IoT and Modern Technologies—Adequate Tools for Teaching and Practicing Physical Exercises in Time of Pandemic Crisis

Dear Colleagues,

Nowadays, e-learning it is not only a trend, but a necessity. Online videos, synchronous meeting, asynchronous messaging and studying, augmented reality books, and virtual reality (VR) simulations are useful resources in the e-learning process of physical education, sports, and kinesitherapy.

Special attention is oriented to VR simulations proven to be effective solutions in times of crisis (such as the that caused by the COVID-19 pandemic) as additional training for sport performing activities (Moreno,2020) or to different serious physical games assisted by computer (Stănescu, Croitoru, Stanislovaitiene, 2019).

At the same time, VR represents one of the main challenges for coaches, trainers, and kinesitherapists. In VR, like in the real world, the student can acquire information from multiple senses (vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch). He can perceive the dynamics, the force, the trajectory, the impulse, the speed of the ball, the G (gravitational attraction), and the interaction with the object such as collision, wise answers, demonstration on request, etc. The most advanced VR applications collect information in real time from the real environment and change actions due to machine learning technology (Ma, 2020). The user can manipulate objects and characters in the virtual environment through a 3D interactive device. There is a continuous interaction between user and VR characters (Bastug, 2017). To be able to collect all the information and offer feedback the VR system is compound of five modules: the testing module, the feedback module, the sensor module, the controller module, and the 3D model module. The interaction between these modules makes the connection with the virtual environment and real world possible, at the same time activating the 3D modelling module that will generate the objects/characters. Thus, the user is the beneficiary of the interactive sensing experience (Yanrong Yang, 2018).

VR is very useful and cost efficient in sportive medical rehabilitation, too. It offers repeated training with constant feedback while mitigating the risk of being injured. For disabled people, practicing physical rehabilitation in VR is fun, and offers them higher motivation, comfort, and security (Kang, 2019, Kim, 2017). Injured sportive rehabilitation has seen a great advantage brought by VR technology because the sportive has an avatar, which increases his motivation and self-esteem, and is stimulated at the same time for all senses: visual with VR glasses; tactile and kinesthetic with sensors on his skin, muscles, and joints acquiring haptic information; the sounds let the sportive appreciate where the ball is, etc.

This call has the aim to gather innovative insights and research that provide professors and students with ICT experiences during this (post) pandemic time. Contributors might share good practices of using IoT, VR, AR, MOOCs, etc. in physical education, sports, or physiotherapy.

References:

1. Ma, Z.; Wang, F.; Liu, S. Feasibility Analysis of VR Technology in Basketball Training. IEEE Access. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2020.3019810.
2. Moreno, F.C.; González-Serrano, M.H.; Javier Fombona, J.; García-Tascón, M. The irruption of technology in Physical Education: A General Bibliometric Analysis with a Focus on Virtual and Augmented Reality. Sustainability 2020, 12, 2728.
3. Bastug E.; Bennis M.; Medard M. et al. Toward Interconnected Virtual Reality: Opportunities, Challenges, and Enablers. IEEE Commun. Mag. 2017, 55, 110–117.
4. Fazio, A.; Isidori, E.; Technology-enhanced Learning and CLIL for Physical Education. In Proceedings of the 17th International Conference eLearning and Software for Education, Vol. III, 2019.
5. Kang, S.; Kang, S. The Study on the Application of Virtual Reality in Adapted Physical Education. Cluster Comput 2019, 22, 2351–2355. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10586-018-2254-4.
6. Kim, S.I.; Ahn, J.H.; Yoo, B.E.; Lee, S.Y.; Choi, M.J.: Technical Impact Assessment Report—Virtual and Augmented Reality Technologies. Ministry of Science and ICT (2017).
7. Stănescu, M.; Croitoru, D.; Stanislovaitiene, J.; Physical Exercises and Computer-Based Games: from Playground to Serious Games and Exergames. The 15th International Conference eLearning and Software for Education, Vol. III, 2019.
8. Yang, Y. The Innovation of College Physical Training Based on Computer Virtual Reality Technology. Discret. Math. Sci. Cryptogr. 2018, 21, 1275–1280. https://doi.org/10.1080/09720529.2018.1526400.

Dr. Rocsana Bucea-Manea-Tonis
Dr. Vassilis Barkoukis
Dr. Rareș Stănescu
Prof. Dr. Antonio Sánchez-Pato
Guest Editors

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• physical education and sports (PES)
• physiotherapy
• IoT
• MOOCs
• VR
• AR