Past Events
For details of our latest events please visit www.futurelab.org.uk/what-we-do/events.
Playful Learning
Join leading figures from schools, colleges and government to debate how to make learning more playful. Featuring Lord Jim Knight, Mark Prensky, Stephen Heppell and Kieron Kirkland.
New Assessment Scenarios: Consultation
A consultation seminar for experts and professionals in the area of educational assessment and e-assessment to support our latest project - New Assessment Scenarios - in exploring how technologies can best support innovative assessment practice.
Infocow launch event
Lord David Puttnam will be speaking at the launch of our new free online resource, Infocow, which supports young people to explore their rights and make positive changes in their lives.
Digital literacy professional development workshops
Digital literacy is the ability to participate in wide-ranging practices of creating and communicating meaning with digital technologies. As part of our work on Digital Participation, Futurelab will be holding a series of four regional professional development workshops for primary and secondary school teachers.
Research insights day
Futurelab's research insights day will be an opportunity to find out more about the work that we've been doing over the past year – including overviews of research areas such as digital participation, computer gaming in families, and the relationship between home and school, among others. Online bookings are now being taken.
Web 2.0 for teaching & learning
This seminar will bring together practitioners, researchers, members of the creative industries and other experts to explore how Web 2.0 has impacted teacher practice. It will include sessions to share and explore best practices, to identify useful resources and tools, and to discuss the issues surrounding the use of Web 2.0 as well as the needs and gaps for educators who seek to leverage it in their practice.
Learning spaces open day
This will be an interactive event to discuss the importance of space in the learning process. The event will draw on the latest academic research about the relationship between innovative pedagogies and the built environment, combining stimulating talks from researchers and designers, open discussions and participatory techniques like hands-on design.
Learning and teaching beyond current horizons
A new series of one day workshops, run in partnership with the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, aim to help senior teachers think systematically about the future, in order to inform strategic and local-policy decisions made in schools. The events provide an opportunity to explore a range of possible future scenarios and will use workshop techniques to support teachers in developing local responses to the challenges and opportunities these present.
Building spaces for the future
This event will draw on recent research by Futurelab about young people’s views of what learning spaces should look like in the future and will offer practical support to those going through building programmes such as BSF and PCP.
BETT 2010
Futurelab will be showcasing a range of new and emerging technologies at BETT 2010 – from those with alternative interfaces to Web 2.0 tools and computer games - and offering support for how they could be used in an educational setting. A number of free educational resources and publications to help practitioners interested in adopting innovative approaches to learning in their classroom will also be on display.
Learning and Technology World Forum
Futurelab will be showcasing its SPARK exhibition at the Learning and Technology World Forum. The forum is internationally recognised for sharing and debating best practice in education. It attracts participation from across the world. The forum is designed for national leaders who have a role in the development of technology in learning.
The Ideas Lab
Futurelab will be showcasing its SPARK exhibition at The Ideas Lab: New Technologies conference. The conference is designed for teachers and and creative practitioners involved in Bright Space's Creative Partnerships Programme.
21st century learning conference
Futurelab will be launching its SPARK exhibition at this free-to-attend Becta research conference which aims to bring together practitioners, the research community and policy makers to engage in dialogue about the ways in which technology can support learning in the 21st century and enhance your understanding of the ways technology-enabled practice can make learning better.
Seen and Heard: Young people creating digital media
The 2009 Futurelab conference explored the opportunities and challenges for young people in becoming 'digitally active', and the implications for the professionals who work with them. The event included young people presenting initiatives that have supported them as creative media producers and active citizens.
BridgED: Making connections between industry and practice
This 'facilitated networking' event will support managed introductions and conversations between educators and their peers from industry, and provide an opportunity to hear from inspirational speakers from both sides.
Research Discussion Day
This event is an opportunity to find out more about the work that we're doing under three of our current themes - teachers and innovations, learning spaces, and informal and family learning - as well as details of the Beyond Current Horizons project.
Student Engagement and Learner Voice
Part of the Bristol Think Tank Workshop series (hosted by the University of Bristol Graduate School of Education, in partnership with Mouchel Management Consulting and Futurelab). This event will focus on student engagement and learner voice.
BETT 2009
It's the world's biggest educational technology show - all the key UK ICT organisations, agencies and companies are there. At our stand (J11), and through our programme of seminars, Futurelab inspired visitors at BETT 2009 to engage learners by taking an innovative approach to teaching and learning.
Government and Games
A one-day conference - jointly run by Futurelab and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) - on Government and Games, focusing on the role that computer games might play in education, public services, and government policy.
Challenging Learner Voice
A one-day conference aimed at challenging existing ideas of what learner voice should mean in practice, looking at its role in personalised learning, identifying some barriers and possibilities, and exploring the role of digital technologies. Outcomes available now.
Learning on gaming platforms
A breakfast event which offers an update on the current debates and challenges around games and learning, as well as an opportunity to discuss how mobile gaming devices can be used effectively in education.
