UWE opens new Education Innovation Centre - University of the ...

In this
month’s issue
2 Education Innovation
Centre launched
3 Universities and
businesses must work
together to shape
tomorrow's workforce
4-5 UWE welcomes
stadium initiative
7 UWE wins SHA funding
for public health
nursing training
8 Men and Cancer – find
out more at UWE
seminar
19 Project to design new
sensor for premature
babies
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Editor: Jane Kelly
Editor: Mary Price
Contributor: Lesley Drake,
Kate Mooney
Production: Jayne Andrews,
Kate Mooney
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Fron cover: Photo -
Martin Chainey
Students trying out the new Education
Innovation Centre with Nick Wilson,
HP Managing Director UK and Ireland,
Vice-Chancellor Steve West and EIC
Director Liz Falconer.
Students can now learn in simulated work and
home settings thanks to a new state-of-theart
Education Innovation Centre (EIC) at the
heart of UWE’s expanding Frenchay Campus.
The EIC was launched on 1 June by Vice-
Chancellor, Professor Steve West and Hewlett
Packard Managing Director UK and Ireland,
Nick Wilson.
The EIC is a new 500 square metre facility in
the former HP Building 2, and is realistically
divided into zones such as a lounge with
mirror TV, student bedroom with x-box,
work stations, ideas or meeting area with
whiteboard, and tutorial area.
Among the e-learning experiences on offer
– which would be difficult or impossible
to set up in real life - are a flood disaster
management simulation project, accident
investigation scenarios using Second Life for
environmental health students, and a platform
to enable law students to set up law firms and
take on cases representing ‘clients’. Experience
of dealing with situations they will come
across in their working lives will be a real
boost to students’ employability.
The Director of the EIC, Professor Liz Falconer,
said, “The opening of this important new
resource puts the student experience at
the forefront of the flexible and innovative
learning opportunities that UWE can offer.
“We are offering three ‘presences’ – physical,
virtual and web – and people will be able to
work with us and interact through all three
of those in rich and dynamic ways. There is
tremendous enthusiasm amongst students and
staff to develop new and effective methods of
learning and teaching at UWE.”
The brand-new facility was developed with
support from international high tech company
Hewlett Packard and its strategic partners
2
NEWS
UWE launches Education Innovation Centre
Students Dale Powell, Emily Jay and Tommy
Peace at work in the ‘student bedroom’ zone of
the new Education Innovation Centre
EIC staff from left to right: Olivia Billingham, Mark
Shand, Julian Green, Glenn Duckworth and Manuel
Frutos-Perez with Liz Falconer at the front.
Juniper Networks, Microsoft, Polycom and
Schneider Electric. HP’s support for the EIC
means this is the first time HP and a UK
university have come together to provide such
a facility.
The EIC’s physical space will enable staff and
students to experience and develop innovative
approaches to learning, wherever that
learning takes place, such as at the university,
at home or at work – hence the different
room layouts. The virtual presence of the EIC
is located in a similar space in the virtual world
Second Life, where participants can experience
and develop learning and teaching techniques,
such as simulations that are facilitated by
virtual worlds. The EIC on the web will focus
on how online technologies can be utilised to
facilitate and enhance learning and teaching,
particularly through collaboration and active
learning.
UWE has a large number of students who will
follow careers in professions such as law, social
work, planning, architecture and health. This
development enables students to experience
simulations of events and situations that are
difficult or impossible to organise, before they
put their skills into practice in the real world.
Simulations also enable events and cases to be
studied in detail, run forwards and backwards
in time and be experienced more than once.
UWE’s Simulations in Higher Education project
was short-listed for a 2010 Times Higher
Education award in the Outstanding ICT
Initiative of the Year category.
Last October, UWE and HP signed a fiveyear
collaboration which is one of the most
innovative partnerships between industry
and academia in the UK. The agreement has
already led to the creation of the four-year
UWE HP Enterprise Computing Degree.