Oztron

The Lab promotional video

noreply@blogger.com (Dale) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 08:20:00 +0000

Here is a promotional video Christie from Animo has created for The Lab, a joint project between Oztron and Victoria University supported by the Young and Well CRC.

Pharmatopia progress

noreply@blogger.com (Dale) — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 23:55:00 +0000

This is a short video made by Silvereye Films to promote Monash University Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. The final segment features Pharmatopia, an interactive 3d simulated environment we (Oztron) have developed.

The Pharmatopia project now incorporates 9 separate simulation modules in three languages and is being used by schools and pharmaceutical companies all over the globe for training and learning.

A busy year

noreply@blogger.com (Dale) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 23:02:00 +0000

It's been a very busy year here at Oztron. We have moved into a new office in Maidstone and have been so busy it's been a struggle to keep this blog up to date.

The slideshow below shows some of the work we have been doing with educational simulations, more updates to come shortly.

The Lab - a space for young people with Asperger's

noreply@blogger.com (Dale) — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 07:08:00 +0000

Over the past few months myself and a colleague at Victoria University, Stefan Schutt, have been working on a new idea for an after school drop in centre for young people with Asperger's Syndrome. This idea has stemmed from our previous Connected Lives project where we found that we were able to use technology in a very positive way with many children with Asperger's.

There is a blog following the project here, which will both be housed in and share staff with Oztron and our virtual world projects.

Last week we were fortunate enough to have a journalist(Natalie Craig) and photographer(Craig Sillitoe) from The Age newspaper here in Melbourne, come to look at what we have been doing and are planning to do. Thanks to Daniel Clarke from VU for organising it.

The Age

SMH

The page was translated for a Chinese paper the next morning;

Sing Tao

and also created quite a bit of chatter on Twitter.

A couple of days later Sam Varghese from ITwire also did a story about the Lab;

ITwire

Pharmatopia video

noreply@blogger.com (Dale) — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 13:17:00 +0000

Here is a short promotional video explaining the work we are doing for Monash University and their Pharmatopia Project.

The Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Monash University, is leading the way in worldwide teaching innovation with the development of a virtual hi-tech teaching tool that is being enthusiastically adopted by leading pharmacy schools from around the globe.

Project update video for Connected Lives

noreply@blogger.com (Dale) — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 00:02:00 +0000

The Connected Lives Project was also recently awarded for 'Best Community Engagement' by B-HERT.

CIT Hospital Update

noreply@blogger.com (Dale) — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 03:08:00 +0000

We are currently working on a hospital for CIT, Canberra Institute of Technology.

The following slideshow contains captions which explain a little bit about what has been built so far.

Vicroads Virtual Worlds Lab

noreply@blogger.com (Dale) — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 22:48:00 +0000

On July first 2010 I helped Mandy Salomon facilitate a 'Virtual Worlds Lab' at Swinburne University for Vicroads. The aim of the day was to explore the future potential of virtual worlds. After some initial discussions, participants created 'avatars' and were able to experience life in a virtual environment, exploring, designing, and socialising. They were then able to attend a virtual conference and tour by the CIO of the City of Edmonton in Canada, Chris Moore.

The full blog for the day can be found here.

Update - Connected Lives, Virtual world builds for Victoria University; School of Construction, Monash University; School of Pharmacy

noreply@blogger.com (Dale) — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 08:38:00 +0000

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.

NYE Art Project

noreply@blogger.com (Dale) — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 08:31:00 +0000

This is a featured project at Instructables, which is pretty cool after all I have learnt from that site.

Craig helped. He needs a website I can link to.

Article for Australian Teacher Magazine

noreply@blogger.com (Dale) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:38:00 +0000

Here is an article Stefan and I just wrote for Australian Teacher Magazine, about the use of virtual worlds in education.

Article about the Avatar Project in The Age

noreply@blogger.com (Dale) — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 01:32:00 +0000

First time I have bought the Age in 5 years. Looking good guys!

Click here for the online article

Other links;
Stuff.co.nz
Vodpod
Sydney Morning Herald
SL
and many many more, it's amazing how fast news can spread.

Connected Lives Video Interview for Vichealth

noreply@blogger.com (Dale) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:20:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Dale) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:20:00 +0000

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.

Osvr.net

noreply@blogger.com (Dale) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 18:20:00 +0000

From the description I just put up on the site, this is a dream project for me.

