One of the best things about working at the Center for Medical Simulation (CMS) are the incredibly talented, thoughtful and interesting people that we collaborate with all over the world. Two of these individuals are Fernando Salvetti and Barbara Bertagni, the founders of LOGOSNET and its e-REAL platform. E−REAL is an online platform that creates interactive virtual and augmented reality environments that provide users with an enhanced immersive simulation experience. E-Real is the merging of real and virtual worlds. It is a system where physical and digital objects co-exist and interact in real time, in a real place and not within a headset.
The CMS Team first met Fernando several years ago when he toured the Center and raised the possibility of our organizations working together. That meeting blossomed into a collaboration that has included using the e-REAL platform in our teamwork and crisis resource management workshops as well as coauthoring papers and presenting together at international conferences.
Dicono di noi
An Interview with Fernando Salvetti and Barbara Bertagni
By Melissa Cirino and Gary Rossi
CMS recently had the opportunity to ask Fernando and Barbara some questions about the e-REAL platform, its impact on simulation and some of the things that they will be doing over the upcoming year. (Note: some answers were edited for space and clarity)
CMS: What are you currently working on that you are excited about?
F&B: We are mixing up the latest trends from digitalization, virtualization and artificial intelligence with the goal of building powerful solutions for medical simulation. Currently, we’re experimenting with highly-realistic digital humans and a new generation of avatars to improve communication skills using natural interaction and native languages. Louise (pictured) is a representative digital human who is designed to simulate a real person with a real personality and real emotions. Her ability to affect various “attitudes” is essential for recreating ultra-realistic interactions through a virtual environment. Louise can assist a team by replicating real-life situations that teach crisis management, negotiation, conflict management, or guide conversations with challenging and even difficult people.”.
CMS: How is e-REAL evolving?
F&B: Because of COVID-19, many activities formerly held in person are migrating online. With CMS’ Drs. Roxane Gardner and Rebecca Minehart, we are beta testing the e-REAL online platform to allow simulations in a virtual environment that display challenging situations in 3D. And, unlike other Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality solutions, e-REAL allows users to experience full immersion without the need for glasses or goggles. It is an easy and memorable experience with a robust learning outcome.
CMS: What do you think people will find surprising about your current work?
F&B: The feedback we most often receive is that they didn’t expect such easy access to an intensely engaging and meaningful experience. We are very happy about this, because our efforts are aimed at designing solutions that empower learning with a strong focus on the user experience, for both the learners and trainers. We believe that flexible and user-friendly solutions are needed in learning. We designed e-REAL in a way that makes this possible.
CMS: How do you see your work helping others?
F&B: Our goal is to build significant learning solutions that help educators and “simulationistas” integrate new technologies into their practice that boost learning in easy and effective ways. A large part of our job involves checking on new technologies, designing new solutions, and conducting research on the outcomes in order to help trainers facing the new challenges.
CMS: What impact do you hope to have on the field of simulation and education?
F&B: E-Real is at the forefront of a trend that COVID-19 is accelerating. Reality in the digital age is becoming more and more virtual and based on being part of shared infospheres. With e-REAL, we are contributing to the growth of an approach that enables a multilayer vision. The many levels of the situation are made available simultaneously by overlaying multple sources of information, such as words, numbers, images, etc. within an augmented reality display and without needing to wear special glasses. By visualizing relations between topics, contextual factors, cognitive maps, and dynamic cognitive aids, e-REAL improves also the learners’ cognitive retention.
CMS: What’s coming up next?
F&B: A new publication is about to appear, titled Enhanced Reality for Medical Simulation, that we co-wrote with CMS’ Drs. Roxane Gardner and Rebecca Minehart. Later, it will be added into the book edited by Anthony Lewis Brooks, Sheryl Brenham, Bill Kapralos, Amy Nakajima, Jane Tyerman, Lakhmi Jain, titled Recent Advances in Technologies for Inclusive Well-Being: Virtual Patients, Gamification and Simulation (Springer, 2020).
Next year, along with Drs. Roxane Gardner and Rebecca Minehart, we will present a live online 60-minute interactive experience at IMSH 2021 about Learning 4.0 titked Easy to Use Augmented, Virtual and Mixed Reality. It is scheduled for March 16th at 7 pm EST. We are pre-recording other workshops including, Digital Future into Medical Simulation and another called Digital Learning, Tele-simulation and Avatar-Based Role Playing Activities. There is also a workshop within the Simventors session that will be a practical demonstration of the e-REAL Speech Analysis Tool. This tool can individually track both the tone of voice and spoken words of learners during a particular simulation, providing a semantic and pragmatic overview of interpersonal communication aimed at detecting emotions and fixation errors.
Fonte: https://harvardmedsim.org/blog/an-interview-with-fernando-salvetti-and-barbara-bertagni-of-e-real
e-REAL Launches its New Multi-Sensory Scenario in the George Washington University Immersive Mobile Learning Lab
Houston, Texas–(Newsfile Corp. – October 10, 2022) – Texas-based e-REAL announces the launch of its new multi-sensory scenario in George Washington University’s Immersive Mobile Learning Lab. The new ‘Multi-sensory Scenario ‘ is an interactive digital classroom designed as a projected and interactive wall, which displays challenging situations before users. It uses visual storytelling techniques enhanced by digital humans, and virtual objects to create emergency scenarios for those users and helps them solve critical issues and problems in those scenarios.
