Designing virtual humans for web-based learning processes

Showcase #1: Nursing Care

Almost every task a nurse performs during her daily work requires the amalgamation of technical skills (such as positioning the patient, drawing blood or applying bandages) with communicative competencies aimed at establishing a rapport between the care personnel and the people cared for. The necessity to fuse technical adeptness with communicative abilities makes it particularly difficult to develop the skills necessary for health care proficiency. Humanoid avatars capable of recreating in its full complexity the nonverbal behaviour exhibited within a therapeutic setting can provide an immense instructional aid: by simulation and systematic variation of the model behaviour, they extract those very aspects of the intricate movement activity which are relevant to nursing competencies.

 

This project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and by the European Social Fund of the European Union.