Empowering Young Learners
In this film, Heppell makes his way through London, describing his vision for schools, meeting with kids at the Be Very Afraid conference, and exploring ideas for classroom design in a technology pilot school in Teddington.
Stephen Heppell's Biography
Stephen Heppell heads his own policy, research and practice consultancy, Heppell.net, at the virtual heart of a network of innovative collaborators worldwide, working together on a diverse range of 21st century focused projects from school design through software development to national policy. Heppell’s track record of effective radical learning projects reaches back 25 years and includes Learning in the New Millennium, an early 90’s project that pioneered broadband, mobile phones and online communities; Notschool.Net, a virtual school for excluded youngsters; Talking Heads, an online community of practice for all the UK’s headteachers, now handed successfully to NCSL; “Be Very Afraid” an annual children’s digital creativity event at BAFTA.
Heppell’s projects are found all around the world, from the Caribbean to New Zealand. Heppell is professor in a number of institutions and is a respected regular in blue-chip and innovative boardrooms and in ministerial offices. He is a familiar face in the media around the world and is the current holder of the Royal Television Society’s Judges Award for lifetime contribution to educational broadcasting.
Heppell explains how too many schools are still operating on models that were designed for the 19th century learner. In the new century, kids are drawn to new devices like iPods and cell phones, and to new modes of interacting like Facebook and twittering; teachers and schools have the opportunity to harness this natural fascination with technology by allowing and encouraging it to be used in the classroom. Indeed, even the notion of the classroom needs to be entirely re-imagined.
