Visit to London South Bank University - success!

I met Joseph Mintz from London SouthBank University at the Meeting of Minds conference back in February. Joseph teaches at a PostGraduate Program for Teachers specializing in children with ASD. At the moment he is presenting his paper tothe Emotions 2007 conference in the Autum. Issues in his work are children with ASD or Asperges syndrome that have a life in mainstreamschools, where they act differently than the other pupils and have to manage that somehow. It is a central issue in caretaking of children and teenagers with ASD.

But before Joseph Mintz started teaching and researching at LSBU, he had a carrier in the IT-industri, which in this project can be of great value.

Before going to London we had several negotiations.
Firstly I had asked Egebakken, if one member from the management could participate. I did so, because I emphazise teachers experience very much. Their knowledge, experiences, and competences should have a central and large role in the HANDS project. If we had the opportunity to visit a school in GB it would be nice. Informationofficer Susan Guldstad was asked to participate and it was a good choice. She is eager to push the project forward, openminded and critical. And as an surplus value she is taking an NLP-education and is always in a good mood.

Secondly while I started negotiation with Joseph, it happened that his father had a very larger operation and Joseph's time and attention was neded there. I must admit, I was pushy and Joseph managed to handle both his father and planning a very large and interesting program for Susan and me.

We had one day together at LSBU together with interesting and qualified staffmembers. We meet

• Peter Winbourne, reader in Mathematics Education
• Caty March, Senior Lecturer in Professional Studies,and a teacher with considerable experience in working with children with ASD
• Xristine Faulkner, Reader in Human Computer Interaction(I have used her books in my own teaching!!)
• Julia Power, European Programmes Manager at LSBU
• and finally Sally Inman, Head of Department

The invited people represented very different views on ICT and ASD which made it valuable and interesting. Through the talks we had to explain and argue for the HANDS project in a new manner.

Especially was it interesting to consider

• Research methodology
• The term "Social inclusion"

According to Research Methodology we tried to elaborate a methodology based on a combination of qualitativeve dataand quantitative data. We tried, but - I believe - we agreed, that the terms in Persuasive Technology and the intention of the project had to be proved first and it limited our debate to a vague conclusion that HANDS should rather be considered to be several qualitative experiments. This was the first argument. The second argument was - that our empirical data will not form a massive amount of quantitative data, (rather the opposite due to the fact, that the phenomena we will observe is behaviors of teenagers with ASD) which makes it possible to make clear and simple verification of HANDS software.

From the applications point of view it is fully acceptable. FP7-challenge 7 objective 2 states, applications should be considered to be Proof-of-Concept projects.

Furthermore it was noted by Joseph and I, that the HANDS project allow space for a new (in ASD research) type of methodtriangulation: the classical data is some kind of observation by researcher. In the HANDS project we have a very unique source of data: the uninterpretated logfiles which is a registration of the actual use of the HANDS software.

The term social inclusion played an important role in the design of schooloffers to the children with ASD in GB. The politicians in GB wants more children with ASD to attend mainstreamschools and the term social inclusion of young marginalized people from the EU-FP7 challenge 7 objective is in GB context interpreted to be a support of that intention.

The clear preproject conclusion was, that more testsiteschools should be mainstreamschools integrating children with ASD.

After this long and interesting day we finalized the talks with the head of department, Sallyre Inman. She warned us in believing that good EU-proposals always areaccepted. I believe she is right.

LSBU gave two valuable offers more:

• Julia Power offered to read the proposal through before uploading to ESSP
• Xristine Faulkner offered to make an evaluation of the userinterface of HANDS.
  

The day at LSBU together with Joseph and his colleageus was indeed a valuable day.

Joseph promised to send the "Letter of Intent".

Thrilling complications - new informations appears!

While I was in Budapest, Miklos and I talked about the process of writing an EU proposal. I said I expected that there would appear information one day - while writing - that will change the whole proposal. Miklos replied, that he agreed and the only thing you can do is to talk with as many people as possible.
It happened June 7th: new information appeared and should the whole project be put in the trash? Luckily not!

I joined a EU-application information meeting in Aarhus together with Lars Moltsen from Wirtek. I met Anette Fløcke Lorentzen, from the Danish Research and Innovationsministerium, who initially was the person(together with others) who funded the HANDS preproject. While talking with her, she thought that the HANDS proposal did not match the objective(FP7-challenge 7, 2d)! Eventhough she had been funding the HANDS project and implicitly verified the match between proposal and objective!
A true Catch 22 situation - a bureaucratic problem, which should not have existed!

She was very polite(!) and recommended that I call the Danish EU-employee responsible for that challenge and talk with him("....every word in an FP7-objective is very seriously considered - the proposal has to aim to achieve the objective exactly").

