The specification and design of an interactive virtual environment for use in teacher training

In this paper, we examine the rationale behind the specification and design of an interactive, virtual environment, optimized for particular task-based learning activities and the dissemination of information. The software we describe represents a typical British primary school, for use in training Information and Communications Technology (ICT)co-ordinators at primary level. By documenting our ongoing evaluation of both this resource and the technologies used in its implementation, we provide a detailed description of the production process of a prototype piece of software. This highlights the importance of pedagogy, new technologies and project management, and should be of particular interest to multimedia designers and academics preparing to develop innovative learning applications

Children's Health: Evaluating the Impact of Digital Technology. Final Report for Sunderland City Council.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Children’s Health project sponsored by the City of Sunderland Digital Challenge project examined the impact of providing health-focused digital technologies to children aged 11-15 years, in terms of their usage and requirements of such technologies, and their subsequent behavioural changes. The empirical study ran with three groups of six children over a period of seven weeks for each group. A console-based exercise game and an exercise-focused social website were used in the study and the focus was on opportunistic (unstructured/unplanned) exercise. The emergent findings are: • Data collected about physical activity must be more extensive than simple step counts. • Data collection technologies for activities must be ubiquitous but invisible. • Social interaction via technology is expected; positive messages reinforcing attainments of goals are valued; negative feedback is seen as demotivating. • participants were very open to sharing information (privacy was not a concern). • Authority figures have a significant impact on restricting adolescents’ use of technologies. This document reports the how the study was conducted, analyses the findings and draws conclusions from these regarding how to use digital technologies to improve and/or maintain the physical activity levels of children throughout their adolescence and on into adulthood. The appendices provide the detailed (anonymised) data collected during the study and the background literature review

Multimedia Tool For Children Learning: Web Based Pop Up Book

Web-based multimedia pop-up book for children learning is intend to convert traditional learning process into a web using multimedia formatwhich are integrate with multiple media elements such as audio, video, graphics, text and animations. Currently the children have to pull tabs and open pages for the book to 'come to life'. So the purpose of this project is to produce web-based multimedia pop-up book for children learning. The objectives of this project are to create and design interactive multimedia learning book, to come out with user-friendly interface and interactive application and to develop multimedia book that be able to view, use and interact with the online application that providing true multimedia application. The scope of this project is to create and design multimedia web-based education book for children between 5 to 6 years old in order to help children in learning activities, reading skills and improves children computer literacy. The project will adopt methodology of 'code-and-fix' methodology. Three essential stages of development have been performed, which involved Design stage (design the page layout and design the action and animation), Implementation stage (implement by insert and modify required images and implement actions and animations), and finally Test stage (run the actions and compare with intended design). The result in designing successful multimedia web-based for children learning the relevant area are focused on content presentation and user-friendly interface design. In order to achieve the objective of this web-based multimedia tool for children learning, this project should be able facilitate the process of integrating activity into education through online application

Future bathroom: A study of user-centred design principles affecting usability, safety and satisfaction in bathrooms for people living with disabilities

Research and development work relating to assistive technology 2010-11 (Department of Health) Presented to Parliament pursuant to Section 22 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 197