People

Committee

• Keri Facer
• Mike Sharples
• Carey Jewitt
• Anna Craft
• Simon Mauger
• Richard Sandford

Speakers

• Tom Schuller
• John Furlong
• Cathie Holden
• Kerry Chappell
• Yvonne Rogers
• Tom Rodden
• Alister Wilson
• Richard Slaughter
• Giasemi Vavoula
• Andy Miah
• Michael Fielding
• Peter Moss
• Alexandra Plows

Keri Facer
[email protected]

Keri Facer is Professor of Education at the Education and Social Research Institute, Manchester Metropolitan University where she leads the Create Research Group in digital cultures, informal learning and educational change. Over the last two years she has directed a range of projects, including the DCSF-funded futures programme, Beyond Current Horizons, which was tasked with developing long term scenarios for the future of education in the context of social and technological change. Prior to joining MMU, Keri was Research Director at Futurelab where, over 6 years, she built the organisation’s research and development to its current position as an internationally recognised leader in educational innovation. She has led research in fields such as children’s informal learning with digital technologies, the impact of creative partnerships on school ethos and the relationship between schools and local communities. She publishes widely in the fields of educational futures, social justice and digital technologies and has advised organisations as diverse as the World Wide Fund for Nature, Partnerships for Schools, Oxfam, BECTA, and the Royal Society.
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Mike Sharples
[email protected]

Mike Sharples is Professor of Learning Sciences and Director of the Learning Sciences Research Institute at the University of Nottingham. He has an international reputation for research in mobile learning and the design of learning technologies. He inaugurated the mLearn conference series and is President of the International Association for Mobile Learning. As Deputy Scientific Manager of the Kaleidoscope Network of Excellence in Technology Enhanced Learning he coordinated a network of 1100 researchers across 90 European research centres. His current projects include: PI: Personal Inquiry, a collaboration with the Open University UK to develop 21st century science learning between formal and informal settings; a national Digital Economy Hub on pervasive and contextual technologies; and research into curriculum and pedagogy to inform the UK Government’s Harnessing Technology Strategy. Recent projects include MyArtSpace for mobile learning in museums and the L-Mo project with Sharp Laboratories of Europe to develop handheld technologies for language learning. He is author of 170 publications in the areas of interactive systems design, artificial intelligence and educational technology.
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Carey Jewitt
[email protected]

Carey Jewitt is a Professor in Education and Technology, an Academic Fellow funded by the UK Research Councils and Deputy Director of the London Knowledge Lab, Institute of Education University of London. She is founding co-editor of the journal Visual Communication, and her most recent publications include The Routledge Handbook of Multimodal Analysis (2009) and Technology, Literacy and Learning (2008, Routledge). Carey’s research interests are in representation and technology mediated learning, with a focus on visual and multimodal theory and research methods. She is currently leading a research project on the benefits of Learning Platforms in UK schools, and part of a team evaluating the Home Access Program.
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Anna Craft
[email protected]

Anna Craft is Professor of Education at the University of Exeter and The Open University. Once an early years teacher, and with a background in national curriculum development work across the primary and secondary range, Anna’s research focuses on the twin areas of the ‘what, how and why’ of creativity in education, and possible education futures. She is particularly interested in the concept of ‘possibility thinking’ which she takes to be at the heart of creativity, and from this, how we might foster creativity with wisdom, in education contexts, from the youngest learners to working with adults, taking account of what she sees as the four ‘p’s’ which characterise the lives of children and young people in the early 21st century: playfulness, possibilities, plurality and participation. Current projects include Dance Partners for Creativity (AHRC) and Aspire. At Exeter she leads the CREATE and Educational Futures research groups.
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Simon Mauger
[email protected]

Simon Mauger is Programme Director for the South-West region for the National Institute for Continuing Adult Education, and led the scenario development component of the recent NIACE-sponsored national Inquiry into the Future for Lifelong Learning. Simon has worked across all educational sectors as well as in commercial contexts, including media production, communications technology, and enterprise development. He has extensive knowledge of European project work and is the author of a range of publications in the fields of open learning, guidance and psychometrics, technology and learning, and scenario planning. His central interest is around the relationships between personality and learning, and the role of technology in changing professional transactions and perceptions of expertise.
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Richard Sandford
[email protected]

Richard Sandford is a senior researcher at Futurelab, where his research interests include mobile technologies and augmented reality, games and play, and ways of talking meaningfully about the future. Most recently, he led the evidence-gathering and scenario development processes for the Beyond Current Horizons project, and prior to that led the iLAB 2015 collaboration with the Singapore Infocomm Development Agency, working with the Ministry of Education, HP and local schools in the development of digital learning games.
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Tom Schuller (Seminar 1 Speaker)

