14-19: Transitions, technology and learning
Dr Chris Davies
Department of Educational Studies, University of Oxford
Chris's teaching and research have covered English, media education, the professional development of teachers, literacy and e-learning. He was involved for several years in R&D work around the kar2ouche Macbeth software. He is currently course director for a new E-Learning MSc at Oxford, which starts this autumn. Chris spends half his working life as Vice President of Kellogg College, which looks after part-time graduate students in Oxford.
Claus Due
Country Manager, Electronic Arts
Claus has worked at Electronic Arts for nine years in various roles, including Country Manager for the Denmark office for five years. He is currently working in Market Development. Claus was educated at Copenhagen Business School and has an EMBA. He was a former member of the Media Council for Youth and Children, at the Department of Culture in Denmark, as well as being a former chairman of the Danish Games Trading Association.
Josh Dhaliwal
Director, MobileYouth
Josh co-founded mobileYouth 4 years ago, having spent several years in broadcast television and new media. His interest in wireless stems from two years at news broadcaster ITN, where he worked on the development and strategy for launch of their mobile internet portals as well as Europe's first mobile news service. This was followed by a period exploring the potential of live video streaming on mobile networks. Josh is an occasional speaker and commentator on the subject of young people and mobile phones - an area in which he has chaired several industry conferences as well as being a spokesperson for the media.
Kim Edwards
External Relations Officer, English Secondary Students' Association (ESSA)
Kim is in her final year of A-levels at the Harrogate Grammar School. She has been involved in ESSA since July 2004, when she was invited to join the Steering Group after hearing about it through her work with the National Council for Voluntary Youth Service. She was the presenter at ESSA's launch conference in February this year, and has just returned from representing ESSA at the Congress of the Union of Secondary Students in Dublin. Kim is passionate about students having their rightful involvement in issues that directly concern them - especially their education - and intends on playing an active role in the development of ESSA.
Keith Falconer
Senior Executive, Learning City Team, Scottish Enterprise Glasgow
As a member of the Learning City Team, Keith has led on project managing the development and creation of approaches, methodologies and award-winning content for the Real Project and its unique approach to developing lifelong learning in Glasgow, using 'hooks' such as popular culture and personal interests as powerful vehicles for developing technological fluency and a wider set of 21st century skills. Keith has had a varied career including artist, nurse, professional musician, retail management and working in the voluntary and disability sectors, all providing experience that has added considerable value to his current role.
Nick Glossop
Education Director, S-cool Limited
Nick originally qualified as a mechanical engineer and spent years working in project management for Dowty Aerospace. Working with Young Enterprise helped him to realise what teaching could offer as a career; he retrained as a physics teacher and taught for eight years in a comprehensive school near Bristol, holding responsibilities including Head of Physics and a number of pastoral roles. Since joining S-cool in 2000, Nick has been involved in many developments and now holds responsibility for the educational content of all S-cool products.
Rick Hall
Project Leader, NESTA
Rick is Project Leader of Ignite!, a new initiative within the Fellowship programme at NESTA designed to identify and support exceptionally creative young people between the ages of 10 and 21. A former teacher, actor, writer and director of theatre for young people, Rick has spent the past ten years working for a number of lottery distributing bodies, including the Community Fund, the Millennium celebrations and the Arts Council. From 1991 to 1995 he was Regional and then National Director of Artswork, the youth arts development organisation.
Glenn Hardaker
Professor of Innovation Management, University of Huddersfield
Glenn has been a teacher for 14 years, teaching students at all levels in information and learning technology. He is currently head of the Learning & Teaching Innovation Unit (LTIU) at the University of Huddersfield and has extensive technical, pedagogic and teaching experience. His books include Wired Marketing: Energizing Business for eCommere, Reformating the Learning Experience and Creative Destruction. Glenn launched the BeyondLabels international conference focused on diversity and equality through ICT; the BeyondLabels initiative supports those marginalised by society through multicultural education and ICT. He is also editor of the international journal Campus Wide Information Systems and associate editor of International Journal of Management Practice.
Dr Geoff Hayward
Department of Educational Studies, University of Oxford
Geoff is a University Lecturer in Educational Studies, Associate Director of the ESRC Research Centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance (SKOPE) and a fellow of Kellogg College. He was a founder member of the Bath/Macmillan post-16 science education project which led to the publication of a large number of text books. Geoff taught at the Liverpool Institute of Higher Education where he worked with primary school teachers implementing the science curriculum. In 1998 he was seconded to work with the ESRC Research Centre SKOPE, becoming Associate Director in 2003. In 2004 he also became a Director of the Nuffield 14-19 Review of Education and Training. His research revolves around two sets of problems: the formulation of Vocational Education and Training Policy, and the design of effective Vocational Education and Training learning environments.
