Parental Classes for Expecting Parents
For our first scenario we bounced around a few good ideas but we ultimately ended up on this idea – Parental Classes for Expecting Parents.
The idea behind our scenario was a fun educational experience that can be done at home, schools and at adult classes. To immerse the user into a simulated, but life like experience of caring for and dealing with responsibilities and situations that new parents will face. e.g. changing nappies, health care, taking temp / CPR. We felt that there was a slight gap in the market for something like this educational experience as being a parent myself I definitely thought that most first time parents would be interested, as to be honest you can attend all the parenting classes on offer but its not very life like. We thought that if this was used in those classes it would possibly prepare those parents a little better than just talking about it. We also though that it could be used in schools as a type of parenting class for students who are at the age when possibly there could be thoughts of having children. This way it would educate them and make them realise that it is hard work.
The Experience
We decided to use VR for this equipment as we felt it would give the user a fully immersive experience and they would be able to concentrate on what they are doing within the scenario. The user would be able to choose a different scenario they want to learn to do, they could learn to change a nappy, feed a child or even in a more serious scenario CPR could be taught. The user would get instant feedback if something was wrong but they would also be shown how to do it right. The user would be in the game and would be learning whilst playing.
Conclusion
I think our group worked extremely well together. We listened to one another took on board different ideas and then used those to our advantage. We were able to come up with a really good scenario that if it were to be developed further I think it could be really useful in schools or in parenting class. I certainly would have loved to use it when I had my son as I had no idea really what I was doing and I think something like this could be really helpful for first time parents in the same boat I was. I really enjoyed working in my group on this project as we worked really hard and were invested in the idea and wanted to do well. We thought things through and decided as a group on the best solution, we all did equal amounts and made sure no one did more that the others. I think to improve this first scenario maybe, if we had more time then we probably could of added more details and show further development.
Educational Technology 