVT project, which aims to create a platform to build and disseminate Virtual Field Trips (VFTs) focused on geomorphology, natural hazards associated with geomorphological processes, and geoheritage sites. To put the GeoVT project in context, an overview of applications of VR in geosciences is provided. This paper subsequently proceeds with a presentation of the project and the GeoVT Authoring application, which is an innovative platform designed to help teachers and students, followed by brief presentations of a number of VFTs developed within the project. They address themes such as fluvial landforms and valley development, coastal landforms, evidence of past glaciation, coastal erosion, wildfire effects, mud volcanoes, and landslides