Emotional VR Avatars for Safe-Space Conversations and Soft-Skill Training

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Clint Carlson
Join us to learn about emotional VR avatars that exhibit emotional responses to conversations. This creates space for conversations about sensitive topics, such as diversity, equity, inclusion, and others in a low-stakes, safe way that spans all demographics and differences.

Audience:	Chief technology officers/superintendents/school board members, Curriculum/district specialists, Principals/head teachers
Skill level:	Beginner
Attendee devices:	Devices not needed
Topic:	Innovation in higher education
Subject area:	Career and technical education, Computer science
ISTE Standards:	For Education Leaders: Equity and Citizenship Advocate Model digital citizenship by critically evaluating online resources, engaging in civil discourse online and using digital tools to contribute to positive social change. Empowering Leader Support educators in using technology to advance learning that meets the diverse learning, cultural, and social-emotional needs of individual students. Connected Learner Develop the skills needed to lead and navigate change, advance systems and promote a mindset of continuous improvement for how technology can improve learning.

Proposal summary

Purpose & objective

Participants will understand how avatars can display physical emotional cues to react to.
Participants will understand the value of simulated "safe spaces" to have conversations and improve soft skills of communicating with others.
Participants will understand how they can create emotional avatar workflows for their organizations and classrooms.

Outline

- Intro: GROUP SHARE - Anyone willing to share a moment where they misspoke in a situation where they made assumptions about who they were speaking to? Anyone willing to share a moment where they wanted to speak to someone about a difficult subject and then did not out of hesitation of offending? (10 minutes)

-Content: Overview of the Emotional Avatar system. How it works in the backend. How we develop backstories for our avatars. How we push these experiences to personal devices and LMS. How to track real-time feedback of the experiences with avatars to provide insight in how situations may be handled differently (40 minutes)

- Questions & Thank you: Any questions that can be addressed quickly and sharing of contact information to help support your organization in bringing this technology to life and transforming how you and those around you communicate others (10 min)

Supporting research

https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/jger/vol5/iss1/2/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24803366/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30205259/

https://www.jmir.org/2020/9/e18290/

http://jmla.pitt.edu/ojs/jmla/article/view/518

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02086/full

https://www.mededportal.org/doi/10.15766/mep_2374-8265.10505

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Presenters

Clint Carlson, University of Colorado