Stephen Heppell, Founder of Ultralab
I was formerly
director of ULTRALAB which had (and indeed still has) an enviable
global reputation for creativity,
innovation and common sense. After 22 years I left there to consolidate
my policy and learning consultancy heppell.net before
being head hunted to create and run the radical learning technology
research team learn3k in
Dublin, Ireland,
My naugural
lecture as a new professor back in 1987 was "eyes
on the horizon, feet on the ground!" and have taken
that philosophy with me into my new team.
Indicative
media coverage:
"It's an unlikely place to
find a guru. A drab 1960s block in the middle of the only English
university still to call itself a polytechnic. But the Chelmsford
campus of the Anglia Polytechnic University (APU) is home to a
remarkable institution
- Ultralab. Here for the past 15 years Stephen Heppell has been
building one of the most respected research centres in e-learning
in the world." Financial
Times 2001
"when
I finally spotted him, Stephen Heppell didn?t look at
all like I imagined. This geek of geeks, this net-head of all
times, this
revolutionary who is yanking
the British education system out of its Victorian slumber
and shaping it for the digital information age, surely it couldn?t
be this genial fellow before
me with his whitening Father Christmas beard and Hush
Puppy fashion
sense" Design
Magazine 1999
"Professor
Stephen Heppell: the UK's leading on-line education guru" Channel
4 TV 1999
"Ultralab
is Europe's leading leading research institute pioneering
leading edge applications in support of proven educational precepts." Oracle
Corporation 1999
"Money
alone won't make the Internet fly. Ultimately, it's success
lies with kids and other folk who don't follow dot-com stocks.
That's where Stephen Heppell comes in. He's a digital
do-gooder,
helping to bring ordinary
people
into the Internet age.... looking about as threatening
as Santa Claus with
his twinkling blue eyes and bushy beard" Wall Street Journal
2000
"He could
clearly be a very wealthy man because of his unique foresight,
but he's decided that he wants to help children and parents
get the most out of IT and Education" European Wall
Street Journal 2000
"Stephen
Heppell is Britain's leading computers-in-education guru. He
heads the
Ultralab at Anglia Polytechnic University - a hotbed of techno-optimism
whence
a constant stream of lovely educational applications
has been emanating, without fuss, since the late 1980s". Dust
or Magic international conference, Oxford, 2003
"Europe's
leading online education guru" Guardian 2004
"stephen
heppell is ICT" Googlisms 2005
"Ultralab
is a world leading, technology and new media, educational research
centre" DfES 2005
Past
and present projects:
Today, I'm
based in Dublin at Learn3K and
carrying on with some exciting research and projects, with a
more global emphasis. When I ran
Ultralab it had a staff, including the NZ team, of 98 exceptional
folk,
with another 200 or so involved with Notschool.
Together,
then and now, with many other collaborators in public and private
sectors, I'm involved
in many, many key projects around the world; At L3K I
remain absolutely committed to this collaborative
endeavour at every level:
architecture
design projects include three "World
Classrooms" in
Richmond with Future Systems, a prison
design with Learning Works; a substantial research project looking
at designing
for new pedagogy; and a host more including
a heap of involvement with Building Schools for the Future -
advising LEAs, schools, architects, Ministers... everyone
software
development included a long history of developing new
learning community tools
from "Campus 2000" with
BT in the 80s, though Schools OnLine
with the DTI to Think.com with
Oracle today; That development work
continues
with the new L3K team,
but with an even bigger emphasis
on mobile
phones, "new" TVs and learning
community tools.
new
media partnerships include past and present work on
user created content
and policy for
the
BBC and
Channel
4; and the new L3K team
will be working on some radical visions of "new" symmetrical
TV; I'm proud to be a governor of the new Teachers'
TV and
an advisor to
Innovative
approaches to learning inclusion starts with the extraordinarily
successful
virtual school Notschool.net, funded
by the
UK's DfES and include the mobile phone
based EU
funded "m-learning" project
for under employed youths; the
QCA funded eVIVA assessment futures
project (which is def. worth
a look if you are depressed by
where assessment seems to be
going and you need cheering up)
community
based learning includes the vast Tesco SchoolNet 2000
(now SchoolNet
Global) with
Intuitive Media
(the project became the Guinness
Book of Record's
largest internet
learning
project in the
world); Talking Heads,. now
novated to the NCSL;
Higher education
projects inlude the extraordinary "Ultraversity" project: "it
could just be the most radical
take on higher education
since the creation of the
Open University (OU) in the
1960s" The
Guardian, 2003
There is ton more, but this
will do for now...
Committees and Task Forces:
"The man who is singlehandedly doing more than any other to enlighten
government thinking on the use of computers in schools? and who sits on
more government committees, task forces and think tanks concerned with
technology than almost anyone else" Times Educational Supplement 1999
Stephen continues
to be be an influential
in government
ICT
policy making
globally.
Current committees
include governorship
of Teachers' TV, DfES Schools Internet Safety
Strategy
Group, the
Advisory Group
on Design of School
Buildings,
Culture On-line
steering group, the Welsh
Assembly's Schools
of the Future committee,
the QCA Creativity
Advisory group,
BAFTA Interactive's
committee. Stephen
chairs the multimedia
jury for the Royal
Television Society
and chairs BAFTA
Interactive's Technical
Innovation
jury.
Past pivotal
committee memberships included:
Chris Smith's
parliamentary Information
Superhighway
Policy Forum;
Dennis Stevenson's
committee
producing the
influential "Information
and Communication Technology in UK Schools" report
that defined Labour's ICT
schools policy; Oftel?s
general service
provision
committee; the DfES
Standards Task Force including
chairmanship of its ICT
standing committee and
the DCMS
Creative Industries Task
Force.
Media: Stephen
has a long
list of TV
appearances
around the
world including,
in the UK:
Horizon, Newsnight,
Tomorrow's
World, Equinox and much
else
besides including
radio. He writes
regularly
for
the
popular press:
broadsheets,
weeklies and
tabloids,
and has written
many chapters
in books and
journals.
Sport:
Stephen is
passionate
about
sailboat racing
too. He
races his own
Oyster yacht, has
served
as coach to
UK World
Championship
squads and sits
on the
Royal Yachting
Association's Race
Training
Committee responsible
for the
pathway between Junior
/ Youth
sailing and
the Olympic
squad;
Stephen
writes
and advises
on the
pedagogy of high level
sports
coaching. Stephen
is also
a Harbour Commissioner
for the Brightlingsea
and
Colchester
harbours
and a Freeman
of Brightlingsea.
He
is non
executive director
of the group that founded
the fortnightly
watersports
newspaper "All
at Sea", and publish Cowes Town Guide and the DK guide to sailing
series
Other:
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. He is currently external examiner at the
OU.
Stephen acts
as consultant to a broad
spectrum of organisations:
broadcast media,
retail,
finance, publishing,
telecommunications
and,
of course, learning and
eLearning.
His chair in Information
Technology in the Learning
Environment
at APU was partly
supported by Apple Computers
from 1986 - 2005.
Along with
Harrison Ford,
Mohammed Ali,
Jarvis Cocker and Damion
Hirst (!) he is honoured
to be an "Apple Master".
