Futurelab does not look like something that grew out of a Whitehall department. On one table sit several smartphones that can be used to make a nearby postcard of Abraham Lincoln recite the Gettysburg Address. On another, a movement-sensitive robot is duct-taped to the surface, presumably so that it does not walk off the edge in excitement when passers-by activate its sensors. And although Stephen Breslin, the chief executive, wears a snappy suit, everyone else in the building in Bristol’s Harbourside is dressed like a graduate recruitment advert for a technology company — which is, at least in part, what it is.

The not-for-profit organisation, which came out of an idea from the Department for Children, Schools and Families, works with partners in industry, education and government to turn interesting technology into practical teaching tools or to adapt teaching practice. For example, haptic technology provides people with sensory feedback when they do something on a computer — so, for example, schoolchildren could carry out virtual dissections and feel the resistance without having to chop up real frogs.

Turning ideas into reality is something with which Dr Breslin, an engineer, is very familiar. His previous job was at the Kelvin Institute, which was set up to commercialise technology developed at Glasgow and Strathclyde universities. “We had some good successes,” he said. “We sold some criminal-profiling software to New Scotland Yard that lets them look for patterns in criminal behaviour. Criminals,like the rest of us, are lazy and fall into habits very quickly, so you can use technology to identify these patterns, tie it in with the data on criminals and come up with the man.”

But despite the gadgetry kit and the dot-com feel to Futurelab’s furnishings, Dr Breslin is not interested in breaking new technical ground. “The real innovation is taking technology that is already available and showing how it can be used in the classroom,” he said. “There is nothing blue sky about [what we do]. It’s not crazy ideas that have been done in some far-off lab; it’s ideas developed with children and teachers.”

One of the most high-profile examples of this was Futurelab research that showed how computer games available on the high street could be used as a teaching tool, even if they were designed purely for entertainment. “It’s an area that attracts quite a lot of controversy, but that’s because people misunderstand how you would use games in a classroom,” Dr Breslin said. “It’s not that there’s anything inherently educational about playing a game, but what they provide is another context for learning ... it’s a tool to engage and motivate.”

Take Nintendogs, for example. It’s a very successful game in which players use handheld consoles to look after a virtual pet; they can teach it tricks, feed it, pat it and take it on walks. Give the cyber pet to a bunch of schoolchildren and it teaches them skills such as literacy (they have to keep a diary), numeracy and enterprise (they can earn money within the game by winning competitions) and responsibility (if they don’t look after their pet, it will run away eventually). “So all these basic skills are being reinforced but in an engaging context,” Dr Breslin said.

Like it or not, there’s no going back to tech-free classrooms. “Technology has to be part of [schools]. Learning has to be relevant to the world we live in, and that’s a world of computers.” While using games, smartphones and personal digital assistants (PDAs) in classrooms might feel odd or gimmicky to adults, these devices feel so normal to children that they don’t even think of them as technology — just as microwaves and refrigerators aren’t high-tech to their parents.

The other big push towards classroom technology could well be financial. Dr BRolin said: “In the next ten years, public spending is going to be limited and everyone will have to demonstrate more for less. The emphasis on technology will be ... achieving greater efficiencies and improving access to scarce resources.” One example of scarce supply could be teachers with physics degrees, who can be notoriously hard to recruit. Rather than belonging to one school or one classroom, they could teach classes at several schools via video links or the internet.

For now, however, Dr Breslin is concentrating on expanding the reach of his current projects. “It’s all very well to come up with new ideas and to demonstrate how effective they can be in a local setting, but it’s another thing to take it to scale. That’s my ambition — to make sure that the good stuff makes it out into the classroom.

“We have always been very good at exciting teachers about the possibilities, but that excitement can very quickly lead to frustration if you don’t give them a path forward to demonstrate the next step.”

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