DEFI would like to invite you to their virtual launch on 21st January 2021 from 12:00 to 13:00 GMT. Addressing the theme of the futures of education as mediated by technology, will be PISA Study founder, educationalist and Director of the OECD Directorate of Education and Skills, Andreas Schleicher and Executive Director of the World Heritage Group recently head of UNESCO’s International Bureau of Education, Dr Mmantsetsa Marope.
Jane Mann of the Cambridge Partnership for Education will host and Professor Rupert Wegerif will talk about his hopes for this new Bridge Initiative – DEFI.
To register please click here
We will be recording the event and circulating the link to everyone who has registered, so please sign up even if you think you can’t attend on the day.
Researching the new possibilities for education that will shape the future.
The Digital Education Futures Initiative 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.
Mapping new pedagogical affordances
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:
Twitter – @DEFI_Cambridge
Instagram – @deficambridge
Drive team
Rupert Wegerif, Director
William Conner, Develoment Director
Louis Major, Principal Researcher
Genevieve Smith-Nunes, Media and Communications Lead
Jude Hannam, Project Administrator
Classroom Learning Research Exchange
Peter Dudley, Borough of Camden, Lecturer in Faculty of Education, Fellow of Hughes Hall
Sara Hennessy Reader in Teacher Development and Pedagogical Innovation, Director (Research) DFID EdTech Hub, Faculty of Education, Fellow of Hughes Hall, Cambridge
![]() |
![]() |
space
space
Digital Education Futures for Medical Education
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
Riikka Hofmann, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Education, Fellow of Hughes Hall, Cambridge
Other team members and advisors
Andreas Stylianides, Professor of Mathematics Education, Fellow of Hughes Hall, Cambridge
Tobias Kohn, Research Associate, Department of Computer Science and Technology, Fellow of Hughes Hall, Cambridge
Mark Anderson, Former MD, Pearson UK & Bridge Fellow of Hughes Hall, Cambridge