Using Training with Older People for Active Ageing in Time and Space

This paper introduces aspects of the authors’ work within the “Città Educante” project that aims at exploiting advanced ICT technology to rethink the concept of learning environment and reshape it within a smart city perspective. In particular, the paper introduces the LECTurE module that, by relying on the timeline-based approach to automated planning, proposes contextualized lessons, as well as interaction requests, to its users. The lesson’s content, specifically tailored for the older adults, is personalized taking into account users’ psychophysiological aspects as well as geo-localization information and temporal constraints. After a generic introduction to the “Città Educante” project, the LECTurE module is presented and instantiated in two relevant use cases: the on-site training, in which the system is used as a support to the classical teaching methodologies within a classroom, and the distributed training, in which the technology aims to move and animate the teaching experience also “outside the classroom” with additional stimuli for the users during a practical experience (e.g., a real visit in a museum to complement a theoretical art history lesson). The paper, then, describes the implementation choices made for the realization of a first prototype, the reasons for choosing the timeline-based approach to planning as the underlying reasoning technology and the overall module architecture.