She gave me a telephone, where the danish EU-employee phonenumber(Peter Wintlev-Jensen) was dialed, and I just had to press "Call". I got the feeling like someone was giving me a pistol and asking me to commit suicide!
I had to refuse her offer, and plan the talk with Peter Wintlev-Jensen.
It was four days before I could call him. His answer was a clear "Yes, the users in focus of the HANDS project are for sure a socially marginalized group of young people and very interesting".
And more. It was very interesting to get an interpretation of the FP7-text direct from the source.
The most valuable ....were:

• EU wants Proof of Concepts research projects.


• EU wants projects with high quality research foundation.


• EU wants small projects


• EU wants innovative Proof of Concept projects, which afterwards can be the foundation of a larger project, which include products which hits the market.


• Every proposal must seriously consider the expected impact of the project.


• Peter Wintlev-Jensen expected, that he gaming industry will send in a couple of proposals.
  

All summed up: HANDS fits those demands very well and my expectations to the success of HANDS were raised remarkably after the phone call.

HANDS visit to Stockholm June 5th - success!

I hitted SvedenSkolan in Stockholm a little north to the citycenter in time. And had a joyfull and interesting talk and negotiation with Tobias(Teacher), Niklas Ahlstrom(VCEO), Gun Marie Wicksen (CEO), Agneta(assisting CEO. We ended our meeting by signing the “Letter of Intent”.

Coming to Stockholm and Svedenskolan was like coming home. It was not that frighting and different as visiting Budapest. First we discussed whether we should held the meeting in English or Skandinavian. We decided it should be hold in English.

Some facts
Svedenskolan has 70 pupils, it is based on TEACCH-pedagogical methods, the pupil/teacher ratio is similar to Egebakken in Denmark, the potentially involved teachers are invited to the meeting, and the management are nice and informal. And they used one PDA for one pupil. Equipped with asoftware “HANDI2” - well-known in Denmark.

Michael(Principal of Egebakken) evaluated beforehand, that Svedenskolan and Egebakken share many values and properties and after visiting SS I still have that viewpoint.

SS is going to be “my” testsite in HANDS and I feel very comfortable about that. HANDS is in good hands in Swedan skolan.

After I had made my presentation(view my slides here and more) I was gently asked to leave the room, so that they could make their own decision. Meanwhile I was given a tourdeforce of Svedenskolan by two very kind psychologists.

Critical comments on HANDS ideas

During the discussion afterwards Swedan Skolan raised several important issues or themes. The most valuable was:

• They commented that personal rights to own data is an ethical issue in HANDS which should be seriously considered. The laws might differ from one country to another.
  
  I fully agree. The ethical Advisory Board must work it out.
  
  

• They commented that working within HANDS could be timeconsuming and this should not be done at the expense of caretaking of the children.
  
  I fully agree. But the division between HANDS work and teaching will in many cases be difficult to draw.
  

I commented, that the level of IT-competences seemed week, and it should be considered how it could be raised. I suggested, that the management started(if the HANDS application goes through) out by using the pdas themselves.

Success - signing "The Letter of Intent"

As previously stated SvedenSkolan(management and teacher) signed the Letter of Intent. While Tobias(the teacher) commented, that many of the core ideas in HANDS is what he had been dreaming of.

HANDS visit to Budapest: May 31th to June 4th - success!

All my worries(and I had exceptionally many) disappeared very very fast

when I experienced Miklós Győri - live.

It appeared that he was far more positive towards the project and we shared many values, experiences and views which made it a very good experiences to visit Budapest. We finalised our talks by signing the “Letter of Intent” and ELTE University and Autism Foundation are now partners (ELTE: researchsite and Autism Foundation: testsite) in the HANDS consortium.

Friday Morning – Autism Foundation

It started out Friday morning with a visit to Dr. Anna Balazs on the Autism Foundation. Autism Foundation is an organisation for teaching, counseling and diagnosis/therapy with individuals within the ASD spectrum. And not less important the Autism Foundation houses a school for children with ASD. The Autism Foundation is THE organisation in Hungary where experiences about teaching and caretaking of ASD-individuals are exchanged in Hungary. And further: Dr. Anna Balazsis is the founder and manager of the Foundation and a great intellectual. We had a pleasant talk about HANDS and ethics. She invited me to a meeting more on Monday. Afterwards Miklós showed me around the school and the clinic. The school is TEACCH based and the Pupil/Teacher ratio seems similar to the ones in DK. The number of pupils are approximately 30 pupils or adults. But the facilities are far from similar. See the pictures! More important was the technological resources and users ICT competences.
They were indeed not similar to DK.

