Researching the new possibilities for education that will shape the future.
The Digital Education Futures Initiative (DEFI) works with partners in industry, policy and practice to explore the field of possibilities that digital technology opens up for education. It is both a Centre for this kind of close-to-practice research and also an initiative to create a new Institute at Cambridge to serve as a global hub and thought-leader in this area.
Arm and EPIC Games have provided some initial enabling support. While DEFI would never be an uncritical advocate for the use of more education technology it has a role as a catalyst for innovation and development.
The Launch
Thank you to everyone who attended the DEFI launch event – it attracted over 300 participants and started numerous conversations: as you would expect we are already planning the follow up both on the DEFI website and in future workshops and seminars. If you would like to receive updates about DEFI please consider joining our mailing list by completing the contact form on the website listed above. A recording of the event is available here:
Our follow-up webinar
At our launch event in January, the theme of the digital divide came up frequently. To examine this issue in more detail, find out what is currently being done to address it, as well as explore ideas for the future, we have invited 4 experts to share their knowledge and answer your questions in our next webinar on Thursday 29th April from 5- 6:30pm BST.
The ‘digital divide’ – what is being done to overcome it and where do we go from here?
To explore these issues and answer your questions, join Dr Sara Hennessy and Dr Björn Haßler, Directors of the EdTechHub, Dr Sue Sentence, Chief Learning Officer at Raspberry Pi and Welsh Government advisor on Digital Education and Infrastructure, Prof Tom Crick, for brief presentations and a live Q and A session on Thursday 29th April from 5-6:30pm BST.
To book a ticket and submit your questions go to: http://bit.ly/DEFIDigitalDivide
DEFI maps the educational logic of the new Internet Age through research that explores the pedagogical affordances of new technologies, which means the ways of teaching and learning that they make possible for education, ways which were either not possible or more difficult to implement before. While some of these affordances have long been noted in the literature, not enough effort has yet been put into research into how they might or might not transform education in the future. Design-based research implements these affordances in working models of education in order to investigate their consequences.
The core business of the Centre is collaborative research projects with industry partners. In addition, depending on the support we receive, this initiative and proposed future Institute, will:
A development period of five years
This initiative seeks to lay the ground for the creation of a permanent institute over the next five years. It is Hughes Hall’s intention that DEFI will become a permanent feature of the global education research community, in the process building a reputation as a thought-leader in the field. Through rigorous research into the affordances and dangers of new models of education made possible by digital technology DEFI will offer and invaluable resource to policy makers globally.
Contact:
Website: www.deficambridge.org
Twitter – @DEFI_Cambridge
E mail: defi@hughes.cam.ac.uk
Twitter – @DEFI_Cambridge
Drive team
William Conner, Develoment Director
Jude Hannam, Project Coordinator
Louis Major, Principal Researcher
Genevieve Smith-Nunes, Media and Communications Lead
Rupert Wegerif, Director
Classroom Learning Research Exchange
Peter Dudley, Lecturer in Faculty of Education, Fellow of Hughes Hall
Sara Hennessy Reader in Teacher Development and Pedagogical Innovation, Director (Research) FCDO EdTech Hub, Faculty of Education, Fellow of Hughes Hall, Cambridge
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Digital Education Futures for Medical Education
Riikka Hofmann, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Education, Fellow of Hughes Hall, Cambridge
Bill Irish, Postgraduate Medical Dean and visiting professor of medical education at Bristol University, East Anglia and Anglia Ruskin universities, Medical Digital Education lead, Fellow of Hughes Hall, Cambridge
Other team members and advisors
Roni Ajao, Director MRL, Associate Professor Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Management at Anglia Ruskin University, London and Associate of Hughes Hall, Cambridge
Mark Anderson, Former MD, Pearson UK & Bridge Fellow of Hughes Hall, Cambridge
Tobias Kohn, Research Associate, Department of Computer Science and Technology, Fellow of Hughes Hall, Cambridge
Corinne Roughley, Researcher in Digital Humanities & Deputy Senior Tutor of Hughes Hall, Cambridge
Andreas Stylianides, Professor of Mathematics Education, Fellow of Hughes Hall, Cambridge