Greater Expectations
The first event in a series of consultation activities to develop a broad set of entitlements for young people’s lives in the 21st century and the role that digital technologies might play in achieving these aspirations.
Adult Informal Learning: The potential role of technology
An Open Space Discussion, designed to build constructive partnerships with others interested in adult informal learning and the role technology has to play in supporting it.
Informal Learning and New Technologies: Co-design workshop
Twenty-six young people aged between 16 and 19 came together at Channel 4’s HQ in London to explore their ideas about how they learn and use technologies outside school.
The Future of Education: Research Discussion Day
This was an opportunity to find out more about Futurelab's current themes (teachers and innovations, digital inclusion, learning spaces) and to debate the future direction of education.
Enquiring Minds workshops
A series of workshops for teachers and senior leaders, intended to inspire interested schools to develop their ideas for transforming their approaches to teaching and learning on the basis of the Enquiring Minds model.
Assessment for Social Justice workshop
This interdisciplinary workshop explored issues about the role of assessment in educational and social justice and the potential for technology to support fairer assessments.
Learning Spaces and Personalisation workshop
This half-day workshop was held to start exploring some of the issues and approaches linking personalisation and learning space design and development.
BETT 2008
BETT is the world's leading ICT event, showcasing the best in educational technology products, resources and best practice. Copies of the seminar presentations given by Futurelab staff at BETT are available to download.
Why Don’t You…? Supporting innovative approaches in education
If we are to move towards a more personalised education system, then we need to support a wide range of innovators in education. This two-day event explored the conditions, tools and strategies that support innovation.
Open House 2007
An Open House event at our offices in Bristol, showcasing a number of projects and offering seminars on our three current themes: teachers and innovations, digital inclusion and learning spaces.
Digital Inclusion: Building fairer futures, challenging educational divides
A discussion workshop to launch a new programme of work on the role of digital technologies to promote educational equality. This event has been designed to build partnerships with others tackling this issue.
Do whiteboards have a future in the UK classroom?
A debate chaired by Futurelab (in partnership with Promethean), bringing together expert speakers to present provocative arguments 'for' and 'against' the use of interactive whiteboards in the classroom.
BETT 2007
Visitors to our stand were motivated to make learning inspiring, enjoyable and engaging experience. Personalisation, collaborative learning and learning spaces were all given the Futurelab treatment, with a range of innovative educational resources and research on display.
Futurelab Research Update
A free one-day event which offered attendees the opportunity to debate the future direction of education in light of recent research and publications from Futurelab, focusing on the themes of teachers as innovators and learning networks.
Spaces, Places and Future Learning
An opportunity to challenge our ideas of the environments in which we learn, and to reflect on the possibilities for transforming learning spaces with innovative tools such as computer games and mobile, tangible and embedded technology.
Science, Society and Sims: The future of science education
How can we best learn scientific principles and attain the skills to apply them to the world around us? Who can help us develop these skills? What role should technology play and what innovations are on the horizon to revolutionise the way we learn about science?
Open House 2005
This inaugural showcase event, supported by Harcourt Education and held at our offices in Bristol, was a chance to experience first-hand the results of Futurelab's research and development work, try out some of our prototypes and meet some of our partners.
14-19: Transitions, technology and learning
Behind the headlines accompanying the release of the Tomlinson report lie radically new visions of education for the 14-19 age group. This conference examined the implications of these visions, and the role of digital technologies in this changing educational landscape.
BETT 2005
At BETT 2005 we showcased the design talents of teachers and multimedia students in the Design Challenge and highlighted the best innovations in education from around the UK and the world.
Beyond the Blackboard: Future directions for teaching
Just what will teaching look like in a technology-enabled future world? Through a combination of keynote addresses, targeted talks and hands-on discussion groups, this conference explored the future of teaching.
Digital Dialogues: Fostering collaboration and conversation in education
This conference explored new learning opportunities through three key areas: dialogues in learning; dialogues between sites of learning; and dialogues in design.
Beyond the Exam: Innovative approaches to learning and assessment
Covering issues such as technological support for assessment, peer and formative assessment, examinations policy and the politics of assessment, this conference provided the first coherent debate on how to shift our thinking of assessment beyond the exam hall.
Digital Childhoods: The future of learning for the under-10s
Bringing together creative, technical and educational experts, the event explored how children's interaction with technology can provide useful insights when developing learning resources for those aged 0 to 10.
Opening Pandora's Toolbox: How digital tools empower learners and teachers
Digital technology is changing how we think, how we work and play - and how we learn. This event explored how digital technology can support learning in and for a changing world.
Contagious Creativity: How creativity can inspire imaginative, interactive learning
This event examined the role of creativity, collaboration and digital technology in stimulating new patterns of learning and teaching, and explored how interactive media can be creatively applied to develop engaging learning resources.