seminar
No One Ever Said This Was Going to be Easy...
Currently in Ultralab, with around 80 long term tenured researchers, there
are a number of iterative projects exploring learning. These range from huge
communities of practice, through to new approaches to broadcasting,
assessment or museums, and on into the architecture of schools, prisons and
software, using technology from mobile phones through to wireless laptops
and (not very) intelligent toys with learners from 4 to 100 years old!
What emerges clearly from these mysriad projects and their diverse scale, is
that making effective, delightful, seductive, engaging learning happen is
complex, but very achievable. This presentation explores, in an informal
way, many of these projects small scale and vast, how they explore some of
the complexity of learning in the 21st century.
The presentation will explore different elements of this work, illustrated
through a 'live" look at the various projects, but then with regular spaces
for questions and comment in a way which will, hopfully, feel quite
conversational, but also informative.
Professor Stephen Heppell is Britain's leading computers-in-education guru. He heads the Ultralab (www.ultralab.net ) at Anglia Polytechnic University, UK. He is the director of ULTRALAB which has an enviable global reputation for creativity, innovation and common sense - eyes on the horizon, feet on the ground! Ultralab is based at Chelmsford in the UK, at APU, and at Christchurch in NZ. Through Ultralab Stephen acts as consultant to a broad spectrum of organisations: broadcast media, retail, finance, publishing, telecommunications and, of course, learning and eLearning. Stephen continues to be influential in government ICT policy making globally. Stephen remains a teaching professor too; he is proud to be a visiting professor at Bournemouth University and has just completed three years as external examiner for the ICT in Education masters degree in Trinity College Dublin. His chair in Information Technology in the Learning Environment has been partly supported by Apple Computers since 1986; along with Harrison Ford, Mohammed Ali, Jarvis Cocker and Damion Hirst (!) he is an Apple Master.