Tom Schuller is director of an independent Inquiry into the Future for Lifelong Learning in the UK, sponsored by the National Institute of Adult and Continuing Education. Its main report, Learning Through Life, was published in September 2009.From 2003-2008 Tom was Head of the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI), OECD, Paris. Formerly Dean of the Faculty of Continuing Education and Professor of Lifelong Learning at Birkbeck, University of London from 1999 to 2003, he was also co-director of the Centre for Research on the Wider Benefits of Learning. Previous positions were at the Universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Warwick, at the Institute for Community Studies in London, and for four years at OECD in the 1970s. Tom’s research history covers many areas of lifelong learning, but also fields such as employee participation, social capital and the social study of time. His most recent books are Understanding the Social Outcomes of Learning (with Richard Desjardins, OECD 2007), Evidence in Education: Linking Research and Policy (edited, with Tracey Burns, OECD 2007), and The Benefits of Learning: The Impact of Education on Health, Family Life and Social Capital (with John Preston et al, RoutledgeFalmer 2004). He chairs the Governing Board of the Working Men’s College, is a member of the Academy of Social Sciences, and plays in the Alexandra Palace Band.
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John Furlong (Seminar 1 Speaker)

John Furlong undertood his PhD while a teacher in a London comprehensive school. On completion of his thesis he began a six year full time career as a research fellow, working first at Manchester University and then at Brunel University. In 1981 he moved to Cambridge University where he was a lecturer in the sociology of education for 11 years. In 1992 John moved to Swansea University to take up his first Chair; he became head of department in 1993. In 1995 he moved to Bristol University, again serving as head of department, and then joined the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University in January 2000. He took up his current post as Director of the Oxford University Department of Education in 2003. As a highly experienced researcher, John Furlong has researched and published on a wide range of aspects of educational policy and practice including: teacher education and professional development; the role of universities in the field of education; the nature of ‘quality’ in applied and practice based research; and young people’s use of new technologies at home. John is an active member of the British Educational Research Association and served as President during the academic years 2003-5. He was elected an Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2003 and was a member of the 2008 RAE Education Sub-Panel.
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Cathie Holden (Seminar 2 Speaker)

Cathie Holden is Associate Professor at the University of Exeter, UK, where she is Head of Initial Teacher Education and co-ordinates the Citizenship PGCE course. She contributed to the revised National Curriculum Programme of Study for Citizenship Education. Her research over the last decade has focused on young people’s hopes and fears for their personal, local and global futures and the extent to which they feel prepared and motivated to act for change. She coordinated an international study involving ten countries into children’s concerns with regard to local and global issues and their role as active citizens and is currently engaged in an EU study with Turkey, Poland and Spain. Books include ‘Education for Citizenship: Ideas into Action’ (2002) (with Nick Clough), The Challenge of Teaching Controversial Issues (2007) with Hilary Claire and ‘Teaching the Global Dimension: Key Principles and Effective Practice’ (2007) with David Hicks.
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Kerry Chappell (Seminar 2 Speaker)

Kerry Chappell is a Research Fellow within the University of Exeter Graduate School of Education. Her research focuses on investigating how we conceive of and work for creativity (specifically within dance education but also generically) and developing this within an effective and meaningful conception of futures education. At present this is centred on the AHRC-funded Dance Partners for Creativity Project. This aims to investigate creativity and partnership with and for dance education practitioners and their practice, but also extrapolates learning and theorising into relevant areas of creativity and futures education. Recently, Kerry has also worked as the Research Fellow on the Aspire Project, which offers school pupils and their teachers research tools and processes aiming to support a process of transformational change in school, and which shares methods and approaches with the DPC project. All of Kerry’s research is informed by her ongoing practice as a dance artist and aikido practitioner (Ni-Dan).
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Yvonne Rogers (Seminar 2 Speaker)

Yvonne Rogers is a professor of Human-Computer Interaction in the Computing Department at the Open University, where she directs the Pervasive Interaction Lab. Her research focuses on augmenting and extending everyday, learning and work activities with a diversity of interactive and novel technologies. She was one of the principal investigators on the UK Equator project (2000-2007), where she pioneered and experimented with ubiquitous learning.
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Tom Rodden (Seminar 2 Speaker)

Tom Rodden is a Professor of Interactive Systems at the Mixed Reality Laboratory (MRL) at the University of Nottingham and deputy Director of the recently supported EPSRC Horizon Digital Economy Hub. His research focuses on the development of new ubiquitous computing technologies to support user. He holds an EPSRC senior research fellow investigating the interdisciplinary foundations of ubiquitous computing. He directed the Equator IRC that brought together 8 research institutes to explore new ubiquitous computing technologies and experiences.
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Alister Wilson (Seminar 2 speaker)

Alister Wilson set up Waverley Management Consultants in 2002 after several years working in a larger consultancy practice. He is an experienced process designer and facilitator who believes in working alongside his clients to help them find their own solutions – rather than being an expert who has ‘the answers’ about the future. He specialises in designing and delivering multi-stakeholder processes that provide partners with the time and space to describe – and plan for – shared future success. He is particularly interested in finding ways to ensure that the insights and learning that come out of futures thinking are turned into action. His client base is mainly drawn from government and higher education.

Alister’s current and recent projects include developing scenarios for the future of higher education, writing scenarios on the future of land use for the Government Office for Science, and exploring the use of scenario thinking to support option generation in the Department for Transport. He has also worked with a number of higher education institutions on strategic planning and is a regular contributor to the Top Management Programme, running a scenario planning training day.

Before consultancy, Alister worked in regional economic development for Scottish Enterprise, latterly as the head of skills policy. He has a PhD in Molecular Biology from the University of Warwick and worked in the pharmaceutical industry for a number of years. He retains an interest in technology and the life sciences.
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Richard A. Slaughter

Dr. Richard A Slaughter is a writer, practitioner and innovator in Futures Studies and Applied Foresight. During 1999-2004 he was Foundation Professor of Foresight at the Australian Foresight Institute, Melbourne. During 2001-2005 he was President of the World Futures Studies Federation. He is the author or editor of some 20 books and many papers on a variety of futures topics. Two recent projects include the State of Play in the Futures Field (SoPiFF) and a new eBook: The Biggest Wakeup Call in History. He is currently Director of Foresight International, an independent company dedicated to facilitating the emergence of social foresight. Richard’s weblog (http://www.richardslaughter.com.au/) contains an image gallery, reviews, more recent work and commentaries.
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Giasemi Vavoula

Dr. Giasemi Vavoula is an RCUK Academic Fellow at the School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester, UK. She has a background in Computer Science (BSc) and Human-Centred Computer Systems (MSc), while her doctoral research at the University of Birmingham, UK, focused on the design of personal lifelong learning organisers. Her research interests presently focus on technology-enhanced museum learning; tools and methods for mobile and informal learning design and research; and the co-creation and co-interpretation of cultural content. Current projects include the evaluation element of the HLF funded project Full Circle, and My Study Visit, a SPLINT-funded project looking at the design of mobile and web-based tools to support HE students on field trips.
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Andy Miah

Andy Miah is professor in ethics and emerging technologies at the University of the West of Scotland, a fellow of FACT, the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology (Liverpool) and the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (USA).
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Michael Fielding

Michael Fielding taught for 19 years in some of the UK’s pioneer radical comprehensive schools, including Thomas Bennett Community School, Crawley, where he was Head of English and Stantonbury Campus, Milton Keynes where he was a deputy head. Academic posts at Cambridge University (1992-99) and Sussex University (1999-2006) included a major ESRC research project on student voice with, amongst others, his late friends Jean Rudduck and Donald McIntyre and a DfES funded study – Factors Influencing the Transfer of Good Practice – with Demos. In January 2007 he moved to the Institute of Education, University of London where he is now an Emeritus Professor. Widely published in the fields of student voice, educational leadership and radical education Michael recently lead a research and development project on student voice and person-centred approaches to educational leadership funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. He is on the Advisory Boards of a number of journals (including Children & Society and Forum) and of innovative research and development initiatives (such as the Paul Hamlyn Foundation’s Learning Futures). His co-authored book with Peter Moss, Radical Education and the Common School – a democratic alternative is due out in January 2011.
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Peter Moss

Peter Moss is Professor of Early Childhood Education at the Institute of Education University of London, where he works at the Thomas Coram Research Unit. Long-standing interests include early childhood education and care, the children’s workforce, social pedagogy, and the relationship between care, employment and gender; while emerging interests include democracy in education, demarketisation, and processes of transformative change. Much of his work has been cross-national, mainly in Europe. Currently he is the co-coordinator of the international network on leave policies and research; and is co-editor of the series Contesting Early Childhood which provides a platform for paradigmatic and theoretical perspectives that challenge the dominant discourse in early childhood education and care, including post-structural thinkers such as Foucault and Deleuze. Recent publications include: Ethics and Politics in Early Childhood Education (with Gunilla Dahlberg); Care Work in Europe: Current Understandings and Future Directions (with Claire Cameron); The Politics of Parental Leave Policies (edited with Sheila Kamerman); There are alternatives! Markets and Democratic Experimentalism in Early Childhood Education and Care; The 2010 international review on leave policies and research; and Radical Education and the Common School: a Radical Alternative (with Michael Fielding, due out in January).
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Alexandra Plows

Alex Plows is a Research Fellow at the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods (WISERD). Prior to joining WISERD in 2009 Alex worked at Cardiff University as a Research Associate in the Centre for Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics (Cesagen) where she was concerned with identifying and theorising public engagement with human genetics/ genomics and related areas of bioscience such as nanotechnology and stem cells. Prior to these appointments she undertook post doc work (Bangor University/ Welsh Assembly Government), defining and evaluating sustainable development criteria at a regional level; and also worked for Keele University on a project researching activist networks, as part of the Democracy and Participation programme. Her PhD focused on UK environmental direct action networks. Alex is interested in the theory and practice of sustainable development; citizenship, participation and public engagement; feminism, particularly eco-feminist approaches to genetic and reproductive technologies; social movements and theories of social mobilisation; public engagement with bioscience, in particular human genetics/omics and Converging Technologies; research methodologies, especially the use of qualitative methods as a means of “upstream public engagement”, and the use of “e-methods” to map cyber socialities. Her new book Debating Human Genetics:Contemporary Issues in Public Policy and Ethics is published by Routledge
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