Go to the Futurelab website for some of the best thinking and projects around http://www.futurelab.org.uk/

Get the latest from Futurelab from their April e-news 

Power League – schools edition
The Power League schools edition has just been launched – a free web resource for exploring any topic, through sampling group opinions and provoking group discussions. Create your own online leagues or use our existing ones – including the Climate Change League and the New School League. Power League is a versatile resource for stimulating debate, creating a visual league table based on individual votes.
Go to Power League website…

Designing educational technologies for social justice
A new handbook explores the role that digital technologies can play in reducing inequality in education, and offers guidance on the process of designing educational resources or projects to promote social justice. The handbook is aimed at practitioners involved in designing or adapting projects; developers designing digital tools and resources; and funding bodies seeking robust processes in the projects they support.
Further details…

Enquiring Minds – position paper on childhood
This paper explores current debates about what ‘childhood’ means, demonstrating how it is imagined differently in a range of texts and media. The paper aims to help teachers identify the ways in which children come to perceive themselves, and the ways in which society perceives and treats children.
Go to Enquiring Minds website…

Discussion paper on learning objects
Distance educator Ken Allan discusses the learning object, its design, development and appropriate use as one of the many components in the portfolio of applied e-learning tools and strategies available to the 21st century teacher.
Further details…

Latest web articles
Our latest articles include: ‘Consolarium’s games plan hooks teachers’ by Merlin John, an interview with Derek Robertson (Scottish Centre for Games and Learning); ‘Naturally curious’ by Kim Thomas, an interview with Penny Hay (5x5x5=creativity); and ‘Using VLEs at Tideway School’, in which assistant headteacher Jim Fanning reports on progress with the VLE project at his school.
Further details…

South West Screen event – Virtual Voices
How can we develop young people’s voices so they become the content creators and storytellers of the future? Virtual Voices brings the media industry together with young media makers and their teachers or tutors to explore this and other questions. Futurelab is running a workshop on Create-A-Scape at this event, organised by South West Screen.
Further details… 

South West Screen event – Virtual Voices
How can we develop young people’s voices so they become the content creators and storytellers of the future? Virtual Voices brings the media industry together with young media makers and their teachers or tutors to explore this and other questions. Futurelab is running a workshop on Create-A-Scape at this event, organised by South West Screen.
Further details…

Presentations from Research Discussion Day
This event 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. Copies of presentations given on the day are now available to download, as well as audio recordings.
Further details…

OtherNew CEO announcement
Dr Stephen Breslin has been appointed as the new Chief Executive of Futurelab, and will take up his position on 21 April. Stephen was previously Chief Executive of the Kelvin Institute, an R&D lab formed in partnership with Glasgow University, Strathclyde University and Scottish Enterprise.
Further details…

FLUX is a weblog hosted by Futurelab. Here are some of the most recent posts: