Talks
On this page I shall post talks and seminars that I do in various connections. I seek your feedback on the issues that I bring up in these talks - I hope they ring some bells with you. I don’t plan on doing a great deal of re-working of the talks from my notes to this page, so please get back to me if something leaves you mystified.
Wanting to make it work
Recently I gave a talk here at the department entitled “Wanting to make it work - design-based research and problems with introducing collaborative technological tools into A-level classrooms”. I’d like to broadcast it to a wider audience. It was a ‘work in progress’ kind of talk where I shared preliminary ideas (and present frustrations) from my ongoing doctorate with colleagues at the department. Below are my notes and the corresponding slide show.
“Wanting to make it work - design-based research and problems with introducing collaborative technological tools into A-level classrooms”.
Wednesday, 20th February 2008
Abstract: In the field of learning technology we have heard plenty of calls for learning- and pedagogy-driven projects to replace purely technology-driven innovation. We have been asked to consider learning goals, skills and the context within which the learning takes place. This talk will describe an ongoing doctoral research project that tries to answer that call and introduce a technological innovation that works for the needs of an A-level history classroom. The study follows the main principles of design-based research in trying to gradually align innovation, researcher ideas, teacher practice and institutional culture. The difficulties in trying to bring together technology, pedagogy and practice are going to be the topic of this seminar.
Wanting to make it work - slide showWanting to make it work - notes
JISC 2008 Conference in Birmingham
Tuesday, 15th April 2008
I was invited to speak at the JISC 2008 Conference in the Changing student experience and expectations of ICT session. I was there on behalf of Thema presenting a few preliminary findings from the project. It was a bit of a nerve-wrecking experience for me, since it was my first real public appearance and the audience was quite large (it seemed very large to me anyway) - probably a couple of hundred people. Therefore what came out was not exactly what was planned - and what’s represented in the notes below, but it was close enough.
ThemaJISC2008-notes
ThemaJISC2008-slides
ICLS 2008 Doctoral Consortium talk
Tuesday, 24th June 2008
I participated in the Doctoral Consortium at the ICLS2008 conference. It was a forum for doctoral students to get together and present their work, give and receive feedback from each other and share ideas. The format of the workshop was perhaps not ideal and there was very little time for each student to present their work. Still, I received some very useful feedback and advice both from fellow students and from the academics leading the workshop - so overall: a very useful experience indeed. As usually, I stuck loosely to my notes, but only loosely, and the slides were used as illustration rather than reminders of what to say, so my not be entirely informative. Still, have a peek if you wish.