OSVR.NET is an open simulator network administered by Victoria University, Australia and supported by various institutions including Vichealth.

The purpose of this network is to provide a safe, configurable virtual environment for institutions to hold activities in. More details about the background of the project can be found here.

In addition to this, there is a research component which provides extensive data on activities within the simulator.

Working with Secondary School Students in Virtual Environments

noreply@blogger.com (Dale) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 18:20:00 +0000

These are a few examples of the work I have done with Secondary School students over the past couple of years.

First up is a Virtual Make Poverty History Concert held at Melbourne Grammar School as part of their annual Leadership Conference.

The week after this virtual concert I went to Sydney with a group of students for the Skoolaborate Congress.

Using machinima characters to tell stories is a great way of getting kids to document events, we did the following one a couple of weeks after the conference. It allows kids to add a personal and creative touch without exposing themselves too much.
The background is a simple image slideshow(easily done in Sony Vegas, you can automate the import effects and transition times etc.). The foreground has the Second Life avatars of the kids, originally filmed in front of a virtual green screen whilst speaking jibberish into a mic to get the speech animations happening. The voices we recorded in a stairwell on a mobile phone - the only place in the school we could find some peace.

Here is what the workshop I was helping facilitate at the conference in Sydney produced. Students from New Zealand and Australia(and teachers from Australia, US and NZ) worked together to create this virtual news report.

Videos of Victoria University Student Projects

noreply@blogger.com (Dale) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 18:20:00 +0000

Below are some videos which show the range of work we have been doing in Second Life, and now OSVR. Creating work which can be captured as a video and then uploaded to youtube is often appealing to students, it gives the work a sense of purpose.

Future Melbourne 2051
This was one of the results of my first year using Second Life with students in Interactive Storytelling and Writing for Multimedia classes at Victoria University.
This class chose the topic(a futuristic, post-apocalyptic kind of Melbourne) themselves and then developed stories and builds to suit the theme.
More details on this project can be found at Melbourne2051.com.

The following year at VU we decided on a more restrictive theme which would also place more individual responsibility on the students. It probably worked for the better students.
The task was to create a 'Seinfeld' like short machinima. Each student was given a small apartment space in Second Life to use as a set.
Here is the class blog.
Here are a couple of the better results;

Terence & The Metaphysical Mushroom

Around the block

The students that did well with this exercise continue to do well at uni or in the industry. I think it was a good exercise for gaming and multimedia students as it involved a high level of organisation and a wide range of production skills - although I must confess a lot of 18-21 year olds seem to think Second Life is not very 'cool,' for lack of a better word.

Avatar Project wins Community ICT Innovator of the Year

noreply@blogger.com (Dale) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:20:00 +0000

Avatar Project wins Community ICT Innovator of the Year

For the past two years the Avatar Project has developed a community of young people creating, building and interacting in virtual worlds, with some tremendous outcomes.
My project blog has some examples of the work we were doing, the research outcomes are due later this year.
We are now in the research and writing phase of the project.
A highlight of receiving the award was going up to Sydney for the ceremony and conference where Mark Pesce, the inventor of VRML was the MC. I remember around 8 years ago struggling to make a 3 dimensional nightclub using VRML - it was one of my first forays into virtual worlds - so finally (very briefly) meeting him was the perfect end to a great project.

A couple of DJ sets

noreply@blogger.com (Dale) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 11:00:00 +0000

A couple of blasts from the past.

FESTIVAL ISLAND 2007 SET SET

This was played at a virtual event, however I also played similar music at the party where this was filmed.

DOWNLOAD THE FESTIVAL ISLAND 2007 SET

Tracklist
Kaiser Souzai - Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon Remix (Urge Overkill/Neil Diamond)
http://www.myspace.com/kaisersouzai
Solead - Disco Sux
http://www.soleadmusic.com/
Sikk - My Washing Machine / D-Nox - Rocksteady (Oztron mash)
http://www.myspace.com/sikkkk
http://www.d-nox.com/
Adam Freeland - Hello Remix (The Doors)
Coburn - We have the Technology
http://www.coburnmusic.com/
Loopus - Let's Dance Remix (Bowie)
http://www.loopusinfabula.com/ <--LEGEND! Sonify/Prosect - LSD Remix (Hallucinogen) http://www.isratrance.com/artists/prosect-a421.html
Hoxton Whores - Sunshine of Your Love Remix (Cream)
Electric Tease - Midnight Toil (Midnight Oil)
Hoxton Whores - Girls & Boys Remix (Blur)
Dirty Funker - Whole Lotta Love Remix (Led Zeppelin)

DALE VS GRAZA 2002 SET

Ancient psytrance. Here is an artist's rendition of our audience at this stage....

