Fostering Body Movement In Children Through An Exertion Interface As An Educational Tool

Abstract

We present an exertion interface called the Interactive Slide (Soler, Ferrer, Parés, 2009), a large inflatable slide augmented with virtual reality technology that offers the possibility to children to move freely in a large and diverse spatial area. Diversity of motor skills actions that children do while playing were analyzed with observational methodology and sequential analysis through temporal pattern detection (T-patterns) to obtain behavior motor responses. The results reveal that the strategic virtual games of this Interactive Slide stimulate a large number of motor skills and a rich variability of them. Thus, in a pedagogical sense, it optimizes body movement in children while exergaming.