INTERACTIVE DIGITAL TV AS THE E-LEARNING PLATFORM

Towards Supportive Environments for Elderly

Vladimír Bureš, Daniela Ponce, Pavel Čech and Tereza Otčenášková

Faculty of Informatics and Management, University of Hradec Králové, Rokitanského 62, Hradec Králové, Czech Republic

Keywords: Ambient intelligence, Supportive space, Elderly, e-Learning, Cognition, Digital television, Vital Mind

project, ELU project.

Abstract: Development of interactive digital television (iDTV) brings an opportunity to consider it as a certain type of

e-learning platform especially appropriate for the elderly. The aging population suffers from many

impairments that may worsen the rate of social exclusion. This unfavourable trend can be changed by the

usage of interactive audio-visual applications enabling senior citizens to satisfy their specific needs and

solve their particular problems. Moreover, it implies the opportunity to involve it in creation or

improvement of supportive spaces with the aim to enhance the quality of life of elderly from the

perspectives of the Ambient Intelligence vision. This paper presents an example of two iDTV applications

focused on learning and cognitive training of elderly and it also outlines suggestions for further research in

this field of study.

1 INTRODUCTION

E-learning has already been more or less

successfully introduced in many institutions with

diverse objectives (Poulová and Šimonová, 2010).

From the technological perspective e-learning has

variety of forms nowadays. There are several

technologies that support its development - email,

instant messaging, blogs, particular complex virtual

learning environments, or recommendation systems

(Čech and Bureš, 2007) to name a few. Television

can be considered as a certain type of a social

medium, which supports communication and

interaction in the context of watching television, or

related to TV content. For example, social television

systems can integrate voice communication, text

chat, presence and context awareness, TV

recommendations, ratings, or video-conferencing

with the TV set (Bloomberg, 2010). Nowadays,

social television is a progressive field of research.

However, the majority of existing social television

systems is on a conceptual stage, or exist as lab

prototypes, beta or pilot versions (Bloomberg,

2010). Regardless of the current state of research in

this area, television has strong potential to support

certain group of its users if used in an appropriate

modification. The certain group is represented by

elderly and the appropriate modification is e-

learning. Increasing number of senior citizens in all

economically developed countries have arisen the

concerns related to active ageing. Active aging is the

term adopted by the World Health Organization

(WHO, 2002) to express the process of achieving a

vision where aging, if it is to be a positive

experience, needs to be accompanied by continuous

opportunities for health, participation and security in

order to enhance people’s quality of life as they age.

The word “active” refers to continuing participation

in social, economic, cultural, spiritual and civic

affairs, not just the ability to be physically active or

to participate in the labour force (Giráldez and

Casal, 2008). Moreover, the concept of Ambient

Intelligence which is effectively employed within

various realms while building better and helpful

environments (Mikulecký, 2010) proves its

advantages for discussed purposes as well.

Therefore, this can be utilized to create natural and

intuitive supportive spaces for elderly within the

environments they live in. The paper focuses on the

particular technology. It describes how digital

television based on interactive digital technology

can become e-learning medium for elderly; provides

results and new knowledge about this domain, which

were reached during the solution of the European

projects Enhanced Learning Unlimited (ELU) and

Vital Mind, and the national scientific project Smart

107

Bureš V., Ponce D.,

Cech P. and Otcenášková T..

INTERACTIVE DIGITAL TV AS THE E-LEARNING PLATFORM - Towards Supportive Environments for Elderly.

DOI: 10.5220/0003623701070113

In Proceedings of the International Conference on Knowledge Management and Information Sharing (KMIS-2011), pages 107-113

ISBN: 978-989-8425-81-2

 2011 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

Environments in Workplaces (SMEW); suggests

further research activities, which can lead to full

development of this platform as a basis for social

interaction of individuals; and explains reasons that

make this type of research necessary.

2 IDTV TECHNOLOGY AS A

PLATFORM FOR LEARNING

Digital broadcasting becomes a reality in many

European countries and also worldwide. After west

and north parts of Europe in late 1990’s,

digitalisation has been introduced in countries in

Central and Eastern Europe. Arrival of digital

television has brought new opportunities for viewers

who can interact with television by requesting and

obtaining additional information, selecting different

view angles of camera, playing games or accessing

internet and e-mails. Enhanced possibilities of

interactivity bring also a chance to exploit iDTV as a

educational medium (Mikulecká et al., 2006). On the

path leading to complete development of an

appropriate content in a form of interactive audio-

visual (iAV) applications and smooth realisation of

learning processes, it is necessary to overcome many

obstacles of different types, e.g. cultural,

technological, psychological, social, or

organisational ones (Atwere and Bates, 2003).

