ATLEC

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Look out for ATLEC at the UK’s primary exhibition for special educational needs!
The TES Special Educational Needs Show will take place at the Business Design centre, London in October 2013. TES Special Educational Needs show aims to provide opportunities to:

• Explore inspiring CPD seminars and dynamic free workshops
• Get advice and training from a host of professionals with SEN expertise
• Discover fresh ideas to take back to the classroom
• Exhibit resources
• Find a wide range of ICT, software and classroom resources to support children

The ATLEC Project will be featured at this event. We will have a stall exhibiting the project and the mobile phone application, along with other projects from our partners, GHI, Oak Field School and our project associates, Nottingham Trent University.
For further details, visit the Times Educational Supplement website.

ITAG 2013 logo

ATLEC will host a booth at ITAG 2013 where we will demonstrate the ATLEC outcomes.

The aim of ITAG is to bring together academics, developers, beneficiaries and practitioners to explore interactive technologies and innovate within the areas of education, health and disability. The Conference consists of four strands: Academic conference, practical workshops, gaming hackathon and an exhibition.

The conference will this year take place at the Town Hall in Nottingham City Centre on 17-18 October 2013. ITAG is coordinated by Nottingham Trent University.

This presents an ideal opportunity for ATLEC to demonstrate its innovative work in the field of ICT AT to a wide range of international key stakeholders in the field via demonstrations. In addition, as part of the conference, the innovative development of the mobile application and the matrix that has informed its development will be presented by GHI and the University of Athens.

For further details or to book, visit the Nottingham Trent University website.

Final symposium of the ViPi and ATLEC projects.

Date: 4 December 2013
Venue: VLEVA (Vlaams-Europees verbindingsagentschap vzw), Kortenberglaan 71, 1000 Brussels, Belgium
Participants: 100-120
Duration: 9:00 hours – 18:00 hours
Language: English

Two European lifelong learning projects (the VIPI and ATLEC project) will come to an end and the final Symposium will present their outcomes within a wider framework of learning, employment and independent living for people with disabilities.

The two projects are complementary as VIPI focuses on the development of skills in ICT for (young) adults with disabilities and ATLEC on skills and competences in ICT based Assistive Technologies.

The Symposium has a twofold aim: raising awareness among gatekeepers and policy makers on the need for ICT and ICT_AT training and on the other hand providing concrete curricula, methods and tools produced in the project. Highlighting needs and showing material to tackle those needs, is considered a valuable contribution to further equal opportunities and the participation of people with disabilities in learning and employment.

The symposium therefore presents academic and experience-based contributions, while interactivity, dialogue and information exchange is sought in parallel sessions and in the exhibition.

Other relevant projects and experiences are therefore invited to contribute with a a poster or by sending leaflets to enrich the exhibition.

The participation of people with disabilities is incentivised by an accessible venue and by accessible presentations.

Please consult http://www.vipi-project.eu & http://www.atlec-project.eu for more information on the projects and for programme updates.

Registration is now available. Note that participation is only confirmed after receiving a formal confirmation email from us

ATLEC met interest of a qualified audience of AT centres representatives during a meeting of the Global AT Centres Leadership network in Orlando, Florida, January 30th 2013.

ITAG: Interactive Technologies and Games – Education, Health and Disability 2013 – Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, October 2013

First call for papers, workshops and posters

The aim of ITAG is to bring together academics, developers, beneficiaries and practitioners to explore interactive technologies and innovate within the areas of Education, Health and Disability. ITAG will consist of 4 strands:

• Academic conference: We have a particular focus on the use of gaming hardware and software to implement accessible solutions, interaction design using new input/output devices and the increasing impact of ubiquitous computing on our everyday well-being. We especially want to bring together practitioners with technical experts, for their mutual benefit; you don’t have to be a technical whizz kid to benefit from this conference! The conference provides an excellent opportunity to showcase practice and to mainstream research ideas and outcomes. It introduces a wider audience to key findings and products from research and illustrates how practice feeds back into and informs research. The conference also creates a forum for two-way communication between the academic and practitioner communities.
• Practical workshops: every afternoon, parallel workshops will be organised addressing following topics: interactive street gaming using mobile gaming applications, robotics in a gaming environment, mobile gaming, immersive gaming and rehabilitation gaming. These workshops will involve the participants in exploring the various games, and creating an interactive experience with the originators/developers.
• Gaming hackathon: several teams consisting of developers, designers and special education trainers will compete with each other to use various technologies (Android based games, Flash Games, Games Mods, XNA) and create an educational game in just 2 days. The winner will take home a £250 prize award.
• Exhibition: An exhibition space will be available for demonstrations and posters, and will be embedded in the conference and workshops area.

If you are interested in any of the above, please contact us at claire.addison@ntu.ac.uk. We particularly welcome user led presentations and workshops.

ITAG is held in partnership with GameCity – the World’s best-loved videogame festival.

