About Ultralab
- Vision
- Track Record
- Delight
- Scale
- History
- International
- Not-for-Profit
- Team
- Research
- Concepts & Values
- Timeline
Ultralab's historyBased in a demountable hut at the Brentwood Campus of what was the Chelmer Institute and then the Essex Institute of Higher Education, soon to become Anglia Polytechnic and eventually Anglia Ruskin University Ultralab People and Project Timeline 1988 ERTEC (Eastern Region Teacher Education Consortium) project for 5 years Sam Deane starts as an A level student HEADNet (HyperCard Educational Application Developers Network) run and organised by ARIC (Apple Regional Education Centre) Should that read: 'AREC' ?? 1989 ARIC becomes Xploratorium Hydra developed (our html site editor) Workrooms - give away educational software. Distributed across US by Apple HyperCard Educational Participatory stack for teachers First CD ROM produced "Tools for Multimedia" Ann joined Stephen in the October of this year. 1990 Jan - Stan Owers joins as Industrialist in Residence Richard Millwood joins the team in Spetember Rennaisance project 1991 Lys joins Xploratorium 1992 Tom Smith joins Xploratorium Alice and Richard collaborate on innovative ‘Learn German’ software for APU’s TECLAB project. Kris asked (as student) to sequence and produce music for Insights (Carnival Des Animaux) 1993 March: BNR (Research Dept of Nortel) Orglearn Faraday Group 3 (Gill and Jean are members, representing their schools) decides to contact Stephen Heppell for assistance (name passed on by Peter Gould) Carole joins Xploratorium to run BNR project, Learning in the New Millennium (LiNM) Kris joins Ultralab (Xploratorium?) Xploratorium becomes Ultralab April - Sept LiNM starts (partner Nortel) Greta joins Ultralab Workrooms win MacUser educational award "Insights" CDROM produced 1994 Newton software developed by Ultralab November 9th: Carole releases press release "Telecommunications initiative for schools": A new telecommunicaitons project was unveiled today linking schools with a major fibre optic producer, a university and with the 20 million or so users on the Internet. Seven schools have been provided with a multimedia workstation (Apple Macintosh, CD ROM player, very fast modem etc) and a link to a powerful network server at Anglia Polytechnic University's ULTRALAB. The server allows: children to conference among themselves and work together on projects; children to channel questions to scientists and technologists at BNR and receive answers directly; on-line tuition from mathematics experts at university level; childrne and teachers to be connected to the "Learning Superhighway" - the Internet and to work together identifying good sources of information - like current pictures from the Hubble telescope; teachers to discuss the shape of the new learning opportunities that children will have through the network etc (Gill has found complete transcript) ending in: "and we hope the experience will be delightful for them" Teleste: April 1994 - April 1995. Alice works with Richard on ‘Aardvark’, blue sky research with Teleste Oy of Finland. 1995 CarnaudMetalBox Schools project (2 year project working with schools) Schools Online project (2 years - 64 schools online covering curriculum subjects) Relationship developed with Whipps Cross hospital August: Gill leaves for 2 years in Botswana, taking Richard's laptop (presumably he acquired a new one, courtesy of Nortel?) Alice joins Ultralab full time as Editor of the Apple European website. Alice and Richard work on the Ultra-language-lab project for BT’s AngliaCampus. 1996 Multimedia in Health Education Association project (1 year research project) Spinalot developed to run Schools OnlLine phase 2 Andy Simpson joins to run the Chestnet project with Whipps Cross Sept - Ultralab moves from Brentwood to Chelmsford 1997 LiNM Phase 11 Tomorrows World Live - We developed all the software and activity for the Nortel stand ( How much TV can you handle, Sound Story etc...) World Health Organisation - Jakarta conference (development of phone server technology) April - Jonathan joins the team, whilst training as a teacher July 17th- Leonie joins team from oz and launches OLN Sept 22nd Sept 1997- Alex joins the lab on a gap-year from Kingston University Sept 1997 - Tom Stacey & Matthew Eaves visit Ultralab as APU 'Business Information Systems' students. They visit Ultralab to learn about "The Internet"! Tom tells Richard how he is gaining free access by hacking into a Library email server from a room in the student village. Richard gives Tom the first of many disapproving looks... Neil Boughen arrives on work experience 1998 Poems Pictures and Music finally released as CD (the last of the CD-ROMS) eTui project starts Notschool.net project starts (a year early?? - well all the Newspaper cuttings on my desk say 1998 and there were 2 project leaders before Jean but it is true that Julia did most of the planning work and Theresa got LEAs in place so start date is confusing CC) Tesco SchoolNet 2000 started 42 advisers appointed to support the project. (InFo: Really the 42 never attended the lab. We were all seconded to Tesco through HTI and used to meet with Stephen at Ponsbourne Management Centre. -Martin) Some continued into Talking Heads (see 2000/01) Leonie helped write bid and was then seconded to the SMILE project with APU's E&I unit (sme internet learning experience) Specification for Gridclub produced (DfES sponsor this 12 week project) Development begins in partnership with Oracle on community tool, 'Codename Scoop' (later to become think.com) which is trailled and tested by Ultralab in UK schools and community centres Weiya Wang joins Ultralab to work on eTui Claire Gregory arrives on work experience Alice undertakes an online profiling project to support the cultural-linguistic needs of overseas students. 