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The UCL Knowledge Lab explores how we live and learn with technology and media to solve societal challenges.
Director: Professor Allison Littlejohn
The lab is a crucible for the study of technology in learning and teaching, and a vantage point from which to design digital media and artefacts that change the way people think and construct knowledge.
We design and evaluate digital innovations and research learning and social practice in the digital world with stakeholders across the public and private sector, focusing on:
- Digital learning technologies
- Technology enhanced communication and collaboration
- Digital making, media and play
- Discourse, technology and the body
- Digital ethics, inclusion and diversity.
About us
- Our values
- Innovation – we value interdisciplinary collaboration and pride ourselves on our creativity in developing innovative and participatory methods in multimodal, design-based and practice-based research.
- Integrity – we strive for an honest and respectful approach in our interactions with colleagues, students and external collaborators and aim to conduct ethical research with a positive and lasting impact on people’s lived experience.
- Inclusion – we value diversity and are strongly committed to developing ways of working with technology which contribute to equity and social justice.
How did we develop the lab vision and values?
Our brief was to develop a concise and distinctive set of values, and a mission and vision statement that reflected the diversity of research and teaching in the UCL Knowledge Lab.
Between April and July 2021 we held a series of virtual Lab Future events (with participants including academic and professional services staff and post-graduate students) and conducted two online surveys to generate and test the vision statement and values.
- Expertise
The UCL Knowledge Lab brings together experts with imagination and insight from across different disciplinary backgrounds to:
- undertake cutting edge research on digital media and technologies
- provide an innovative and exciting interdisciplinary range of postgraduate courses
- create empowering technologies for communication and learning that lower the barriers to knowledge and widen access
- incubate enterprise and achieve impact via partnerships with public sector, business and industry.
- Background
The UCL Knowledge Lab extends the legacy of the London Knowledge Lab.
The London Knowledge lab was led since 2004 by Professors Richard Noss and Alex Poulovassilis as a collaborative initiative between educators from IOE and computer scientists from Birkbeck, funded by the Science Research Investment Fund.
In 2016 the collaborative initiative ended and the UCL Knowledge Lab was established. Our common legacy includes over a decade of interdisciplinary research funded by ESRC, EPSRC, AHRC, EU, JISC among others; a variety of knowledge exchange and public engagement activities; and a distinctive postgraduate training programme.
- Our staff
Director
- Professor Allison Littlejohn
Founding Director
- Richard Noss, Professor of Mathematics Education
Academic staff
- Ned Barker, Senior Research Fellow
- Gyorgy Beck, Lecturer in Film Production
- Laura Benton, Senior Research Fellow
- Jeff Bezemer, Professor of Communication
- Canan Blake, Honorary Research Associate
- Andrew Burn, Professor of English, Media and Drama
- Michelle Cannon, Lecturer in Media Education
- Diane Carr, Professor of Media and Cultural Studies
- Alison Clark-Wilson, Professorial Research Fellow
- Kate Cowan, Research Associate
- Mutlu Cukurova, Associate Professor
- Bruno De Paula, Lecturer in Digital Media Production
- Sophia Diamantopoulou, Senior Teaching Fellow
- Stephen Elms, Post Graduate Teaching Assistant
- Hakan Ergul, Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies
- Andrea Gauthier, Research Fellow
- Makeda Gerressu, Research Fellow
- Christie Haddad, Online Post Graduate Teaching Assistant
- Sara Hawley, Senior Teaching Fellow
- Wayne Holmes, Lecturer in Educational Technology
- Celia Hoyles, Professor of Mathematics Education
- Carey Jewitt, Professor of Learning and Technology
- Eileen Kennedy, Principal Research Fellow
- Kata Kyrola, Lecturer in Media Studies
- Diana Laurillard, Professor of Learning with Digital Technologies
- Kit Logan, Learning Technology Fellow
- Rose Luckin, Professor of Learning with Digital Technologies
- Kerstin Leder Mackley, Honorary Research Associate
- Manolis Mavrikis, Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Analytics in Education
- Tim Neumann, Learning Technology Fellow
- Richard Noss, Professor of Mathematics Education
- Minna Nygren, Research Assistant
- Ceja Omar Salgado, Lecturer (Teaching) Media Production
- Youhong Peng, Lecturer in MA Media Production
- Miguel Perez Milans, Senior Lecturer In Applied Linguistics
- Kaska Porayska-Pomsta, Professor of Artificial Intelligence in Education
- John Potter, Professor of Media in Education
- Sara Price, Professor of Digital Learning
- Jennifer Rode, Senior Lecturer Education and Technology
- David Ruttenberg, Post Graduate Teaching Assistant
- Rhiannon Thomas, Research Associate
- John Twycross, Lecturer in 3D Animation
- Asimina Vasalou, Senior Lecturer in Learning with Digital Technology
- Brigitta Zics, Associate Professor of Digital Media
Administrative and technical staff
- Robin Billingham, Studio Technician
- Yasmeen Conraad, Programme Administrator
- Abel Drew, Studio Technician
- Fatiha El-Ghorri, Programme Administration
- Ronan Haughton, Programme Administration
- Evy Al-Adhami Samuelsson, Knowledge Lab and Research Administrator
Honorary academics
- Ben Bachmair
- Cary Bazalgette
- Stuart Edwards
- Alice Hansen
- Jade Henry
- Ivan Kalas
- Sokratis Karkalas
- Lord Jim Knight
- Ernesto Laval
- Didem Ozkul
- Vanessa Pittard
- Robin Samuelsson
- Nikoleta Yiannoutsou
Study with us
- Programmes
Join us and carry out post-graduate Masters, Doctoral and Post-Doctoral research on the design, critique and implementation of digital media and technologies for education and beyond.
