When born into hearing families, profoundly deaf infants have little access to the language used in their homes. Cochlear implantation is now the most frequent intervention route, yet, despite surgery being offered as early as 9 months of age and improvements in the acoustics of implants, delays in language persist into childhood. Importantly, exposure to sign language prior to implantation benefits both later oral language and general cognitive development, but we have poor understanding of why this is the case. We propose to investigate a new hypothesis, that language input (verbal or signed), in the form of caregivers labelling the objects infants encounter, helps infants parse the world into categories such as cats or cars. This ability to categorize is a game changer for learning, including for vocabulary growth - recognising a new object as a car, a category we are familiar with, means that we can immediately infer what this object is called and that it moves very fast. We put forward an innovative research programme that will provide new understanding of the interaction between early language and conceptual development. 1) We will break with classical lab-based category learning paradigms, which have underestimated the importance of language input, to investigate learning in more naturalistic environment. Unlike lab-based studies, where infants learn the category of cats, for example, by seeing various cats one after the other, on uncluttered backgrounds, in their daily lives, minutes, hours or days may pass between encountering different cats; memory decay and interference will make it difficult for infants to see what is common between the members of this category. Taking infants on a real or virtual Learning Trail in the Norwich Castle museum, we will ask whether being told what objects are called acts as a memory cue, helping category learning by reducing memory decay. 2) We will develop new methodologies to quantify the category knowledge that children acquire in their daily lives. While a variety of methods exist to measure vocabulary growth, developmental sciences have as yet no means to measure the growth in children's conceptual knowledge. We will use electroencephalography and eye-tracking to chart the growth in category knowledge in the first two years of life, in hearing infants, which will serve as comparison for the study of deaf infants. 3) We will provide, for the first time, the critical test for the role language input may have in category learning by measuring category knowledge in the absence of language, in a longitudinal cohort of deaf infants born into hearing families. Using a comprehensive set of measures of early conceptual and communicative development, we will be in a unique position to understand what causes the delays in language and learning in this population. This proposal brings together a unique team of researchers with complementary expertise in overseeing longitudinal cohort studies, brain imaging and early cognitive development in hearing and deaf children with professionals involved in clinical care and education of deaf infants. Working closely with audiologists and teachers for the deaf will ensure that research is driven by the needs of deaf infants and their families and, more importantly, that research findings feed-back into clinical practice (e.g. developing measures of category knowledge to be used as part of clinical assessments of deaf infants), as well as in early education (e.g. revealing alternative, non-linguistic strategies caregivers could use to scaffold infants' conceptual development as part of low burden high impact parent-mediated interventions). Our close collaboration with Norwich Castle Museum Early Years Team will transform the delivery of inclusive museum early education - e.g. by developing ways to engage children with categories rather than isolated exemplars to ensure that learning about historical artefacts generalises beyond the museum's gates.

Making Sand Dunes Public (MSDP) is an experimental project exploring ways to build trust and support for coastal management by engaging and enrolling local publics centrally in practical decisions concerning the management and planning of sand dunes as a natural form of coastal defence. It starts from the premise that current complex environmental problems, such as those related to climate change, require new, more creative approaches to environmental decision making. These will necessitate more inclusionary process, incorporating many currently neglected and unheard voices, constituencies and forms of evidence within processes that build understanding, exchange and trust in times of environmental uncertainty. The project is developed through a partnership with the Norfolk County Council (NCC) ENDURE (Ensuring Dune Resilience against Climate Change) project team which emerged in the later stages of the AHRC funded project Listening to Climate Change: experiments in sonic democracy (public facing title Sounding Coastal Change (SCC) (AH/P000126/1 01/09/2016 - 30/06/2019). ENDURE is a 2.1m Euro European funded project with partners in the UK (Norfolk), Belgium, France and the Netherlands. It aims to 'look at establishing sand dunes as adaptive, living sea defences'. Many traditional concrete sea defences are old and failing and can be expensive or challenging to maintain. Natural ecosystems can provide better, more resilient protection. However, building trust and collaboration with localities at an individual community level to develop and encourage natural sand dune systems remains both problematic. In North Norfolk this is reflected at two dune sites in particular: Holme-next-the-Sea and Brancaster. MSDP will partner with ENDURE to develop a workshop programme and facilitate a series of local public and community