Connected Lives Video Interview for Vichealth

This is a video of Stefan, John and I explaining the project we are doing in partnership with Vichealth and Interchange Gippsland.



TRANSCRIPT

"What we are really interested in is seeing how these technologies can positively impact the sense of connectedness of young people with disabilities, particularly with Asperger's Syndrome and related conditions. I guess this has been inspired by some of our students at the uni who had Asperger's Syndrome, and we found that they used virtual worlds to practice being social, at the same time they were really good at computer skills themselves."

"We will be working with a group of up to thirty young people in a range of activities within a virtual world. These activities will be designed to engage them in social interaction and a range of other areas. We will be measuring that interaction to measure how this technology impacts these young people."

"The project involves Interchange Central Gippsland who are connecting us with the younger people, and it will be researched by Victoria University. I am really looking forward to the project, it's a great opportunity to work with cutting edge technology and young kids who really need it."

TUG Engine

Another description I have posted recently on the site of one of our major (and most enjoyable) projects at the uni, the TUG Engine.
This should be ready for testing in a few weeks.


TUG is an open source educational games engine.

Funded by the Victorian State Government and administered by Victoria University, Australia, TUG is a 'game engine' using Second Life/Open Sim, PHP and MySQL which can be used for education and vocational training. The project also includes a research component.

All of our work is open source - scripts, models, textures, PHP code, MySQL databases, and other intellectual property.