Never heard a complaint.

DOWNLOAD THE DALE VS GRAZA 2002 SET

Tracklist
Star Shpongled Banner - Shpongle
http://www.twistedmusic.com/
Byronic - Eat Static
http://www.eatstatic.co.uk/
Shpongle- DMT- Hallucinogen Remix
http://www.twistedmusic.com/
Bushmen Of The Kalahari - Kalahari Sand Storm (Steve Hillage Remix)
http://www.discogs.com/Various-Global-Eyes-Tranction-2002-Project/release/57370
Synchro - F-Buckets
http://www.djsynchro.com/
Loopus - Yellowjackets
http://www.loopusinfabula.com/
Mr Peculiar - Charlie's Trip
http://www.myspace.com/mrpeculiar
Mk ultra - E-babe
http://www.australiens.net/profiles/mkultra/
Machineries of Heaven - Velvet Black (Remix)
http://www.psydb.net/labels/koyote-records/compilation-noughty-krlp010.php

Music Videos

noreply@blogger.com (Dale) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 02:56:00 +0000

Although I am incredibly ungifted when it comes to making music, it has had a huge impact on my life.

Here are a couple of promotional clips I have made for friends who run some wonderful music festivals here in Victoria.

Here is a music video made using Ray Zed's great 'Everything(Radiohead)' remix and a lot of archive.org material.

Here is a clip of one of my dj sets at a beach party, with the same audio redubbed to remove the wind. Not the biggest gig but certainly one of the best, that place is magic.

Brave New Oztron

noreply@blogger.com (Dale) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 18:20:00 +0000

After stuffing about with a website that was never quite complete for several years I have decided to see if I can keep a simple blog up to date.
I am using blogspot, but will host on my server once the host gets around to manually adding the cname referral. I am doing this so I can back it up (not that I will, but I can) - and also so I can get rid of that little blogger bar up the top.

Other stuff I have set up is a daily posting of my delicious links, which is simple enough to do. The only vaguely tricky thing with this is that your blog ID on blogger can be found in the URL when you are administering your blog. The results should appear in a post shortly.

Below is pretty much the total content of the old Oztron site, it has a few useful links. Please excuse the muddled tenses.

Current projects - creating an lsl/php/mysql games engine - tugengine.org and open source virtual world, osvr.net.

AMES Engageme workshops at Victoria University, teaching teachers how to use technology to engage disinterested students.

Saturday 30th May 2009 - ICTEV Conference - I facilitated a Virtual Worlds Workshop.

Thursday 7th May 2009 - Health Beyond Conference at Etihad Stadium, I was the backup techy for a virtual interview between Mandy Solomon and Ben Sawyer from Serious Games, as well as a virtual tour of health sites in Second Life by David Holloway.

December 2008 - I did a short presentation at the Australian Virtual Worlds Workshop entitled 'A Practical Guide to Second Life use in the Classroom.'

In January 2009 as part of the Avatar Project I will be running a week long SL/tech workshop for kids with aspergers, in conjunction with SPIT Gippsland.

Also in January 2009 I will be facilitating a Young Filmmakers Machinima Summer School Workshop at Melbourne Grammar.

2008 VU Class Blog (movies coming soon)

This years class blogs, includes WMM, IST and New Media(storytelling/machinima using Second Life) at VU Flinders and St Albans campuses.

Virtual Make Poverty History Concert - video now online

A three day workshop at Melbourne Grammar building, performing and streaming a real concert into Second Life(audio/video), and Second Life into the real concert(live mixed visuals).

Avatar Project Website Blog (2008) - includes video of Sydney Congress

Vichealth supported project studying the mental health implications of taking teens in world. My blog for this is updated regularly.

Click here for the building blog for VU(2008)

Virtual build for Vic Uni.

Click here for the Melbourne 2051 website for the 2007 IST class

Last years Interactive Storytelling class project, a future version of Melbourne done in Second Life.

Click here for 2007 class blogs.

Last years Interactive Storytelling and Writing for Multimedia class blog.