Active Aging by Continuous Learning: A Training Environment for Cultural Visits

Abstract

The “Città Educante” project aims at radically rethinking the learning environments through the application of the most advanced ICT technology. Among the different aspects of the project, the LECTurE module aims, by exploiting artificial intelligence techniques, at proposing contextualized lessons, as well as interaction requests, to the involved users. In particular the lesson’s content, is specifically tailored for the older adults and personalized by taking into account users’ psycho-physiological aspects as well as geo-localization information and temporal constraints. In this paper, after a generic introduction to the “Città Educante” project, the LECTurE module is presented and instantiated in two relevant use cases: the on-site training, in which the system is used as a support to the classical teaching methodologies within a classroom, and the distributed training, in which the technology aims at moving and animating the teaching experience, also, “outside the classroom”, with additional stimuli for the users during a practical experience (e.g., a real visit in a museum to complement a theoretical art history lesson). The paper describes, then, the choices made for the realization of a first prototype and its embodiment into a concrete scenario which, by implementing a “treasure hunt” like game, aims at fostering older adults’ physical and cognitive activity.