Ms Fiona Henry

Fiona Henry is a Senior Lecturer in Education at The Open University in the Faculty of Education and Language Studies. Her work focuses on enhancing educational outcomes through the effective use of appropriate technologies; the role of mobile technology in blurring, bridging  and dissolving the home-school gap; the use of MOOCs to support CPD and forward-facing mobile initiatives including Bring Your Own Device/Technology (BYOD/T). Fiona’s work spans the UK, India and Sub-Saharan Africa, with a range of projects examining the role of mobile computing to support pedagogical change in both teacher education and teaching practice.

Fiona currently chairs E309 Comparative and international studies in primary education, the final module in the BA (Hons) Education Studies (primary) qualification. She is also an author on the earlier modules, E103 Learning and teaching in the primary years and E209 Developing subject knowledge for the primary years. Fiona was the Numeracy Lead on the Supporting Adolescent Girls' Education (SAGE) project in Zimbabwe. The SAGE project, funded by UK aid from the UK government, enabled nearly 15,000 adolescent girls, who were highly marginalised and out-of-school, to improve their learning outcomes in literacy and numeracy and transition to education, training or employment. SAGE was a gender transformative education programme, working at multiple levels to improve education for girls by tackling the root causes of gendered social and economic barriers and to create an enabling environment for transforming unequal gender norms. 

Fiona was a lead academic on Vital, a highly-successful £9.4million OU-DfE-funded programme to support teachers in England in enhancing their teaching of ICT and Computing, and their use of digital technology cross the curriculum. Prior to joining The Open University, she was a practicing teacher in and around Edinburgh, specialising in maths and ICT. She also spent over 10 years developing a variety of educational software and tools to support the teaching and learning of STEM subjects across the 5-19 age range.

Projects

Inside Our Autistic Mind (Academic Consultant, BBC co-production)

In this TV series, Chris Packham helps autistic people illustrate how their minds work, helping them connect with their friends and family in a new, more authentic way.

Zambian Education School-based Training (ZEST) 

The ZEST programme, run by The Open University and World Vision with Scottish Government funds, has been set up to improve quality of teaching and learning experiences for children in primary schools in Zambia’s Central Province. It will create and implement a scalable, sustainable school-based teacher development programme.

Supporting Adolescent Girls' Education (SAGE)

Marginalised girls in 11 of the poorest districts of Zimbabwe face a number of complex and inter-dependent barriers to accessing education, including gender, age, religion, child marriage, economic status, ethnicity and disability.  Girls' limited access to education is underpinned by pervasive gender inequality.  Working with the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, the SAGE project targets out of school girls aged 10-19 who have never enrolled in school, who have dropped out before completing basic education, including girls with disabilities.

The SAGE project, funded by UK aid from the UK government,  targeted 13,460 adolescent girls, who were highly marginalised and out-of-school, to improve their learning outcomes in literacy and numeracy and transition to education, training or employment.  A consortium, led by Plan International UK and including faith-based, academic and private sector actors, focused on providing high-quality, accelerated, non-formal education in 132 accessible, girlfriendly community-based Learning Hubs.

New Practices - New Parameters - New Pedagogy (NP³) 

NP³, funded by The Society for Educational Studies (SES), focuses on the use and impact of mobile devices on innovative pedagogic practices, social justice, and pupils’ development of digital literacy within UK primary school communities.

TESS-India 

Working to build and improve upon classroom practices of teachers across India, focusing on the use of student-centred and active participatory pedagogical approaches. Includes the development of 125 OER for existing and new pre- and in-service teacher professional development programs at elementary and secondary school levels. Supported by our MOOC, Enhancing teacher education through OER.

Researching OER development in teacher education in Ghana

• What are the processes and enabling conditions which support teacher educators and their students in actively engaging with creation and adaptation of OER at a local level to meet immediate needs?
• How do institutional and wider systemic factors influence engagement in these activities? 
• How does mobile technology mediate engagement with OER including adaptation and creation of new OER?  

TESSA (Teacher education in Sub-Saharan Africa)

Continuing research on sustainable pedagogic change in teacher education; the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) and mobile technologies to support teacher educators and teachers in developing new pedagogic practices in countries in Sub Saharan Africa.​

YOTS (Your Own Technology Survey)

YOTS is an online tool designed to help schools better understand the technology available to students, and make informed decisions about the model of technology provision followed in school.

Edfutures

EdFutures is dedicated to helping change our current education system to make it fit for the 21st century. Our initial focus is on the role(s) that technology might play as a lever for change.,