Ultralab

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Ultralab is an internationally noted learning, technology and research centre based at Anglia Ruskin University in Chelmsford.

Founded in 1989 by Professor Stephen Heppell, Ultralab has grown from small beginnings into a significant operation. One third of the Ultralab team is based all over the UK driving forward radical policy change and education reform in an "exciting and delightful way."

Ultralab enjoys an international reputation for its research and development in the use of information technology in learning. It has developed multimedia, interactive, participate and communicative approaches to learning using CD-ROM, DVD and internet and is characterised by large-scale action research as well as small-scale technological development in all sectors of education.

Ultralab has been involved in many, many key projects all in partnership with others at every level:

software development includes a long history of developing new learning community tools from Schools OnLine with the DTI to Think.com with Oracle today;
architecture design projects include three "World Classrooms" in Richmond with Future Systems, a prison design with Learning Works;
new media partnerships include work on user created content with the BBC and Channel 4 Television;
executive learning with Oracle and the key business schools around the globe, working together to explore the future;
new approaches to learning for those excluded from formal education, include the virtual school Notschool.net with the DfES and the mobile phone based European Union funded "m-learning" project for under employed youths;
community based learning includes the vast Tesco SchoolNet 2000 with Intuitive Media (the Guinness Book of World Records' largest internet learning project in the world);
assessment innovation includes the radical mobile based phone oracy project "eVIVA" with the UK's QCA.
the ultraversity degree, an online IT degree
notschool, online education for people who cannot go to school due to illness or other causes

Ultralab's global advisory work for broadcasters, governments, policy makers, charities and corporations worldwide have helped to shape Ultralab into a richly diverse organisation still growing and challenging, working together with, and empowering people of all levels while thinking and working outside the box.

Richard Millwood directs Ultralab, and has been part of the evolving team of over sixty people since 1990.

Richard makes regular contributions to international conferences in the field of educational computing and is frequently in demand as a speaker and consultant to a number of educational and computing organisations.

Quotes:

Oracle Corporation "Ultralab is Europe's leading research institute pioneering leading edge applications in support of proven educational precepts."
Financial Times "One of the most respected research centres in e-learning in the world." and "The lab is the jewel in the crown for APU".

External links

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