ATLEC

An interactive forum for around 50 key health professionals and health technology experts to examine future technology strategy and procure technology to improve efficiency took place on 9th July in central London. This event was organised by the organisation, ‘Inside Government’.

The UK government is committed to utilising technology to deliver better patient care and better value in the new health and social care system. Following the success of the Department of Health’s ‘Whole Systems Demonstrator’ programme, the largest randomised control trial of telehealth and telecare, the government has committed itself to improving lives, care and services with this technology.

The headline results from the programme, revealed that if used properly telehealth could result in a 20 per cent reduction in emergency admissions, a 15 per cent reduction in A & E visits and a 45 per cent reduction in mortality. Keen to deliver these improvements, Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, announced seven pathfinders to pilot telecare and telehealth approaches to transform the lives of three million people by 2017 in the 3million lives programme.

Moreover, the Digital First Report, published October 2012 identified almost £3bn of efficiencies through the use of digital technology in the NHS. Foremost amongst these measures was the use of telehealth and telecare for early intervention, pre-assessment and the prevention of unnecessary face to face contact with the use of virtual clinics.

The opening keynote speech was on the subject: ‘Improving Patient Safety and Quality of Care Through Integrated Digital Healthcare’ and was given by Michael Part, Head of Technology and Systems; London Region, NHS England. Mr Part’s speech outlined:

• The role of innovation and technology in the new healthcare landscape
• The forthcoming NHS England Technology Strategy and Roadmap: Setting the priorities for technological innovation and uptake in the new NHS
• Delivering on the 10 year Department of Health Information Strategy and the Digital First Report: Unleashing the potential and delivering better care and cost effectiveness
• The £260 million Digital Challenge Fund: Funding integrated digital health care to support improved patient safety and care quality
• Creating electronic systems, linked to patient records, which talk to each other right across hospitals now
• Realising the integrated digital future of the NHS

Other subjects covered on the day included case studies on the use of technology to digitally integrate health care records the move towards virtual GP clinics and the role of technology in the management of long-term conditions.

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A workshop will take place on July 16th at the CASS Business School in London, to discuss ‘A rating and review scheme for assistive technology: What will build trust for consumers?’. This was led by the SALT project ‘Sustainable Business Models for Assistive Living Technologies and Services’ (www.saltproject.co.uk), which is supported by funding from the Economic and Social Research Council and Technology Strategy Board. The project is led by Newcastle Business School of Newcastle University with partners from Age UK, CASS Business School (City University, London), Critical Data, Cyber Moor, Docobo, Intra Health, Limbs Alive, Manus Neurodynamica, RTC North, Smartcare ADL and the Years Ahead partnership.

The workshop was put on due to the premise that most of the trials of assisted living technologies have been small scale pilots and that there is therefore a need to find ways to scale up implementations so that many more members of the community will benefit.

The rationale for the SALT project is that existing health and social care institutions have insufficient capacity and resources to meet demand from the ageing population. The digital revolution has created opportunities for new products and services and new ways of doing business by private, voluntary and public sector organisations. SALT brings together multidisciplinary researchers with practitioners from business, health and social care services, government agencies, third sector organisations and user groups to develop innovative, workable, scalable and sustainable solutions.

The main objectives of the SALT project are to design new business models for scalable assistive technologies and services and to understand the factors that promote or inhibit people living in the community from making use of such technologies. The project is therefore looking to thereby promote sustainable market development for independent healthy living. The project also seeks to understand the factors that promote or inhibit the uptake, use and integration of assistive technologies for older people living in the community from a user-centred perspective. The project is due for completion in February 2014.

Unicef logo

Today, 30 May, UNICEF launched this year’s edition of its flagship publication, State of the World’s Children. The focus is Children with Disabilities. The report focuses on the position of children with disabilities in a varying worldwide landscape: how do they fare at home, in school, or at health care centres? What happens to children with disabilities in emergencies or conflict? How do these situations fluctuate around the world? The report asks readers to consider the lost opportunities in denying the full potential of these children. The State of the World’s Children 2013 argues for inclusive and equitable approaches in such areas as early childhood development, education, health, nutrition, humanitarian response and protection.

Source: Unicef

Sorry, this entry is only available in Eλληνικά, Italiano and Nederlands.

This study on the “State of the Art relating to ICT-AT” aims to:

• Gather representative evidence on the provision and usage of ICT-AT products and services in Belgium, Greece, Italy, the UK and across Europe, including market mechanisms.
• Analyse barriers and opportunities in relation to increased access to employment associated with the use of Assistive ICT.
• Analyse and use the information gathered to inform a unified curriculum in the training of people with disabilities to become experts in the field of ICT-AT and, to potentially equip them with the necessary skills to train other people with disabilities.

The document is structured as follows:

• In the first chapter we will look at some numbers regarding the people with disabilities in Europe, and more particularly regarding the variety of statistics that exist, often with very different numbers. Finding an overall objective denominator proves to be difficult here, and often numbers need a different interpretation.
• Next we focus on the education of children and young people with disabilities, and how this is addressed in all countries. Concrete details for Belgium, Greece, Italy and the UK are also included in the appendix to this document.
• The next chapter addresses the employment of people with disabilities in the EU, again dealing with data that may not reflect reality, but which is used in official statistics.
• We then look at ICT usage by people with disabilities, and the challenges people face there. Here, also data from previous recent studies is used, the AEGIS one being the largest and where PhoenixKM staff were co-authors.
• Next we go to analyse the findings from the survey we conducted in 2012 among stakeholders in various EU countries, combined with some additional input collected from user forums that were held in Italy and the UK.

Based on this, the document concludes with the relevant input towards the curriculum that is being produced by the ATLEC partnership.

You can download the document here (accessible pdf).

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!