We are pleased to offer this seminar class to USC doctoral students, which is scheduled for 1-3.50pm on Mondays for 3 units.

SUMMARY
Emerging research methods using interactive media, informatics and translational science within global interdisciplinary practice and policy settings, toward measuring and improving environments of social relationships. This course is an elective in the SOWK doctoral program and open to doctoral students in all disciplines (with instructor’s permission).

This course is a seminar format with experts, hands-on technology demonstrations, field trips and group dialogue. A contemporary synthesis of neuroscience literature will provide the groundwork for designing, conducting and evaluating research aimed at measuring, improving and learning about the environment of human relationships. Emerging research methods (design, data collection, analysis, dissemination) are explored across all forms of interactive media (for example, games, virtual reality, mobile devices, social media, online questionnaires). In addition, translational informatics including personal health records, folksonomies, cloud computing and collaboration tools will be explored. Students will be mentored to develop and integrate course insights and new methods into their current and future research and practice.

Playtest of "Enchanted Garden" conducted by Yasaman Hashemian on a Microsoft Surface

Did you know that the CM&BHC team is a big fan of stereoscopy? We consider ourselves stereopaths and when the occasion calls for it, we try to work in some real 3D into our world.  This year, we completed a pilot collaboration with the Multi-Ethnic Pediatric Eye Disease Study (MEPEDS), an epidemiological study funded by the National Institutes of Health. The study measures vision acuity and eye disease in children under the age of six. Principal Investigator Dr. Rohit Varma and his incredible team helped contribute to development of three novel transmedia products that could be used to communicate the importance of healthy vision. We created a stereoscopic comic strip, a stereoscopic video and the stereoscopic game for Microsoft Surface entitled Enchanted Garden. Professor Perry Hoberman screened the video A Whole New World of Space at the 8th Annual 3D Fest. In Enchanted Garden, Lefty and Righty seek little creatures with their magnifying glasses. When they see them through their lens, the creatures become enchanted for a little bit until the characters become distracted in search of something more exciting, a bee, a frog, a bird–who knows? The Microsoft Surface table is installed at the MEPEDS Alhambra clinic. This project was also supported by the MxR Lab and a Microsoft grant.

On September 22nd, 2011, we kicked off a new project entitled Virtual Sprouts, funded by NIH with a newly formed advisory meeting, which was generously hosted by ICT. Our multi-disciplinary team includes experts in childhood obesity (PI Donna Spruijt-Metz, Co-I Jaimie Davis), interactive media (Co-I Marientina Gotsis), artificial intelligence (Co-PI H. Chad Lane), education and engineering (Co-PI Gisele Ragusa). This collaboration is funded by a prestigious Science Education Partnership (SEPA) award. Our program will target low income, minority populations in Los Angeles, including children ages 8 to 11, their parents, other family members, teachers and the community. Our goal is to positively influence dietary intake and prevent/treat obesity in minority youth through meaningful play. Virtual Sprouts brings a novel combination of technology and teaching to bear on pediatric obesity in urban Los Angeles, and will employ interactive, web-based game techniques, rich narrative, a pedagogical agent, and experiential learning to achieve the aims of the program. We are currently preparing for playtesting and focus groups with students, teacher and parents, which will be conducted by second-year IMD MFA student, Yasaman Hashemian.

Brain Hero, has surpassed 16,000 views on YouTube since it was posted on May 25th, 2011. The video has been widely distributed to national and international child welfare and advocacy organizations. Norlien Foundation who was the original sponsor for the project has released a version localized for Alberta, Canada and a brazilian portuguese version is also in the works. We are very proud of the warm welcome of the video and look forward to its widespread distribution. If you are an institution seeking to translate the video for not-for-profit screening, our center will provide a royalty free license to you, permission to modify the assets through our vendor and a quote for translation. For more information contact gotsis [ at ] usc dot edu.

Brain Hero, a 3-minute game-inspired video about how actions taken by parents, teachers, policymakers, and others can affect life outcomes for both the child and the surrounding community, is making global rounds. On its soft-release this week, the video was noticed by UK Labour MP Graham Allen who is leading an early childhood intervention and it was reblogged.

The video is a result of a collaboration with the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University and the Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute at the University of Southern California which is focused on the creation and dissemination of innovative storytelling products designed to inform the public discourse around policies and practices that support healthy brain development during childhood.

 

Team credits: Nahil Sharkasi, Diane Tucker, Ying Sun, Amy Akmal & Psychic Bunny.

We would like to welcome you to the new website for the USC Creative Media & Behavioral Health Center (CM&BHC). We have been hard at work developing partnerships, receiving generous advice and building capacity to tackle several new projects that have been born at the Center, or brought in through our collaborators. The first few months of a Center are like the first few months of having a child — everything is both joyous and bumpy.