UNIVERSITY teaching aid experts in East London have been shortlisted for two national awards in the same week for projects developed for special needs. Lecturers at the London Metropolitan have been nominated for a children’s BAFTA and for the British Inetractive Media association

UNIVERSITY teaching aid experts in East London have been shortlisted for two national awards in the same week for projects developed for special needs.

Lecturers at the London Metropolitan have been nominated for a children’s BAFTA in the Primary Learning’ sector for their Performing Hands’ project teaching literacy among deaf youngsters.

The second nomination is for a British Interactive Media Association award for their Us5’ project developed at their Gamelab in Whitechapel, a set of short films telling the stories of individuals dealing with dilemmas, independence and self determination. The films were developed as an webpage for the charity Mencap for those with learning disabilities.

Both projects make use of interactive media to help people with learning difficulties and special needs.

Gamelab London, which comes under the Faculty of Computing at London Metropolitan University’s East London campus, was the developer behind BBC Jam, the online educational service launched in 2006 using the internet to supplement schoolchildren’s education in key areas of the curriculum.

But the website was later pulled following complaints from educational software companies that it was damaging their businesses.