Gemma Lowe
External Communications Officer, English Secondary Students' Association (ESSA)
Gemma is a 19 year-old undergraduate studying Russian and Economics at Sheffield University. She has been involved with ESSA from five months following its November 2003 inception. Gemma first became aware of the importance of student voice during high school at Dyson Perrins in Worcestershire, has always actively pursued a platform from which students could be heard, and plans to continue to do so during her university years.
Professor Ken Roberts
University of Liverpool
Ken is Professor of Sociology at the University of Liverpool. He is an international expert on young people's transitions from education into the labour market. Ken has over 30 years experience of studying young people's transitions in Britain, and during the last 15 years he has coordinated a series of comparative European studies. His books include Youth and Employment in Modern Britain (1995), Surviving Post-Communism: Young People in the Former Soviet Union (2000), and Class in Modern Britain (2001).
Karl Royle
Principal Lecturer, University of Wolverhampton
Karl has responsibility for Curriculum Innovation at the School of Education, University of Wolverhampton. Prior to this he was in charge of Post Compulsory Education and Training at the University, where he had responsibility for PGCE & Cert Ed FE courses and a BA course in Further, Adult and Continuing Education. His main areas of interest are literacy/language skills and digital game-based learning environments and he currently teaches at both Masters and Undergraduate level in these areas, specialising in learning design. He has extensive prior experience (10 years) as a manager in mainly multi-ethnic inner urban FE colleges where he specialised in Language and Learning Development through the integration of language skills into vocational materials.
Mark Smith
Rank Research Fellow and Tutor at YMCA George Williams College, London and Visiting Professor in Community Education, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow
Mark specialises in the field of informal education and lifelong learning. Among his books are Creators not Consumers (1982), Developing Youth Work (1988), Local Education (1994), Informal Education (1996, 1999, 2005 with Tony Jeffs) and Youth Work (2005 edited with Tony Jeffs). He also compiles the encyclopaedia of informal education and the informal education archives (www.infed.org).
David Squire
Director, DESQ
DESQ is a UK-based learning games and e-learning developer which David founded in 1998, after spending 10 years working under various guises in community arts and further education. He oversees a team of producers creating award winning e-learning materials and game-based learning applications for clients such as the UK National Learning Network (NLN), Oxford University Press, Channel 4 Television and the BBC. DESQ is a member of Game Republic, a UK regional games developer association, and an industry member of Futurelab. David is an honorary Research Fellow at the University of Bristol, looking at theories of game design and game-based learning to inform practice.
David Teece
Head of Service: Education for Children Out of School, Warwickshire Local Education Authority, UK; Director, Nisai-Iris Partnership
David taught in secondary schools in Coventry and Warwickshire for 15 years, specialising in the education of children with special educational needs. He was seconded to Warwickshire LEA in 1994 as head of a new service supporting sick and disabled children, which has now grown into a large team providing education to a range of children across the county, using both traditional methods and new technological approaches. As a result of growing interest in Warwickshire's unique IRIS online education system, the service was instrumental in founding the NISAI-IRIS partnership, a national e-learning consortium of LEAs in UK. The partnership now has 20 LEA members as well as involving a number of university departments and other educational organisations.
Professor Gill Valentine
University of Leeds
Formerly at the University of Sheffield, Gill's research interests include social identities and exclusion; families and childhood and consumption. She is currently researching alcohol and public space; children's use of information and communication technologies; Somali children's identities; deaf people's use of the internet and prejudice.
Rob Ward
Director, Centre for Recording Achievement (CRA)
CRA is a national cross-sectoral network organisation which seeks to promote awareness and understanding of recording achievement and action planning processes - increasingly supported electronically - as an important element in improving learning and progression throughout the world of education, training and employment. It provides the key national network organisation to support the implementation of the HE Progress File, and in this role has developed, with DfES support, a website to support national development work. Rob is an HE Academy Associate in the field of Personal Development Planning practice, and a Fellow of the National Institute for Careers Education and Counselling.
Jon Weinbren
Creative Director, Imaginary Productions
Jon has a background in screenwriting and story development for film, television and interactive media, and now focuses on games and 3D animation projects through his role as creative director of London-based studio Imaginary Productions (www.imaginary.co.uk). He has worked in senior creative capacities on projects with Channel 4, BBC, The Science Museum, Electronic Arts, Sony and numerous others. Jon serves on the board of TIGA, the UK games industry trade association, and chairs its special interest group on education. He also runs the MA Digital Games Design programme at the Surrey Institute of Art and Design (www.dgdu.org).
Sarah Young
Creative Learning Manager, Real
Sarah coordinates a range of projects based on new technology and creativity. Real: Creative Learning is a Glasgow-wide initiative, funded and incepted by Scottish Enterprise Glasgow's Life Long Learning Directorate. After gaining BA (Hons) in Fine Art at the School of Television & Imaging at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee, Sarah worked within the commercial sector of web and multimedia production. She now manages Real's Creative Learning Team and numerous educational programmes, including the development and dissemination of creative web-based learning materials for urban communities throughout the Glasgow area.