Training at School, Safety at Workplace

Innovator: Adam Kaplan, https://www.linkedin.com/in/adem-kaplan-183b6a6b/

Organisation: Sivas Vocational and Technical High School, Sivas

Setting of the practice: face to face 

Description of the practice:

Unfortunately, Turkiye ranks first among EU countries in terms of fatal occupational accidents. Although our laws on Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) are the same as in EU countries, the most important reason for this is; OHS practices are not yet fully assimilated by people. In our school, which is a vocational and technical high school and trains potential employees/employers, training is provided to assimilate the OHS rules before they start working.

However, these OHS trainings were done with classical presentation methods. Students, who are called “Generation Z” today, and who have become accustomed to digital environments, especially during the pandemic period, find these methods very boring and their interest is immediately distracted. This prevents the vitally important OHS information from being impressive and permanent, and does not help in reducing the human-induced occupational accidents, which is the main goal. It is necessary to use more technological and interactive education methods for these students.

This is why; as part of an EU grant project, we set up an Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) laboratory for OHS training at our school. (Especially for Electrical Department)

There are pictures for OHS subjects on the walls of the laboratory. By scanning the picture on the wall with a tablet, the student reaches theoretical information about the subject. This information is mostly in the form of short explanations and videos. With the software on the tablet, it is possible to follow the progress of the student in which subjects.

Then the student puts on virtual reality (VR) glasses to practice these topics. In scenarios with VR glasses, the student is expected to perform the tasks given in various working environments by applying OHS rules. In scenarios, students get points from every OHS rule they apply correctly, as they are used to from digital games. Feedback is given at the scoring stage for applications made incorrectly or incompletely. Thus, by creating a competitive environment, both the interest is kept at the maximum level and the permanence of the information is ensured.

In applications made with VR glasses, trainings that are dangerous to do in real life can be given easily and can be repeated. For example, our VR scenarios include areas such as construction, electrical substation and high voltage pole. Students feel the danger and excitement in these areas as in real life. In fact, we encountered many students shouting with excitement in our trainings. It is certain that the information learned in this way will be permanent. In our school, where there are students with low academic success, the interest in this course has reached the highest level. Other graders started saying, “When will it be our turn?”

In addition, I think, for the first time in the world, we organized an award-winning knowledge contest among all vocational and technical education high schools in our province on OHS with VR glasses in the Metaverse environment in order to raise awareness. This also attracted a lot of attention.

Other branch teachers in our school, even many lecturers and students from other schools and universities visit the our VR laboratory constantly. Again, offers are coming from big enterprises in our city to give their own OHS training in the VR laboratory of our school.