As the social interaction among people is

strongly influenced by utilized technology, a brief

introduction to iDTV technology and related

interactive applications needs to be provided. The

following paragraphs provide outline of key aspects

of iDTV and depiction of digital television

technology from the e-learning perspective.

From the technological point of view it is

important to assure that beside the main audio visual

(AV) signal, which represents the one-to-all

interaction, all data necessary for launching iAV

application, which serves for the one-to-many

interaction, will be broadcasted. The process should

be conducted as follows (see figure 1): the main

signal containing for example movie (DVB stream)

is broadcasted through space, received on the

broadcasting channel by TV receiver or set-top box,

and then processed and displayed on TV screen.

Apart from broadcasting channel it is possible to use

also return channel with some limitations (e.g.

incomparably lower data limit).

In case of the global interactivity, i.e. when there

is a feedback from the viewer to the broadcaster (in

comparison to the local interactivity, in which there

is only a loop between the user and his/her digital

receiver with stored iAV application), the viewer

can send data back to the broadcasting organisation.

Nonetheless, the main broadcasting channel has its

own limitations, too. Absolute majority of the

communication capacity of the channel is occupied

by the AV signal itself (i.e. by movie displayed on

TV screen). It means that only a fraction of the

channel capacity can be used for transfer of data

related to iAV application. Leeway for iAV

applications varies by individual broadcasters. This

aspect of iDTV, posing requirements on size of iAV

applications, has to be respected during their

development.

In this vein, digitalisation leads to a qualitatively

new TV environment. iDTV has potential to widen

possibilities of social interactions from home

environment. An important role is played by key

elements of iDTV, such as (Bureš, Ponce and Čech,

2008):

• Availability – TV sets are currently more

widespread in European households than PCs,

• Ease of use – relatively long history of TV

usage has made the operation of TV equipment

common for all generations, from youngsters to

elderly,

• Interactivity – iDTV offers interaction at both

local and global levels.

3 SPECIFICS OF ELDERLY

PEOPLE

The number of elderly people is increasing all

around the world. Particularly in Europe, the

progressive ageing of society is already likely to

become more noticeable over the next several

decades. Its population is aging and more and more

people encounter problems related to an old age

(Melzer et al.1997).

Figure 2 depicts the projection of long-term care

(LTC) expenditures as a percentage of Gross

Domestic Product in England till 2031. While the

first column represents the base case, the second and

third columns in figure 2 show, respectively, the

impact of using the high life expectancy and low life

expectancy variants to the Government Actuary’s

Department principal population projections. The

fourth column shows the results of assuming that the

numbers of people aged 85 or more will grow 1%

per year faster than projected by Government

Actuary’s Department. The fifth column shows the

impact of a decline of 1% per year in the prevalence

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108

Figure 1: Process of the communication in the frame of iDTV (adopted from (Bureš, Ponce and Čech, 2008)).

of mild cognitive impairment, and the last column

shows the impact of a decline of 1% per year in the

prevalence of moderate to severe cognitive

impairment (Comas-Herrera et al., 2003). Moreover,

age related problems such as cognitive, sensory and

physical impairments occur even in case of healthy

elderly and they are accompanied by an

accumulation of mild but progressive loss of

efficiency in all senses and organs. Elderly live often

in social exclusion, i.e. without family or friends,

lacking of social contact, with lower incomes, or

insufficiently involved in pleasurable social

activities (Miotto et al., 2008). The social exclusion

can be even reinforced by progressing impairments

(CI).

To compensate the problems and the lack of

social contact as well as to support the needs of

elderly in active aging, supporting tools are needed.

Several studies have analyzed the relationship

between the elderly and new technology in general.

Various factors such as attitudes toward technology,

perceived usefulness and acceptance of that

technology were explored. Results showed that

elderly population would show a strong tendency to

reject new products which had apparently been

designed to cater to some kind of “special need”, as

many elderly people do not want to be considered as

being distinct from the rest of the population (Miotto

et al., 2008).

Information and communication technologies

(ICT) can potentially enable the elderly to remain

socially linked to networks of relatives, caregivers

and friends. Virtual communities that have grown up

around disease support groups are an example of

such an effect (Giráldez and Casal, 2008).