Graduate taught
- Digital Media: Critical Studies MA
- Digital Media: Education MA
- Digital Media: Production MA
- Education and Technology MA
Doctoral and Post-Doctoral research
We have an active programme of teaching and support for doctoral students with experienced staff offering research supervision across a range of topics and research methods, including: digital learning technologies; technology enhanced communication and collaboration; digital making, media and play; discourse, technology and the body; digital ethics, inclusion and diversity.
Further info:
Our activities
- Research
The UCL Knowledge Lab researches digital technologies for learning, media and communication.
More about our researchers, publications, activities, groups and themes:
- Consultancy
UCL Knowledge Lab is a leading interdisciplinary centre for the innovative study and design of digital media and technologies in diverse contexts.
We have substantial experience and expertise in carrying out consultancy and research projects for international, national, regional and local authorities and organisations including government departments, business and the IT sector, and voluntary organisations.
Services
We can provide a range of consultancy services from one-day training or staff development initiatives to longer-term research and evaluation work. Examples:
- The Future Classroom Toolkit: Innovative Technologies for Engaging Classrooms (European Schoolnet)
- UK Scoping Report for the Further Education Online Academy (JISC).
- 2030 Vision for using learning technology for STEM (Royal Society)
- Piloting Media Assessment Framework (Scottish Qualifications Authority)
- The Home Access Programme Evaluation (British Educational Communications and Technology Agency)
- Automated Tutor Grading: 1 to 1 online tutoring to monitor tutor quality and learning outcomes (Third Space Learning)
- Evaluation of UK Online Paediatric care (Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health)
Case studies
Funnelback feed: https://cms-feed.ucl.ac.uk/s/search.json?collection=drupal-ioe-case-stud...Double click the feed URL above to edit - Seminar series
The UCL Knowledge Lab runs a monthly series of seminars which provide a showcase and platform for debate across our research themes.
The seminars are free to attend and are open to staff, students, alumni and the public. For booking instruction for non-UCL attendees, please view the individual event pages.
Follow the UCL Knowledge Lab Twitter or subscribe to our seminar mailing list for seminar updates.
- Blogs
Universities: learning outside the lecture hall
Allison Littlejohn. Lockdown led to the largest transformation of teaching in the history of UK higher education. In March 2020, the entire university workforce had to transition to working online. This was remarkable transformation for institutions that, founded on tradition and convention, tend to be slow to change. As the 2021-22 academic year begins, record […]
How better education for health professionals can help curb antimicrobial resistance in poorer countries and save lives
Allison Littlejohn. While the world’s attention is focused on Covid-19, many other serious international health concerns still need urgent attention. Few public health problems are of greater global importance today than Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). In 2019 the UN Ad hoc Interagency Coordinating Group on AMR warned that, if no action is taken, drug-resistant diseases could cause […]
Touched by music: a Christmas playlist with a tactile spin
The In-Touch team, UCL Knowledge Lab Music is a part of our everyday lives: many song lyrics both ‘touch’ us and tell stories of our tactile relationships with one another. The interdisciplinary InTouch Project at UCL explores the social implications of digital technology for touch communication. As a fun side-project the team has compiled a Touch […]
Maths anxiety: how can we overcome the ‘can’t do’ attitude?
Celia Hoyles. The Covid-19 pandemic is raising public anxiety not just about the virus but about the maths being used to explain how it spreads and how it can be controlled. What is the so-called R value? What do we mean by “flattening the curve”? And if people were not confused enough, what are we […]
A few words in the OFSTED framework could help boost the digital skills children need for learning outside of school
Sara Hawley. While the pandemic continues and individual pupils, groups or classes stay home self-isolating, the DFE has made remote learning part of schools’ legal duty for now. OFSTED has suspended routine inspections but is carrying out interim visits (without grading schools) to understand the lay of the land. Yesterday, Chief Inspector Amanda Spielman published […]
Education and Covid-19: five needs that must be met to provide vital learning lifelines for children and teachers
Vagner-Xaruto / Pixabay Rose Luckin. The latest reports from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) have some interesting lessons for the UK as we all try to ensure that pandemic compliant teaching and learning are effective wherever they happen: at home, at school on the bus or in the park. Yes, the data is […]
