CONTROL OF A REMOTE COMMUNICATION SYSTEM BY CHILDREN

Abstract When an elementary or secondary school student is away from school for an extended period of time due to illness, the student is provided with a tutor or access to in-hospital classrooms to keep up with his/her studies. This arrangement is not only expensive but isolates the child from normal, everyday classroom experiences. A remote controlled video conferencing system was developed which allows a student access to regular classroom activities while in a remote location (e.g. hospital). The video conferencing system allows two-way visual and audio communication between the class/teacher and the remote student. The remote control provides the student (remote location) with the ability to direct the in-class video camera as desired (pan, tilt, zoom). One of the challenges in the development of the communication system was the design of the interface used by the student to remotely access and control the video camera. Control of remote computer systems is a difficult task ( Hammel et al., 1989 ). The complexity of a video conferencing system magnifies these difficulties. A Nintendo™ controller was adapted and integrated with the video conferencing system because children identified it as a desirable interface. The Nintendo controller allowed a better physical and cognitive map to the required control tasks than either a keyboard or a mouse interface. A pilot study was conducted with a group of cub scouts with one cub participating from a remote location. Use of the system to participate in the activities was the focus of this study. Results seem to indicate that the system can be used with relatively few errors when performing the majority of the required tasks. However, gaining the attention of the teacher through the system seems to be more difficult. Relevance to industry This paper describes empirical results in the evaluation of a system for allowing a student at a remote site participate in classroom activities using a robot which not only provides a video and audio connection, but which can also be controlled using a natural interface from the remote site. The specific application is for distance eduation, but can be applied to tele-conferencing and general telepresence.