Professor Stephen Heppell took centre stage at BETT again this year with his stand titled ‘Playful Learning’. Google was the big sponsor of the stand and as a result there were presentations on Google Earth, You Tube and also Google Apps for education (all of which seemed to get a lot of interest).
Other sponsors included 2Simple and Manga High
(more about both of these companies in a separate BETT post.
Stephen also spoke to the crowds once a day – where he talked about what he meant by playful learning and why it was so important in schools and education. He also shared lots of ideas about school design and showed examples of some of the many exiting projects he has got going on around the world at the moment.
For me his most exciting project is the new Academy that is being built on Portland (right next to where I grew up). I had know for a while that Professor Heppell was involved in this project but I hadn’t realized that Heppell.net was the main sponsor. For me this is really exciting as I know now that this will be a really innovative school with great design to support innovative pedagogy.
I will be following this project with great
interest as it evolves over time.
For more information see: www.buildingportlandsfuture.com
Also subscribe to the project blog: portlandfutures.blogspot.com
Good luck Stephen – and as you have already said. It will need to be the best school in the world because your grand daughter will be going there!
The playful learning stand also hosted a really good Google Earth session by Jamie Buchanan Dunlop from Digital Explore, and Ed Parsons from Google.
I had a chat with Stephen about another school project that he's involved in, and we compared iPhone apps :)
Posted by: Alan Parkinson | January 18, 2010 at 11:03 PM
I know it did that why I said 'there were presentations on Google Earth'!
He told me that you only had 3 pages worth of Apps?
Posted by: OllieBray | January 18, 2010 at 11:45 PM
Oh yes, missed that... I really should read these posts before commenting on them...
I know have 17 pages of apps, having started at 'A' and downloaded everything that was free... I'm on 'C' at the moment and will add more today :)
Posted by: Alan Parkinson | January 19, 2010 at 07:28 AM
Great idea Alan! But I already have so many Apps. I have gad to buy an extra phone to put them on......
Posted by: Ollie Bray | January 19, 2010 at 07:43 AM
I think I've broken my iPhone: I loaded 3,100 apps on it and it's started making strange noises.... :(
Posted by: Alan Parkinson | January 19, 2010 at 08:35 PM