Figure 2: Projected LTC expenditures as a % of GDP,

England 2031, (Commas-Herrera et al., 2003).

Unfortunately, many elderly have limited

computer skills and are more or less computer

illiterate. Therefore, they cannot benefit from the

growing number of computer programs designed to

preserve cognitive abilities. Nevertheless, senior

citizens are familiar with one specific technology -

television. TV creates a specific environment that is

characterized by several unique attributes in

comparison to other environments created, for

instance, by ICT. These are lean-back attitude (in

comparison to lean-forward attitude), or lazy-

interactivity (in comparison to active interactivity

(Jensen, 2005)) to name the most significant ones. In

addition, watching television is traditionally

perceived as a way of relaxation mixed with

entertainment. TV is also a source of information

and has been utilized as a learning medium for many

decades. Moreover, in relation to the above

mentioned problem, elderly represent the largest

INTERACTIVE DIGITAL TV AS THE E-LEARNING PLATFORM - Towards Supportive Environments for Elderly

109

proportion of the television viewing public: evidence

of the fact that elderly people spend more time

watching television than other age segments are

presented both in past and recent research ((Miotto,

2008), (Eggermont and Vandebosch, 2001)).

In the following section we present two iDTV

applications that can support learning of elderly.

4 ILLUSTRATIVE IDTV

APPLICATIONS FOR

LEARNING

Many elderly seek actively ways how to keep pace

with changing society they are part of. For example,

courses specially designed and offered to elderly by

universities are becoming more and more popular.

By attending such courses the elderly not only learn

what they did not have previous opportunity to learn

or what is the latest achievement of the science and

technology but they also interact socially with

similarly interested and minded people. When

physical impairments make personal attendance

difficult or impossible, an alternative way of

delivery of the course and realisation of the presence

and communication of the attendee can be helpful,

for example in the form of an iDTV course with full

interactivity. Development of such courses was

researched in the framework of the European project

Enhanced learning unlimited (ELU) and details are

given in the section 4.1.

Elderly are often concerned with their decreasing

cognitive abilities. Many mental activities they

naturally perform may have positive effect on

cognitive capabilities. As stated by (Breznitz, 2009),

certain kind of games can serve as appropriate tools

for sharpening one's wits. Nevertheless, every game

has its own limitations in sense of narrow band of

cognitive skills that it exercises. For instance, chess

require and train visual perception, long term

focusing of attention, and memory for similar

positions, while the game Bridge trains short-term

memory and some basic combinatorial skills, or

crossword puzzles exercise almost exclusively

retrieval from lexicon, and are often repetitious.

A scientifically grounded and specially designed

cognitive training program focused on exercising the

weakest cognitive abilities such as visual short-term

memory, divided attention, time estimation, or visual

scanning, on contrary to mostly strong cognitive

abilities such as naming, spatial perception,

inhibition, or awareness (Cognifit, 2009) can have

much wider and deeper effect. Producing such a

program with use of iDTV technology enables to

incorporate interactivity which opens door to social

inclusion. Development of such cognitive training

program has been researched in the framework of

the European project Vital Mind and details are

given in the section 4.2.

Resulting applications of both projects have

successfully undergone tests. Easy use of iDTV

applications demonstrated that iDTV technology can

serve development and support of virtual learning

communities of elderly. Nevertheless, some

Figure 3: Authoring Tool for iDTV application development.

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110

Figure 4: Cognitive Training of Seniors.

minor technical problems were detected as well.

4.1 Life-long Learning

The ELU project was focused on investigation of

ways to increase the use of television for t-learning

activities and it researched, developed and

implemented pedagogical scenarios for the use of

iDTV in t-learning at home, universities and schools

(ELU, 2011). Project objectives included:

• Study of the pedagogical and technological

aspects of using iDTV as the medium for t-

learning,

• Development of new tools for creating content

for t-learning to be used on iDTV.

The project developed a methodology for t-

learning system production. The t-learning system

used an open platform Multimedia Home Platform

(MHP). The technology required to enhance the

MHP to function as t-learning middleware was also

designed and implemented. In order to demonstrate

ways of t-learning on an iDTV platform and to test

the effectiveness of iDTV, several specific contents

were also developed with the help of the designed

authoring tool (see screenshot at figure 3). The

content was SCORM-compatible. T-learning content

material was delivered to users in a manner that was

generated to meet the user’s learning context in

terms of the users’ learning preferences, the selected

pedagogic strategy, monitored skills & competencies

and the interaction capabilities of the means of

delivery. The research proved that the iDTV

technology can be used as a learning platform.