The Immersive Mobile Learning Lab at the university is a uniquely designed truck that has been transformed into a moving digital learning center with the help of advanced technologies like Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Enhanced Reality. The initiative intends to bridge the gap between the classroom and the field. The learning environment inside the truck is designed according to the STEAM approach which stands for science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics.
The STEAM approach uses science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics as tools to promote inquiry, dialogue, and critical thinking in the learners. It intends to help learners to take thoughtful risks, engage in experiential learning, persist in problem-solving, embrace collaboration, absolve problems, use virtual technology, and interact with life and health science experts from the George Washington University. The lab incorporates the latest immersive learning technologies to help critical thinking and applied learning and to maximize student learning and engagement.
“This is totally an innovative way to teach and learn science, technology, engineering and math because usually students are taught one way by the faculty. In this case, the students are challenged with emergency situations and are further taught to manage those situations in an effective, interactive and immersive way. with the help of a multi-sensory scenario”, says Fernando Salvetti, Founder and Managing Partner of e-REAL.
The Multi-sensory scenario developed by e-REAL intends to provide corporations, schools, hospitals, museums etc with effective and interactive learning and training methodologies through its immersive and interactive platform. It enhances corporate training by boosting the communication and behavioral skills of the employees and also helps the leadership in their decision-making process.
“Our multi-sensory scenario uses visual storytelling techniques to display challenging situations before the users. It also helps them manage those situations by providing both online and real-world solutions through an immersive and interactive environment. The Immersive Mobile Learning Lab facilitates the students with an enhanced reality for immersive simulation. It merges the real world and the virtual world by creating a ‘phygital’ environment for hybrid simulation where physical and digital objects are available for tactile, visual, gesture and vocal interaction in an advanced learning setting – the metaverse is here”, says Barbara Bertagni, Founder and Managing Partner of e-REAL.
About e-REAL
e-REAL was founded by Fernando Salvetti and Barbara Bertagni with a group of passionate simulation experts with a combination of educational, clinical, and business knowledge. e−REAL is expanding as an applied research project
performed by Centro Studi Logos (Turin, Italy). It is supported by Logos Knowledge Network (Lugano, Switzerland), LKN (Berlin, Germany), and Logosnet (Houston, Texas, US); and developed technologically and for multimedia content in collaboration with Tiny Bull Studios (Turin, Italy) and several top simulations and research institutions.
Fonte: https://www.bloomberg.com/press-releases/2022-10-10/e-real-launches-its-new-multi-sensory-scenario-in-the-george-washington-university-immersive-mobile-learning-lab
e-REAL Unveils Its AI-Programmed Avatar: A Digital Human That Can Express Human Emotions
Houston, Texas–(Newsfile Corp. – October 11, 2022) – Texas-based e-REAL unveils its AI-programmed avatar aiming to help people improve their competencies through role play. The avatar can simulate a comprehensive range of verbal and para-verbal languages. They can interact with learners through verbal and non-verbal means and facial expressions. They are powered by artificial intelligence and can engage in dialogues and perform various simulation scenarios.
The avatar has been designed to help users enhance their skills and competencies in an immersive and interactive learning environment. e-REAL creates an effective experiential learning environment with the help of Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence. According to the company, the avatar can help improve learners’ emotional intelligence and communication skills in an immersive and interactive way. It allows people to practice in various scenarios and helps learners understand and manage different situations.
e-REAL’s avatar can play the role of a patient, colleague, client, boss or visitor amongst others, according to different situations and locations. The most important aspect of the avatar is that it can express emotions like happiness, anger, fear etc. It teaches learners how to deal in an empathetic manner with different people in a powerful and engaging way; situations include, how to negotiate in business and dealing with difficult people in your team. These avatars are designed to help learners deal with unforeseen events and manage emergency situations.
“Our avatar is an animated real-time amateur. Usually, we work with a methodology of simulation. When we work with organizations, we use avatars to simulate and practice communication skills, behavior skills and other soft skills. The avatar helps users develop the art of negotiation, conflict management, dealing with a difficult client etc. It can easily connect to any digital brain to share knowledge. Additionally, they are accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so they are ideal for individual and team skill training,” says Fernando Salvetti and Barbara Bertagni, co-founders of e-REAL.
About e-REAL
e-REAL was founded by Fernando Salvetti and Barbara Bertagni with a group of passionate simulation experts with a combination of educational, clinical, and business knowledge. e−REAL is expanding as an applied research project performed by Centro Studi Logos (Turin, Italy). It is supported by Logos Knowledge Network (Lugano, Switzerland), LKN (Berlin, Germany), and Logosnet (Houston, Texas, US); and developed technologically and for multimedia content in collaboration with Tiny Bull Studios (Turin, Italy) and several top simulations and research institutions.
