It's been a while since the last post, lots is happening.
Connected Lives is just about to wrap up, we are currently in the process of writing the project up. The general theme of the paper will be 'Increasing the social connectedness of young people with Asperger's Syndrome through the use of collaborative virtual environments.' We have also been meeting with a wide range of people in the telecommunications, education and health services industries in order to look into where the project might go to from here. One part of it is
digitalrespite.com which should be ready in around a month and worthy of another post. The other side is pushing for more individualised and specialised education programs for those with Asperger's.
Also at Victoria University we are continuing to work with the
School of Construction Industries in virtual worlds. We are currently working with specialists across a range of areas to create engaging, 3 dimensional, interactive assignments. After a crew meeting last week I am quite excited, we have some ideas which are perhaps not so new to gaming, but new to virtual worlds and new to education.
At Monash University we have been working on a couple of projects which are part of
Pharmatopia, a virtual environment in Second Life which involves over 12 schools of Pharmacy from around the world.
The first project is a Virtual Sterile Clean Room. The aim of this build is to train pharmacy students in clean room theory and process.
The second project is an artificially intelligent virtual patient bot, which will be used by medical and pharmacy students for interprofessional development.
Another fun thing I am involved with is leading the 'Dev Lab' fortnightly on Friday afternoons at Melbourne Grammar School. The Dev Lab is a place where technically minded folk can gather and work on projects together. Current projects include a couple of websites, the
Epic Lan, and some virtual world activities.
I am also working on a few other projects, including some virtual worlds work with Swinburne and Vicroads. I hope to have a lot more news to share shortly.