Cash shortage ‘helps’ education innovation

The stretched budgets of governments across the world could be the dawn of a learning revolution, says a leading educator from the UK. Professor Stephen Heppell, the chair in New Media Environments at Bournemouth University’s Centre for Excellence in Media Practice (CEMP), said was optimistic about it happening. The reason is that when money is tight, politicians tend to think about going back to times when education was simpler, but that is no longer possible because the world is moving too fast, he said. “For the first time, different is looking like the only game in town and that’s really important because we haven’t beenY doing it very well before,” Heppell said. “So I’m pretty excited about what happens next.” Heppell was in the region for a number of engagements including one as a key speaker at Creative Innovation 2011 in Melbourne next week (November 16-18). On opening day he will discuss whether it really is “the death of education and the dawn of learning”. The following day he will talk about the need to make learning surprising. Heppell is considered an Information Communications Technology (ICT) guru with 30 years experience working on large-scale projects specialising in learning, new media and technology. The list of his past and present projects and achievements is long. He founded then ran e-learning research centre Ultralab for 25 years, built an online practice community linking every UK head teacher; created an undergraduate work-based research degree done online called ultraversity; and set up and ran a school for 10 years that re-engaged students excluded from the system. More recently he has been involved in projects looking at physical learning space design. As well as his post at CEMP, where he supervises PhD students, Heppell is executive chairman of Learning Possibilities. The education company provides e-learning solutions for schools and is building connected learning communities across the globe. He is also Emeritus Professor at Anglia Ruskin University and a Visiting Professor at University of Wales, Newport.