Friday Afternoon – ELTE University and conversation

Miklós and I continued our talks while eating lunch at Café Castro. They served Hungarian dishes and Serbian dishes. I was just about to Saslic(I believe it needs a ‘z’ somewhere) for the second time in my life. Our talk was this typical Miklós -Morten way: a conversation where issues like HANDS, history, culture and politics are intertwined in an inspiring and stimulating way.

We walked to ELTE University. ELTE University is the oldest and largest university in Hungary. Alone at Psychology Department approximately 500 students are enrolled. I was immediately introduced to the head of the Institute of Cognitive Psychology, Prof. Valeria Csepe. I held my talk and there were about 20-25 listeners on a Friday at 2 pm!! Happily Prof. Valeria Csepe participated and it appeared that she found my talk interesting and innovative.
Get my slides here!

And furthermore she found it very valuable, that ELTE University could participate in the HANDS project. And believe me: getting a good and valuable discussion with psychologist about valuable use of computer systems is difficult. Miklós commented that the user of an persuasive system could be considered to be both the child and the teacher. Very valuable comment. Another question forced me to say that(what was new for myself) that Persuasive Technology is no silver bullet and it has like all other methods and theories effect on a limited number of potentially persuasive or pedagogical aims. And it is likely that it is these effect differs from one individual to another.

Afterwards I was invited to a café downtown with Ildiko, Barbara and a girl more. All psychologists. Again the talk was very positive, stimulating and inspiring. We talked about the ideas and my own background for creating a project like HANDS. It was particularly nice for me that Barbara knew the song “Once in a lifetime” by Talking Heads, which I often listen to, when I shall understand my role in HANDS.

Saturday – digesting the impressions

Saturday was the day of my own.

I spent the morning digesting the very many good talks, discussions and experiences.

I made some design sketches and formulated theses' and identified tradeoffs. I cried once in a while. I had been so anxious about Miklós’ attitude and other peoples as well. They will participate and not only that: the cognitive psychology department at ELTE will be very valuable in the EU-application due to the nation, reputation and size. The chances for the application to succed have been increased significantly!

I was a tourist in Budapest too. A wonderful old European city with very many beautiful buildings from around the 19^th century.

And a lot of young couples who hug and kiss in parks and streets.

Sunday – Boottrip to the historical city Visegrad

Miklós had Friday afternoon invited me to join a whole day boat trip to Visegrad, an old and important historical city in Hungarian history. The headquarter for Hungarian Kings. Together with his wife, Kristina and 8 years old son Barto… .

I had suggested that Miklós and I should ban talk of HANDS, but I did not manage to keep my own law and the talk was this nice Miklós-Morten talk where we mix a conversation about culture, politics, HANDS and history.

Miklós told me, that my HotelShip(Hotel Fortuna) is placed in Budapest, 500 meters away from the former Hungarian Secret Police Headquarter and 1 km away from the pier where the Jews where deportated to the KZ. A perfect historical scenario for me!

Why am I here? –I am in Hungary to tie the former communist regime to the democratic EU.

Miklós wife, Kristina, speaks as impressively good English. She had never been taught English but wanted to be good. She is good at English! Together we had a class in speaking English and I believe, that my English improved a lot. She is chiefpsychologist at the Autism Foundation which is valuable for the HANDS project too.

If Hungary geography forms a funnel, the Hungarian plain is the larger part of the funnel, the Danube from Budapest to Visigrad is the thin part. And strategically a very important road from Asia, Turkey and Russia into central Europe.

In other words a road filled with wars, refugees and goods.

That Sunday the Danube was filled with a happy family, me and pleasant conversations.

Sundays last talk on my Hotel Ship was an introduction to a softwaremodelling tool(UML) and decisions about how the organisational map of HANDS should look like. It was an easy talk.

Monday – Dr Anna Balasz makes an critical review

My last day in Budapest was occupied with yet a valuable talk with Dr. Anna Balazs, presentation of the school in Autism Foundation, signing the “Letter of Intent” and a time to say goodbye.

Dr. Anna Balazs had very many good comments and I can not mention them all. But one concerns the major objection of the HANDS project.

I had stated, that the objective is “If Persuasive Technology works, can you persuade individuals with ASD to get a better life?”. That is the technologist point of view. The technology is the persuader.

She emphasized, that the successful persuasion takes places as a play of three partners: pupil, technology and teacher. That very bright idea was also conceived with other words by Miklós on the talks Friday.

It will be integrated in the EU HANDS application.

Afterwards we signed "The Letter of Intent".

I believe it is needless to say, that the farewell to Miklós while the taxi for the airport was waiting could not be formulated at "Goodbye".

It was “We will see again”.