The Virtual Maze: A Game to Promote Social Interaction between Children

Abstract

Virtual Reality (VR) has gained its own niche in educational contexts, there is some evidence that Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) can motivate students and enhance learning processes effectively. Application scenarios range from avatar-based to distributed telepresence solutions and from immersive interfaces to technology augmented settings. Most of the application scenarios for VLEs are for learning and training contexts. Although it seems there is some interest, few works explore how VLEs could promote social interactions in educational settings, especially for early childhood education. In this paper we present the ongoing work with the "Virtual Maze", a virtual labyrinth that seeks to offer a technology augmented setting where children can play, and through which computer-based teamwork can be encouraged.