CoDriVR at Waimate High School
How is learning in a virtual world making young Kiwis safer drivers at Waimate High School?
Transcript: CoDriVR at Waimate High School
Question appears on the screen: Can learning to drive in a virtual world make young Kiwis safer drivers?
Transition to footage of the story. Interview style format mixed with background images of students and educational environments.
- [Ngakau, Student, Waimate High School]Since we're a small town, our sport has to go into the South Canterbury region. With my family, there's five kids that love playing rugby, so trying to make travel work is a real issue for my parents.
- [Kellie Tagiaia, Deputy Principal, Waimate High School] Some of the challenges for rural kids in these rural areas, they're reasonably isolated in terms of where they're located geographically. So being able to get to sports, get to arts events, just becomes harder.
- [Georgia, Student, Waimate High School] In Waimate, you don't have like a driving school, or anything like that. If you want to, you have to pay for them to come down. I think it's super important for us, especially in such a small town, where there's not that much traffic.
- [Rhys Gardner, CEO, CoDriVR, NZ Ed Tech start up ] So the biggest, I guess, barrier to learning to drive is that the only way to learn to drive is to drive. You've actually gotta get behind the wheel of a vehicle of some sort. So virtual reality and simulation are kind of the most realistic tools. CoDriVR is a virtual reality driving simulation program.
- [Kellie] Technology in schools is like technology around the world, it's forever changing. It's never constant. Access to the CoDriVR here at Waimate High School been really positive for our students. They've been able to use it to learn practical skills that they can then take into the real world to help them develop and grow their skills around driving and to work towards their driver's licensing.
- [Rhys] We've got a social cost of youth road accidents in the billions. Anything we can do to reduce that has significant outcomes for communities the wider population.
- [Claire Paterson, Director, CoDriVR, NZ Ed Tech start up] This simulation can help through putting what they learn in the road code into reality before they're actually allowed on the road. And we've had feedback from users of the simulator where they've been learning the road code and then they come in on the simulator and then what they've learned actually makes sense.
- [Georgia] On CoDriVR, you can really see what traffic would be like in a car. Otherwise we have to go to Timaru or Oamaru to get that experience.
- [Ngakau] CoDriVR emphasised on checking your mirrors and blind spots, which really helped when I was driving around town with mum 'cause she noticed that I was checking my mirrors a lot and making sure I was all clear to pull out safely.
- [Georgia] I feel like CoDriVR helped me a lot because I was quite nervous when I went to start driving. So it really calmed me down and made it a lot easier for me.
- [Rhys] We think it's a logical place to help solve wider issues around both road safety and access to licenses.
- [Claire] Only five percent of students are leaving school with a license. It gives a lot of kids an opportunity to practice and create motivation to get out there and get on the road.
- [Georgia] Not everybody has the same access to technology. So with it being, especially for a small school, it's easy to jump on, but if you're at a city school, you have a couple of them, and everyone would be able to have a go when they needed to. I definitely think that CoDriVR would be really helpful for all kids in New Zealand, teenagers, who are learning to drive especially, and are even on their learners'.
- [Kellie] It's starting to show them in the real world what technology can look like, what it can be used for. And that actually, if they're interested in that pathway, they can see how what they do here at school, whether it's coding, gaming, programming, how they can contribute to any sort of technology space as a real world future ambition.
- [Rhys] The future's pretty exciting for our youth, especially through the use of virtual reality technologies and things like that, where you can live in someone else's shoes. And that's really gonna shift your perspective of your own life and the ability to both relate to others and connect with people around the world.
Closing sequence (background music) with graphical image of the puna.
Onscreen title appears: Connected Ako: living, learning and working in the digital world.
Final screen shows logos of the education agencies. Top line showing agencies leading this work which will develop workplans based on the strategy: Ministry of Education (MoE), New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) and Tertiary Education Commission (TEC). Bottom line showing the broader education agencies who have contributed to the strategy and will use it to inform and guide their own plans and decisions: Education New Zealand (ENZ), Education Payroll Limited, Education Review Office (ERO), Network for Learning (N4L), Teaching Council, Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu (Te Kura) and Research Education Advanced Network New Zealand (REANNZ)
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