Never mind the technology, where’s the learning?

Following my previous post regarding being blog-tagged by Theo, as promised, here are five things you may not know about me:

1) I was often confused for the Welsh Outside Half

During the late 1970s, while at university, I was often confused for Gareth Davies the Welsh Rugby player. There were some similarities other than our names, both of us played rugby, but he was obviously much better than I; both of us were Welsh, but he was a Welsh hero and I was just a student whose university rugby team celebrated after one particular match as it was their first win in four years. Playing from 1978 to 1985, he had a hard time in following the likes of Phil Bennett, indeed all the players of that era were often unfairly compared with the players they had replaced during the ‘golden age of Welsh rugby’. Being confused for my name sake had advantages and disadvantages. For example, I would often get an anonymous drink in a pub if Wales or Cardiff had won the previous weekend. I was also often accosted by the equivalent of the ‘ancient mariner’ who would proceed to tell me what I had done wrong in last Saturday’s match.

2) History teaching

You may have picked up in few posts that I my original teaching subject was History. But probably don’t know that I packed a lot in when the subject took most of my professional time. Twenty years ago (1986) I was a Teacher Fellow at the Centre for History Education at Trinity and All Saints College in Leeds. These secondments were granted to applicants to do cutting edge stuff with regard to History education, and tutorship was under Ian Dawson, then Director of the Schools’ History Project and Denis Shemilt. My submission was to produce discipline-based material with a local history bias. Together with a colleague from another local school, we had already produced off our own bat, two local history packs for schools in our area. The consequences of this collaboration and the secondment was the setting up of a small history material publishing company which we ran in our spare time. It lasted to around 1994, but was really killed off earlier by the introduction of the National Curriculum and the lack of focus on local history in the Key Stage 3 curriculum. Our aim was to empower history teachers, and a number of our authors are now significant figures in education, including a Professor of Education and the Head of Institutional Inspections and Frameworks Division at Ofsted, although it can’t be said that we really contributed to the advancement of their careers, they did produce exciting stuff.

3) Scouting

The other great pre-occupier in my life until about ten years ago was Scouting. I joined at the age of 11 and remained active in the movement for 26 years, being a Leader, Commissioner and Trainer. It was here where I learnt to communicate with young people before I became a teacher, and to train adults from all walks of life, before I began training teachers. Scouting provided a ready made ‘family’ and friendship group when I moved to the other side of the country to take up my first teaching job. Although not active anymore, my heart is still in Scouting, and 2007 being the movements’ centenary, it’s a special year for all Scouts everywhere. I still have links, and try to always stay at Baden Powell House when in London (including next week when at BETT).

4) I refused to teach ICT

In my early career, on two occasions the Headteacher asked whether I would like to take on a ‘Computer Studies” class, and both times I refused. Perhaps to my shame, perhaps not, it was only when the part-time teacher of Computer Studies did not turn up one September, and he offered me more money, did I take on the job. Two years later and Computing become IT, and I had to make the decision to whether apply for the newly created IT Co-ordinator post. In doing so, I had chosen a different career path for myself.

5) I was refused membership of Naace

Back in 1996, I applied for and was refused membership of Naace, the leading association for those interested in advancing education through ICT. At that time, the rules stated that a substantial part of your job had to be supporting ICT in schools. Although, I had been an Advisory Teacher for ICT for five years, I had recently moved to a commercial educational software company. My role was to expand the business, and I had set up a Professional Development division that provided courses and support to teachers. In those days, Naace had a membership committee who ‘guarded’ entry, and my application was refused. Rather than accept the situation I challenged it, and was allowed in eventually by arguing on a technicality. It’s perhaps ironic that I was elected Vice Chair of the association last September, and will become Chair in 2007!

Finally, it comes to pass the baton on to 5 fellow bloggers.

These are:

Peter Ford

Ian Usher

Miles Berry (already tagged by Terry, but had not done his yet)

Leon Cych

John Sutton

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