The research team will draw upon 4 technologies:
• COSPATIAL focuses on the development and application of innovative technologies to support children’s social and communication skills in the domains of collaboration and social conversation,
• ECHOES is concerned with supporting children’s social interaction through use of a virtual environment endowed with a semi-autonomous virtual character able to react to the child in real-time,
• Reactickles is a software application that uses everyday technologies to enable users to express idiosyncratic, emergent and bodily interests and to value these as triggers for communication,
• SOMANTICS explores the link between sensation and imagination with the body as the input device. THE PROJECT TEAM
• Dr Karen Guldberg, University of Birmingham (PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR)
• Dr Wendy Keay-Bright, Cardiff Metropolitan University,
• Dr Sarah Parsons, University of Southampton,
• Dr Kaska Porayska-Pomsta, Institute of Education, University of London,
• Ben Ewart-Dean,Cardiff Metropolitan University,
• Lila Kossyvaki, University of Birmingham,
• Marilena Mademtzi, University of Birmingham. Researchers are working closely with 6 special, specialist and mainstream schools in the UK to identify ways of using the 4 technologies in innovative and exploratory ways. As part of the project, the researchers will help staff and children to create digital stories of their experiences and an online portal for teachers, parents and school staff will be launched. The Shape project is funded by the ESRC Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