1999 LiNM Phase 111 Broadband in Education - Ultralab helped organise, run and present this demonstration to the government promoting broadband for all schools in the country. Jean Johnson joins Ultralab to run Notschool.net Stephen Barber, James Brain and Lorri Camm form Sodium and join Ultralab June - Oracle 'Scoop' team visit UK to work with Ultralab on software development Community overview (6 month research project for Orange) Jonny Dyer starts working with Ultralab Scoop renamed think.com Dec - Talking Heads (TH) project started Dec - Rex and Lindsey first come up to the Lab as 1st yr Multimedia students to do a presentation on the emergence of digital music and mp3 downloads - powercut in the middle causes this demo of digital wonderfulness to be done via old-fashioned paper instead... 2000 January 1st - Tesco SchoolNet 2000 showcased at the Millennium Dome, project opened to all young visitors at the Dome to create their own web pages, Ultralab represented by Shirley Pickford (full time), later joined by Hilary Messeter. Jan 7th TH team's first day: Pete Bradshaw, Tony Browne, Martin Doherty (part time), Jane Down, Alison Gee, Sarah Jones, Geraint Lang, Malcolm Moss, Simon Patton, Stephen Powell, Gill Roberts, Hamish Scott Brown, Kevin Thompson By February, 1200 newly appointed headteachers were enrolled into the online community, all with new laptops and a facilitator. Hal was in this group, facilitated by Malcolm (Lordy!) Neil helps to rescue Leonie from database blowout and assists with mailouts etc April - Rex and Lindsey visit the Lab with fellow multimedia students to be shown the wonders of stitching panoramic photos in QT by Richard....Rex appears twice! Touchdown - videodance performance at at the 5th Annual World Festival of Videodance in Argentina, 2000. June - LiNM finishes Manoah analyses data from the initial TH survey Ultralab team (ie Sodium + Alex) visit Oracle in Washington to work on the design for think.com (& skin for TH) CreativeNet project with Design Council, Demos and Sodium Alice writes a report for the LCCIEB on online assessment, collaborates with Sodium on an example interactive assessment and creates a language teaching module for APU's mPowerNet. May - Maureen Gurr Joined Ultralab as Administrator for The Talking Heads project August - Martin Doherty joins Ultralab and TH full time 31 August - Malcolm Moss returns to teach in school September - Lindsey Wingate starts on the Online Soap as a 2nd yr Multimedia Student November - Matthew Eaves Joined Ultralab to work on NPQH development with Alex November - Our NPQH team launched Virtual Heads November - Anthony Russell, Michael Hartley, Pip Bailey, Alan Sargeant join Ultralab and Talking Heads November - First NPQH centre managers meeting, followed by regional training events November - Tony Browne, Jane Down & Geraint Lang give a Talking Heads presentation to Welsh Assembly officials Andy Simpson leaves Ultralab to work closer to home in Cambridge. 2001 January - Lesley McGuire and Tim Williams join Ultralab and the TH Team - from mPowerNet. Malcolm Moss returns to TH. Hilary Messeter and Shirley Pickford join TH from the Tesco SchoolNet 2000 exhibition at the Millennium Dome. Triad - collaborative dance project run on Think. Pax Excelsis - telematic performance for BBC Wales Alice and Graham develop the UCLT and Pandora websites, promoting e-learning at APU and also provide consultancy to APU initiative E-Essex. Sharing Innovations project starts with Design Council (run on think.com) Alice, Carole, Gill, George, Kris and Weiya start the 'm-Learning' project. Snugfit started as part of m-Learning February Andy Cunningham starts as Project Adminstrator for Notschool March - first cohort of online learners for new NPQH April - Online Soap launched March - Lifeboats.TV with the RNLI to build a new future image of the lifeboat service July - Claire Gregory joined Ultralab August - Mark Constable joins the team as a Researcher. September - Hal joins the Lab officially as the Fasttrack project facilitator September - Brightlingsea team day sees the first Eisteddfod (after catching crabs, of course). September - Neil joins the Lab officially as Systems Administrator December - George leaves Ultralab 2002 Jan - Ian Terrell (looking harried) co-opted from the Faculty of Education Jan - Bett goes to the Movies is a roaring success, with Ultralab taking children along to the show to work on digital video whilst there Jan - Geraint begins work with the Welsh Assembly Government to help launch Pen-I-Ben, the Welsh version of Talking Heads. He is joined by seconded Welsh head teacher Rhys Harries (an Ultralab Extranaut). The project is officially launched by Jane Davidson, AM, Minister for Education & Lifelong Learning for Wales, at the New Headteachers’ Conference in Llandudno.
Eurodans project in collaboration with Leeds, ran through the year and concluded with a performance in Dublin. |