engagements which involve users and local publics in co-producing future management strategies for these key coastal dunes sites The project builds on key aspects of methodology developed in public engagement work involving SCC and the Norfolk Coast Partnership (NCP) who produce the 5-year statutory management plan for the Norfolk Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). NCP will co-partner MSDP and NCC as part of their remit in increase public engagement in the AONB planning process. Building trust through local involvement, in environmental policy and management has been highlighted as a key national issue in the current period of climate change and uncertainty. MSDP contributes to developing the mutual understandings, shared knowledge bases and co-created solutions that are fundamental to building resilience and ongoing and flexible adaptation strategies for coastal locations. These become increasingly vital in the face of sea level rises, increased flooding, inundation and more volatile coastlines resultant from climate change. Aims and Objectives * Develop and facilitate a series of workshops and events at the two north Norfolk sand dune sites in order to improve the cooperation between site managers, the local community, visitors and local businesses; * Involve neglected and unheard voices, constituencies and multiple forms of evidence within processes that build understanding, exchange and trust in the management of the sand dunes; * Engage schools, volunteers, local groups and publics in devising, implementing and taking responsibility for dune management plans; * Explore, trial and develop a new facilitated collaborative working methodology for environmental engagement involving local schools, volunteers, groups, publics, environmental and conservation groups with environmental and planning professionals;

Our research investigates teacher agency in the use of technology for teaching and learning. Teacher agency means the capacity of teachers and the actions they take. Educational technology (EdTech) encompasses resources such as computers, smart boards, apps,virtual reality and robots. Research identifies teacher agency and technology as factors in education transformation and improvement, but does not link them or elaborate their combined potential. Our transformational view of teacher agency with technology views teachers as experts with agency often overlooked in official frameworks for professional development and EdTech design. We advance understanding to inform user-led EdTech design and new models of teacher agency. Beyond use of readymade hardware, platforms and apps, what can teachers bring to the design and use of EdTech, and how do these contributions link to their wider expertise? We add to research knowledge by extending understanding of teacher agency with technology. Two recent surveys summarise research on teacher agency but do not address links with EdTech. We want to understand this link given technology's role in practice. We use established concepts for describing agency and adapt their focus to address how teachers think about their agency with EdTech, what they do with it, and their aspirations for using EdTech. We examine how far different technologies invite teachers' agency, and the role EdTech can play in developing teachers' agency across their careers. Investigating these aspects helps us develop robust understanding of teacher agency and its outcomes for teachers, students, schools and the education system. We look beyond surveying teachers' attitudes and beliefs about using technology to offer an actionable model to support agency for effective EdTech adaptation in teachers' professional development, and suggest training interventions. We want to understand how teachers' choices and actions relate to their contexts of work, to build a flexible model of teacher agency with technology for national use.Our place-based study of primary and secondary schools in the East is a partnership of UEA Education,Teacher Education and Computing Sciences researchers, British Telecom, Norfolk County Council Children's Services, and Library and Information Service. We embed dialogue with other UK regions in research design. We address research gaps around relationships between school phases, subjects, regionality, and teacher and student experiences of EdTech in schools and homes. We use qualitative and focus group methods, responding to regional challenges of geographic isolation for rural and coastal communities, of social disadvantage, and a technology infrastructure of varying quality and stability. We investigate agency through collaborative projects in seven EdTech themes. These inform a comprehensive model of teacher agency with technology and form a working group schedule with teachers to match school calendars, recruiting from our university partnership with schools across Norfolk.Our 7 EdTech themes are 1. Teachers' use and design of EdTech: benchmark 2. A context for agency: online safety and wellbeing 3. Resourcefulness:making EdTech for the future 4. Agency for all: pedagogies for digital global citizenship 5. Navigating boundless knowledge: online information literacy for learning 6. Assessment tech and teacher agency in linked pedagogies 7. EdTech for teacher agency:teacher education and development Three frames link these to support reporting impact:Sustainable technology infrastructures for teacher agency;Ecologies of teacher agency and technology- governance, finance and organisation;and Teacher education and development. We will establish an online Teacher Agency and Technology hub. Outputs will convey what we learn about the transformational benefits of teacher agency with technology in context, shared in policy briefs for local and national levels of government,and teachers.