However, several drawbacks and thus research

challenges were identified. Further details related to

created courses or used technology can be found in

(ELU, 2011).

4.2 Cognitive Training

The Vital Mind project is focused on design and

development of cognitive activities to enhance the

basic elements of cognition and to improve quality

of life for senior citizens, and development of new

methods for user control by detection of hand

movements using vision and/or gyro and of non-

voice vocal commands (VitalMind, 2011). The

project uses a combination of cognitive psychology,

the television medium and advanced interactive ICT

to enable the elderly to actively participate in mind

fitness exercises while they are sitting in front of

their TV set (see figure 5). The main objectives of

the project include:

• Design and development of cognitive activities

to enhance the basic elements of cognition and to

improve quality of life for senior citizens,

• Development of new methods for user control by

detection of hand movements using vision and/or

gyro and of non-voice vocal commands.

The main benefits of the Vital Mind project is

the fact that the project provides the elderly and

disabled viewers with new cognitive-based exercises

and it also improves the user interface to overcome

the difficulties encountered by elderly people in their

attempts to use a range of services made available

through an advanced interactive television system.

Vital Mind project strives to transform the passive

television viewing into dynamic activities of mental

preservation and intellectual enhancement. Such

INTERACTIVE DIGITAL TV AS THE E-LEARNING PLATFORM - Towards Supportive Environments for Elderly

111

cerebral stimulation in a mentally rich environment

is crucial for healthy aging. This should be ensured

by a tool that would be easily integrated in the

homes of handicapped individuals to speed the

rehabilitation process. While technology is currently

in use, the effect of congnitive training is still in the

stage of data analysis. Description of achieved

results can be found at (VitalMind, 2011).

5 IDTV AS A E-LEARNING

PLATFORM: FUTURE

RESEARCH

From the research perspective it is apparent that the

communication process described at figure 1 has to

work within several environments. Unfortunately,

these are mostly explored independently. Although

each environment uses different tools or methods

together they enable the whole communication and

interaction process to be completed. These

environments are:

• Broadcasting environment at broadcaster side,

• Receiving environment at end-user’s home (e.g.

set-top boxes),

• iAV application development environment and

content authoring tool,

• Simulation and testing environment.

Therefore, in future research results achieved in

particular areas, e.g. human-television interaction, or

development of enhanced STB features, need to be

interrelated.

Moreover, the extent in which particular

environments are investigated differs. There is still

lack of activities focused on creation of iAV tools

and applications that would enable end users to work

with the content (log writing, publishing,

downloading, sharing or modifying existing

content). For example, with no user identity

management system it is hardly possible to foster

content sharing within a community. In this vein, the

existing broadcaster-to-user (one-to-all or one-to-

many) interaction could be extended by user-to-user

or user-to-broadcaster (one-to-one) interaction. To

do so, both possibilities of currently available

infrastructure and related business models need to be

investigated. Thus, iDTV could become full e-

learning medium.

6 CONCLUSIONS

Basically, there are two general changes supporting

the establishment of iDTV as a e-learning medium.

Firstly, the digital TV broadcasting is being fully

introduced in many countries continuously. Thanks

to unique characteristics of the TV environment such

as lean-back attitude or lazy-interactivity the iDTV

technology can take advantage of its basic features

and use them as a platform for learning of particular

user groups. Secondly, there is the aging society

accompanied by growing quantity of age related

impairments. Therefore, elderly people can serve as

an appropriate example of the abovementioned user

group. Moreover, for elderly TV represents a well-

known and friendly environment. For this reason

two interactive applications were developed in the

framework of two European research projects. While

the first one deals with education possibilities in the

iDTV environment, the second one is focused on

cognitive training. In this way senior citizens can

become members of two purposefully created social

communities which try to assist them with their

needs (education) and problems (cognitive

impairments). Developed applications were

successfully tested in practice. It was proved that

due to availability or easiness of its use the iDTV

environment is an appropriate technology for

development and support of virtual learning

communities of elderly. However, these tests also

revealed problems that need to be solved. For

instance, how the technology can be further

modified to support development of the concept

“smart workplace” (Mikulecký, 2009) focused

primarily on elderly and their living environments.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This paper was created with the support of the of the

GAČR project SMEW, project num. 403/10/1310

and the Vital Mind project - 7th EU Framework

Programme project num. 215387. Authors would

like to thank to all consortium members and the

coordinator.

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