CREATE: digital cultures, emerging technologies and educational change

led by Professor Keri Facer

The Centre for Research in Education and Technology examines the implications of socio-technical change for the goals, practices and institutions of education across the life-course. It combines innovative research with an outstanding contribution to the development of UK policy for ICT in education.

The group works around three interconnected areas:

  • Digital Cultures (understanding the socio-technical developments taking place outside formal education, for example developments in informal learning practices in online, virtual, game-based and social sites; the use of digital technologies to facilitate globalising and surveillance practices; the mobilisation of technologies to change the nature of work and employment; the changing nature of identity and community );
  • Emergent Technologies (understanding the new tools and resources that are currently emerging from computer science and the interactions between computer science and other disciplines, examining the ways in which these offer new affordances for learning; exploring the tools and practices that are developing ‘at the margins’ of design, HCI, arts, science fields); and
  • Radical Educational Change (exploring the potential implications of socio-technical change for: rethinking teaching and learning, redesigning curriculum and learning spaces, challenging educational policy, developing new models of educational change, enabling futures thinking and future possibilities).

The group draws on diverse disciplinary and theoretical backgrounds, resisting both technological and social determinism, and employing diverse research methods from ethnography to systems design, from futures research to digital video observations. Members of the group publish and speak widely, across diverse disciplines and sectors, and use such networks to create rich, interdisciplinary work informed by multiple perspectives. The team will host the 2011 CAL Conference, and have had papers presented at conferences including ECER, AERA, BERA, EARLI, CHI, CAL, ALT-C and have keynoted for NCSL, SSAT, IFIP, the Malaysian Government, the Building Schools for the Future Programme. Dr Cathy Lewin is Editor of the journal Learning, Media and Technology which is based at MMU.

Currently, members of the group are involved in projects exploring all three core areas, these projects include: strategic futures research for the UK government, studies of the RSA/Manchester Curriculum, explorations of alternate reality gaming at HE level, home-school links , Web 2.0, personalisation, ethnographic studies of technologically mediated learning in China, of Libyan women’s use of ICTs in the UK, and of community media and adult education sites, new models of informal learning in museums and art galleries.

The group has a strong profile in policy arenas, and its members have acted as advisors and contributors to the activities of Becta, DCSF, JISC, NCSL, SSAT, TDA, ESRC, The Royal Society, RSA, TES, the WWF, Oxfam and others. Members of the group have conducted research funded by a wide range of public, private and third sector organisations including most major national policy bodies, the ESRC, Microsoft, Creative Partnerships, the BBC, QCA, NESTA, GTCe, TDA, European SchoolNet, Promethean, Roland UK, Baltic Contemporary Art Gallery, Futurelab, the EU.

The Create group is committed to exploring new forms of research collaboration and to building bridges between research, industry, policy and practice and as such, is developing a wider social network of researchers interested in collaborating on a challenging and transformative agenda in these fields. The Group hosts at least 3 publicly accessible seminars per term and supports an online social network for exchange of insights and ideas in the field.