Prof. Andrew Ravenscroft is a Psychologist and Learning Technologist who is a Professor of Education in the CASS School of Education and Communities at the University of East London (UEL), where he is Co-Director of the International Centre for Public Pedagogy (ICPuP). The Centre currently has 18 members and includes two major and related themes of Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) for Social Innovation (led by Andrew) and Disaster Education (led by Prof. John Preston).  These themes are constituted by a portfolio of funded projects that have attracted over £2 Million in research and development funds.

Andrew is a Chartered Psychologist (C.Psychol), an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society (AFBPsS) and a Fellow of the RSA, Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce (FRSA).

He has a leading international profile in Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) and socially engaged research through publishing over 130 articles, being an active member of international and national committees and working groups and being a principal or co-investigator investigator on a broad portfolio of projects over the past 20 years (funded by various national and international agencies), that have attracted over £6.4 Million in total. Andrew is currently active in many cross-disciplinary initiatives at the interface of creative digital media, critical discourse, performance-based learning and social innovation.

Andrew’s contemporary theme of Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) for Social Innovation emphasises non-formal, community-based and inclusive learning within a framework of social justice, and his current work is addressing mental health and substance misuse issues through psychoeducation. This work often applies a combination Community Action Research and Design based Research methods to design, implement and evaluate original educational interventions that address pressing education and social issues, by adapting the ‘space’ of participatory radio for example. Since being at UEL (from February 2011) this theme has been constituted by seven funded projects where Andrew was the Principal Investigator that have attracted £908K in total, most of which are international and multi-partner. These projects include: three consecutive funded projects and two funded PhDs – RadioActive101 – that are national and international projects using participatory radio as an educational intervention with a range of excluded groups throughout Europe and as a psychoeducation intervention to address mental health and substance misuse; Digging by Debating (DbyD), an international project that won the prestigious International Digging into Data Challenge 2011; and, Westfield Opening Observation Exercise, a research and consultancy project commissioned by the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) and working with the ODA, Engineers and Transport specialists to test the readiness of the transport system for the London 2012 Olympic Games.                

Previously Andrew was Deputy Director of the interdisciplinary Learning Technology Research Institute (LTRI) at London Metropolitan University. This had 17 members and contributed to Education for Research Assessment purposes, that was ranked in the top fifth for the UK (with half the output ratings being 'world-leading' or 'internationally excellent'). The LTRI had attracted over £9 Million in competitive funds for collaborative research and development projects (e.g. Digital Dialogue Games, CETL in Reusable Learning Objects and MATURE: Continuous social learning in knowledge networks), with partners from the Academic and Commercial sectors in the UK and European Community. 

Andrew’s work can also be viewed as Deep Learning Design (or DLD), which  is a design based research approach to Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) that is particularly focused on learning and education in naturalistic settings linked to the evolving social media landscape. He has previously worked in key positions within other institutes which had the highest rating (5) for research in the UK, and out of the total of £6.4 Million in competitive funding for projects from a range of sources, he has been the Principal Investigator on those that have attracted over £1.8 Million. The interrelated foci of Andrew's research at this time were: the changing nature and practices of communication rich learning; designing next-generation social media systems; serious and social games; contemporary theory; and generally, designing for the interplay of non-formal and formal learning (related to education or learning at work). He was a co-investigator and Evaluation Work Package Co-leader on an EC funded Integrated Project, “MATURE: Continuous social learning in knowledge networks”.

Andrew has also led a significant strand of research and development into Digital Dialogue Games for Learning, that: attracted four rounds of external funding worth over £600,000 and additional internal funding; generated many publications; received considerable national and international recognition  through invited talks and articles; and, delivered 'state of the art' learning technologies (AcademicTalk and InterLoc) to the education and research communities.

These lines of work build upon a significant portfolio of previous projects that included: intelligent agent-based training simulations; pioneering networked and multimedia learning support systems (before the Web); computational modelling of learning dialogue and collaborative processes; and, generally, the development of new theoretical and pedagogical frameworks for learning in the digital age.

Links

http://www.uel.ac.uk/research/