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15:48, 09-Jan-2018
Computer game trains teachers for active shooter events
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The United States experienced 307 mass shootings in 2017, according to the non-profit Gun Violence Archive.
And Federal Bureau of Investigation data shows that since 2000, nearly one-third of all mass shootings in the US have been at schools.
As a result, the US Army and Homeland Security Department have developed a computer-based simulator that can train everyone from teachers to first responders on how to react to an active shooter scenario.
The training center is housed at the University of Central Florida in Orlando and offers numerous role-playing opportunities that can be used to train anyone in the world with a computer.
Using cutting-edge video game technology and animation, teachers are taught how to survive and protect children from a predator with a gun. In the training, pupils get shot, run screaming from classrooms and try to avoid a gunman.
The character of the shooter and weaponry are interchangeable, and although what you see is onscreen, the screams and cries are all the more bloodcurdling when you know that this simulation is based on real events, at real schools, where real teachers and children were murdered, in some cases by a pupil of the same school.
The simulator allows you to have a different viewpoint, either a teacher, a pupil, police officers and not least the gunman himself.
The simulation was initially designed to keep soldiers safe in combat scenarios, but it has now been adapted for school safety.
Source(s): AP