CSL 2013 - Creative Science: Exploring the Future of Education

Creative Science Foundation workshop entitled ‘Creative Science: Exploring the Future of Education’ on the 28th-29th November 2013 which will be hosted by the Department of Education & Professional Studies at King’s College London, overlooking the Thames in the heart of London, the UK’s premiere city. The workshop is organized in conjunction with the 3rd European Immersive Education (iED) Summit which, this year, has the theme “Immersive Education: what does the future hold?”.
‘Creative Science London‘ will explore the use of science fiction as a means to motivate and direct research into new technologies for education (with special emphasis on immersive reality technologies, as that is the core focus of the host conference). Creative-Science works by generating science fiction stories (or other artistic expression such as animation, drawings, poetry etc) grounded in current science and education practice that are written for the explicit purpose of acting as prototypes for people to explore a wide variety of educational futures. These ‘prototypes’ can be created by scientists, teachers and other education professionals to stretch their work or by, for example, writers, school children and members of the public to influence the future of education (an example of a SFP aimed at Immersive Education can be found here). The outcomes of these interactions are then be fed back, to shape the research and outputs. In this way science fiction prototypes act as a way of involving the widest section of the population in determining the education research agenda, thereby making investment, more effective. In this way fictional prototypes provide a powerful interdisciplinary tool to enhance the traditional practices of educational technology. The goals of the workshop are to act as a catalyst of this new approach by acting as a forum where researchers from differing disciplines (notably education and science & engineering) can come together to explore how to develop this area.
Workshop Structure
The workshop will consist of a series of presentations which can take any number of forms such as using a PowerPoint to present the Science Fiction Prototype SFP (eg presenting short extracts from the story with commentary on the implications for education research and science), videos, animations, illustrations (drawings) or even other activities (previously a group acted out part of a sciences-fiction scenario).