46,050 research outputs found
How can I produce a digital video artefact to facilitate greater understanding among youth workers of their own learning-to-learn competence?
In Ireland, youth work is delivered largely in marginalised communities and through non-formal and informal learning methods. Youth workers operate in small isolated organisations without many of the resources and structures to improve practice that is afforded to larger formal educational establishments. Fundamental to youth work practice is the ability to identify and construct learning experiences for young people in non-traditional learning environments. It is therefore necessary for youth workers to develop a clear understanding of their own learning capacity in order to facilitate learning experiences for young people.
In the course of this research, I attempted to use technology to enhance and support the awareness among youth workers of their own learning capacity by creating a digital video artifact that explores the concept – learning-to-learn. This study presents my understanding of the learning-to-learn competence as, I sought to improve my practice as a youth service manager and youth work trainer.
This study was conducted using an action research approach. I designed and evaluated the digital media artifact – “Lenny’s Quest” in collaboration with staff and trainer colleagues in the course of two cycles of action research, and my research was critiqued and validated throughout this process
A Mimetic Strategy to Engage Voluntary Physical Activity In Interactive Entertainment
We describe the design and implementation of a vision based interactive
entertainment system that makes use of both involuntary and voluntary control
paradigms. Unintentional input to the system from a potential viewer is used to
drive attention-getting output and encourage the transition to voluntary
interactive behaviour. The iMime system consists of a character animation
engine based on the interaction metaphor of a mime performer that simulates
non-verbal communication strategies, without spoken dialogue, to capture and
hold the attention of a viewer. The system was developed in the context of a
project studying care of dementia sufferers. Care for a dementia sufferer can
place unreasonable demands on the time and attentional resources of their
caregivers or family members. Our study contributes to the eventual development
of a system aimed at providing relief to dementia caregivers, while at the same
time serving as a source of pleasant interactive entertainment for viewers. The
work reported here is also aimed at a more general study of the design of
interactive entertainment systems involving a mixture of voluntary and
involuntary control.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures, ECAG08 worksho
Capture, Learning, and Synthesis of 3D Speaking Styles
Audio-driven 3D facial animation has been widely explored, but achieving
realistic, human-like performance is still unsolved. This is due to the lack of
available 3D datasets, models, and standard evaluation metrics. To address
this, we introduce a unique 4D face dataset with about 29 minutes of 4D scans
captured at 60 fps and synchronized audio from 12 speakers. We then train a
neural network on our dataset that factors identity from facial motion. The
learned model, VOCA (Voice Operated Character Animation) takes any speech
signal as input - even speech in languages other than English - and
realistically animates a wide range of adult faces. Conditioning on subject
labels during training allows the model to learn a variety of realistic
speaking styles. VOCA also provides animator controls to alter speaking style,
identity-dependent facial shape, and pose (i.e. head, jaw, and eyeball
rotations) during animation. To our knowledge, VOCA is the only realistic 3D
facial animation model that is readily applicable to unseen subjects without
retargeting. This makes VOCA suitable for tasks like in-game video, virtual
reality avatars, or any scenario in which the speaker, speech, or language is
not known in advance. We make the dataset and model available for research
purposes at http://voca.is.tue.mpg.de.Comment: To appear in CVPR 201
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