Stuart Ball

Stuart Ball is a former Primary School Deputy Headteacher teaching in Monmouthshire and has just joined Microsoft after a successful secondment. In 2005 he won a Microsoft Innovative Teacher award for his use of ICT in the classroom. He previously worked as an LEA advisor for ICT and Primary Science. He has also been working closely with DCELLS to develop the new national curriculum for science. Stuart is responsible for Microsoft’s UK Strategy for the Innovative Teachers Network and for Partners in Learning in Wales.

Sean McDougall

Sean McDougall is MD of Stakeholder Design, an international design agency that helps clients transform their education and public service provision. He is acknowledged as a world expert in the effect of furniture on learning and works at the interface between space and technology. He also helped to pioneer the concept of user-led design in the area of education. Recent work includes Fountaineers, a collaboration with Futurelab to create a programmable, interactive intelligent fountain, owned and developed by children in a primary school. The project pushed the boundaries of participatory design and has been recognized as an important preparatory tool for initiatives such as BSF and PCP.

Sean is in constant demand as a speaker and designer supporting governments, companies and think-tanks around the world. As part of Project Faraday, a DCSF-funded initiative to make science more interesting, he designed a range of interactive experiments and spaces that are now being built in a school in Wigan. In Cork, he has been helping a community of nuns, travelers, recent immigrants, ex-offenders and recovering addicts to create their own range of social services. Following publication of the first stage report they were described in the media as “the best designers in Ireland”.

Prior to establishing Stakeholder Design, Sean was Campaign Leader for Learning Environments at the UK’s Design Council. Here, he was responsible for a Government-funded investigation of how to use design to improve educational outcomes. The result, Schools Renaissance, changed the way in which schools across England think of themselves. Its revolutionary process of user-led design allowed teachers and students to co-design their own outcomes rather than commissioning specialist suppliers. Outcomes from the campaign included new types of furniture, 360 degree flexible classrooms, new approaches to teaching and learning, a new magazine on educational renewal and Designmyschool – a prototype online design environment.

Tim Rylands

Tim Rylands has been described as “an extremely gifted and inspirational teacher, with a love of the creative potential of technology and an excellent rapport with his pupils”. He has received a vast amount of press coverage around the world for his innovative use of ICT. Observers have commented on his imaginative and encouraging style of teaching, which allows children to express their creativity and make significant gains in attainment.

Tim is now much in demand for seminars, training days and conferences around the world, presenting the results of his work in an inspiring, practical and often humorous way.

With over 20 years of experience in schools as far afield as the West Country and West Africa, Tim has gained notable recognition for using the games in the Myst series to inspire children’s creative confidence in many areas of the curriculum e.g. creative writing, speaking and listening, music and art. He is also well known for his musicals, written for children and performed to great acclaim around the country.

Tim is a firm believer that ICT is about communication more than technology … and that it should be FUN!

In 2005 he won the 2005 Becta ICT in Practice Award.

For more information visit: www.timrylands.com and www.timrylands.com/blog