Scope:

As guidance to participants on scope of papers and activities we state that: ‘Education’ includes both compulsory and post-compulsory education; ‘Disability’ includes physical, sensory and cognitive impairment; and the impact of interactive technologies and games on health and well-being is also a focus of this conference. An emphasis is placed on practical applications and guides to where currently available training resources and tools can be found and used. A selection of papers will be published electronically in full, and presentations will be limited to 20 minutes for the key findings, including time for questions from the floor. It is hoped (as in previous years) that the best papers will be published in a special issue of a relevant academic journal. Previous special issues have included:

• Journal of Assistive Technologies – Volume 3, issue 2, June 2009 (ITAG 2008 selected papers)
• Computers and Education – Volume 56, issue 1 (ITAG 2009 selected papers)
• International Journal of Games Based Learning – Volume 1, issue 4, 2011 (ITAG 2010 selected papers)
• Journal of Assistive Technologies – Volume 6 issue 3 (ITAG 2011 selected papers)
• International Journal of Game-Based Learning – (ITAG12 selected papers) – in development

Themes and topics:

The conference encourages multidisciplinary papers and examples of themes and topics include (but don’t let this restrict you):

Gaming on the move:

• Streetgaming and the usage of mobile and online game applications
• Blended gaming for educational purposes
• Augmented Reality and mobile games
• Pervasive games for health, sociability and adaptability
• Location-based games and ubiquitous technologies
• Immersive/alternate reality games (ARGs), hybrid reality games (HRG), and mixed reality games (MRG)
• Low cost mobile games based learning
• Inclusive street games

Robotics and education:

• Good practices or innovations in programming
• Autonomous projects: Have you done a cool autonomous project? Show it off and share your ideas!
• Interaction in the context of youth with learning disabilities
• Hardware & software for robotics education: Share your best ideas and innovations to make educational programs more effective.
• Innovative uses of technology: Have you done something unique and creative utilizing new technology in education? Let’s hear about it!
• Robotics competitions & project based activities: Highlight specific classroom and other competitions and activities you utilize in your robotics education program.
• Curriculum for robotics education: Tell us how you design and implement your curriculum in regular classroom or extracurricular activities.
• Informal robotics education: Highlight your best practices and successes while sharing your ideas!

Games Based Learning:

• Social and collaborative aspects of games (e.g., educational aspects of Massively Multiplayer Online Games)
• The efficacy of games based learning
• Self-authored content and personalisation in games
• Learning theory, pedagogy and instructional design in games
• Motivational aspects of games
• Collaboration between Science and Art for more effective learning
• Games to promote the inclusion (e.g., for offenders and people with disabilities, motivation of female gamers)

Game related Technologies:

• Using contemporary games controllers to create new opportunities in health and rehabilitation applications (e.g., applications for Wii Fit, Kinect. Move).
• Brain Computer interfaces to games
• Pervasiveness and mobility of games
• Location based services
• Handheld learning in the classroom

Games, Apps and Artificial Reality for Health:

• Serious games for clinical assessment (e.g. after stroke)
• Serious games for rehabilitation and treatment (e.g. of phobias, ADHA, post-traumatic stress disorders, stroke)
• ‘Modding’ for health
• Art and music rehabilitation in 3D multisensory environments
• Games for children in hospital
• Games to increase physical activity in children
• Apps and AR in assessment and patient wellbeing.

Accessible Game Design:

• Universally accessible games
• Switch controlled games
• Audio games for the blind
• Designing accessible games mods
• Using games controllers as haptic and audio interfaces
• Accessibility guidelines for games

Web based gaming technologies:

• Resources for interactive learning tools and environments, e.g., Flash, podcasts, simulations, mobile games, Web 2.0 tool etc.
• The Internet as a communication medium (e.g. for people with Asperger Syndrome).
• Browser based games and linking into social media channels

Submissions

Those wishing to present papers, or hold a workshop should prepare abstracts, to a maximum of 500 words. For those hoping to exhibit or produce a poster, a 300-word abstract is required.

The deadline for submissions is Tuesday 30 April 2013 and should be sent to claire.addison@ntu.ac.uk. Please clearly state what track your submission relates to. Participating in the hackathon is open to all, but expressions of interest will be asked.

Final copies of accepted papers will be required in advance of the Conference.

We aim to keep costs down, and we do offer concessionary* rates. Prices will include lunch, and morning and afternoon refreshments. *Proof of eligibility for concessionary rates will be requested on arrival at the conference (e.g., student ID card)

Prizes Offered:

As in previous years prizes will be awarded!

ATLEC plans to attend AAATE 2013, the 12th European AAATE Conference and present a paper on the ATLEC outcomes. This will take place in Vilamoura (Algarve, Portugal) on 19-22 September 2013.
Throughout the years the AAATE conference has establish itself has a privileged forum for researchers in the transdisciplinary area of Assistive Technology. One of the main objectives of the AAATE2013 Conference is to bring together researchers, professionals, manufacturers, end users and its families, and combine their knowledge, expertise, needs and expectations, contributing in a multidisciplinary way to the success of this meeting.

ATLEC plans to attend the Com@modemdag on 25 January 2013 in Duffel, Belgium. This event brings together all stakeholders of the ATLEC project, and will be an excellent place to disseminate the curriculum and associated mobile application.

ATLEC was present at the European Day of People with Disabilities Policy Event in Brussels on 3-4 December 2012 with a dedicated booth. With over 500 attendees this event is core to reaching out to the project’s stakeholders.

Project booth at European Day of People with Disabilities Policy Event in Brussels on 3-4 December 2012