There is a gap in the provision of support for secondary school, school-based, environmental and outdoor vocational learning targeted at students who demonstrate challenging behaviour or have a strong desire to engage in learning through the outdoors. Young people must now remain in education until they are 18, meaning that the outdoor learning context will be of importance, relevance and inspiration to these same young people who are, on average, more likely to become ‘Not in Employment, Education or Training’ (NEET). It is also recognised that high quality opportunities for these groups of students may enable them to gain the skills, experiences and attitudes to access further education, jobs and careers in the outdoor/environmental sector. Meanwhile, these contexts are often more engaging for more vulnerable students than the traditional 14-19 curriculum. Alternative Curriculum Education out of the Wild (ACEWild) aims to train and support educators (in collaboration with local specialist providers) so that they can provide long term, high quality, environmental and outdoor learning opportunities specifically tailored to young people demonstrating challenging behaviour (including those that have made a specific choice to learn in the outdoors) and which is of direct relevance to their future careers and further educational opportunities. ACEWild provides a transferable, school-based model which supports the professional development of teachers and provides practitioners with the tools and inspiration that they need to develop and implement their own school-based programme. This framework will take educators through a process; from identify young people’s needs to how educators can meet these needs through an ‘Alternative Curriculum’, specifically in partnership with local 'education and employment' partners.The project achieved this aim through two areas of work:1) Action Research: The 3 countries involved delivered, in partnership, 2 sets of 12 sessions aimed specifically at more vulnerable young people; using outdoor and environmental/sustainable resource use/green economy themes. This research was key to developing an informed model of practice that was well-evaluated and based on diverse partner experience, including sharing of the most innovative ideas, approaches, practices and solutions.2) The development of resources that can be used for training, or directly accessed by practitioners through a website (Open Educational Resource) www.acewild.eu; These resources comprise of a range of ‘tried and tested’ educational activities and approaches (including session plans, evaluation methods (including Social Return on Investment), case-studies, heath, safety and welfare information), using environmental and outdoor learning contexts with various local education and employment partners. Over the 2 years (2014 - 2016) the programme brought 7 organisations, across 3 countries together 4 times; • Norfolk County Council, UK; Environmental and Outdoor Learning Team, based at Holt Hall, with extensive experience supporting schools to become more sustainable; providing teacher training, residential experiences for young people and leading European projects in the area of resource management and outdoor learning.• Aylsham High School, UK; An innovative school, further developing their growing expertise around supporting vulnerable young people to reach their potentials through using outdoor learning contexts. • Susted, UK; A small enterprise specialising in consultancy, support and training with a focus on sustainable development. Susted has worked with a range of schools, vocational colleges, universities and enterprises, in addition to being involved in a large number of multinational projects.• Goldcrest Outdoor Education Ltd, UK; A small business specialising in providing best-practice outdoor and environmental education to Norfolk schools and communities, within their local environment. • RCE Rhine-Meuse, Netherlands; A Regional Centre of Expertise in Education for Sustainable Development for the Netherlands and the EU region; comprising of 4 universities, 10 municipalities, 3 provinces and 20 primary and secondary schools.• Sint Jans College, Netherlands; A city-based college known for its innovative approaches and technology.• RCE Oldenburger Münsterland e.V., Germany; A Regional Centre of Expertise in Education for Sustainable Development for the district of Cloppenburg and Vechta in Germany, targeting its activities to formal and non-formal educational organisations which focus on youth and young adults.As a result of the above, we have better informed teachers, with the tools they need to enable school-based education provision that meets the needs of more vulnerable young people. Also that the target young people will not only have a curriculum which is more suited to their specific needs, but will also be of direct relevance (& inspiration) to their future employment.

UEA's virtual Open Day, May & June 2012 - A Research for Community Heritage Ideas Bank: starting with your idea To explore the potential of research for community heritage we need to start with ideas. Our experience at UEA tells us that the process is much the same, whether the idea originates in the community or in the academy. An idea always leads to further questions and many possible leads. At this stage it is important to ask the right questions, provide the right advice and find a focus. As a part of the 'brokerage' phase in the wider AHRC initiative linked with the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and potentially other partners, UEA's Research for Community Heritage Ideas Bank enables us to start with the idea. This virtual bank, accessed via webpages hosted on UEA's website, linked via key partner networks and promoted via a communications plan that will include face-to-face events and meetings by a team of postgraduate researchers, will gather ideas from communities and from researchers. Our wrap-around engagement and support activities for all stakeholders, before and after the live deposit period, will underpin and provide a platform upon which researchers and communities can come together and co-create a blueprint for the community heritage projects which may be eligible for the HLF funding. Why a virtual ideas bank - UEA is located on the hinterland of East Anglia, a region with a population of around 3.4 million people living in rural, town, city and coastal communities in Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire & Essex. Hosting one or more open days either on campus or at different locations would not enable us to reach a broad enough audience and might even attract only the 'usual' suspects; that is, those who already engage with the University. The virtual Ideas Bank will give the project another dimension by enabling us to scale up our reach throughout the Region. The Ideas Bank will also be open to all UEA researchers in HUM and in other UEA faculties, particularly the Faculty of Social Sciences of which two members of the research team are members.