Prof Stephen Heppell
...background and quotes for conference programmes and other media.
Stephen is currently busy with a heap of exciting new projects. These projects are consolidating his policy, research and learning consultancy heppell.net, at the heart of a network of global, exceptional collaborators. He left Ultralab in January 2005.
"eyes on the horizon...
...feet on the ground"
This text gets used lots by nice people in conferences who ask for a quick biography (but you must promise only to use a few snippets please!), so apologies if it reads a bit like a conference brochure!
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 and am having the time of my life with some remarkable work there.
My naugural lecture as a (young!) new professor back in 1987 was "eyes on the horizon, feet on the ground!" and I have taken that philosophy and "slogan" with me, of course, along with the common sense!
Indicative media coverage:
"Europe's leading online education expert" Microsoft 2006
"Europe's leading online education guru" Guardian 2004
"the most influential academic of recent years in the field of technology and education" Department for Education and Skills (DfES), UK, 2006
"stephen heppell is ICT" Googlisms 2005
"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
Past and present projects:
Together with many other collaborators in public and private sectors, I'm involved in many, many key projects around the world:
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. I'm drawn all over the world currently to help with school and other learning building designs, from Japan to the Middle East. Excitingly, I'm involved in the whole rethink of the museum concept with scoping a whole new museum to house William Blake's work in time for his 250th anniversary in 2007, and also helping a bit with work on the Tate Modern's proposed TM2 extension.
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 but with an even bigger emphasis on mobile phones, "new" TVs and learning community tools. I'm engaged in some learning community interface design work for Microsoft. Watch this space, it will be good.
the Learnometer project, also with sponsorship from Microsoft, but helpful for governments, OECD World Bank etc is a project to do two things: (1) publish a biennial survey of world learning trends and (2) explore a metric of learning outcomes that helps us to see what improves when we invest in education.
new media partnerships include past and present work on user created content and policy for the BBC and Channel 4; and 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 the BBC on their Digital Curriculum project. I'm a non exec director of The Knowledge Zone who do some really innovative work, but (crucially!) also look after Cowes OnLine!!!!! In 2006 I received the Royal Television Society Judges Award for a lifetime contribution to educational broadcasting.
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... When I ran Ultralab it had a staff, including the NZ team, of 98 exceptional folk, with some hundreds more involved with Notschool. I'm really enjoying the creative freedom of not having to worry about paying all those mortgages, and not eating up so much time on university admin, although I remain an emeritus prof at Anglia Ruskin and a visiting prof elsewhere too.
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
Sadly, still true! I continue to be be an influential in government ICT policy making globally and am advising a string of nations from the Cayman Isles to UK. The small ones are progressing best, inevitably.
Current committees include governorship of Teachers' TV, DfES Schools Internet Safety Strategy Group, the minister's Advisory Group on Design of School Buildings, chair of trustees for the new Notschool.net charity, chair of governors at the remarkable Stepping Stones school in Surrey, Culture On-line steering group, the Welsh Assembly's Schools of the Future committee, the QCA Creativity Advisory group, BAFTA's Film committee, chair of the multimedia jury for the Royal Television Society, OECD S.E. Asia Virtual Advisory Board, Creative Archive License Group, and more...
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: I have a long list of TV appearances around the world including, in the UK: Horizon, Newsnight, Tomorrow's World, Equinox, BBC News, Help Your Child With Computers at Home, and much else. Radio includes the Steve Wright Show, You and Yours, The Learning Curve, a long term "Sound Advice" spot on Radio Essex . I write regularly for the popular press: broadsheets - have a Guardian column "Back and Forth - and write for the weeklies and tabloids too. Inevitably I have also written many chapters in books and journals, but am not driven by the wretched Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), so prefer to write where people will actually read my stuff!
Sport:
I am passionate about sailboat racing too. With partner Carole we race our own Oyster yacht and I race a 1939 Brightlingsea One Design too. I have served as coach to UK World Championship squads and sit on the Royal Yachting Association's Race Training Committee responsible for the pathway between Junior / Youth sailing and the Olympic squad; I write and advise on the pedagogy of high level sports coaching. I am also a Harbour Commissioner for the Brightlingsea and Colchester harbours and a Freeman of Brightlingsea. I am 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: I remain a teaching professor too, but all over the place these days; I'm proud to be a visiting professor at Bournemouth University, and am currently external examiner at the OU. I have the usual string of PhD students and am indecently proud of every single one of them.
My chair in Information Technology in the Learning Environment at APU was partly supported by Apple Computers from 1986 - 2005 and, in a rathe r exciting way, along with Harrison Ford, Mohammed Ali, Jarvis Cocker, Damion Hirst and other cool dudes I am honoured to be an "Apple Master".
