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Speakers, Partners & Sponsors
Speakers:
John Stone
John Stone is currently Chief Executive of LSN, an independent not-for-profit
company set up in 2006 as a successor to a series of government agencies operating
in post-compulsory education and training. It currently employs over 200 staff at its
offices in London and Belfast.
At LSN he leads an organisation which aims to make learning work – from the
classroom to the boardroom. It does this through developing people and
organisations through consultancy, outsourcing, research, technology and training.
He is a governor at the London City Lit and a member of London Higher Skills and
JISC Services Boards. He currently chairs the BECTA e-Maturity Framework Design
Authority and was a member of the Higher Education Funding Council Committee
of Enquiry in the Changing Learner Experience.
Prior to this appointment John was Principal of Ealing, Hammersmith and West
London College. He was also Vice-Chairman of the Joint Information Systems
Committee, Chair of the Association of Colleges London Region, a Board Observer
at the London Development Agency and a Board member of West London Business,
Regenesis and the Southall Regeneration Partnership.
Steve Nichols
Steve is a Contract Manager (Technology for Learning) for the Learning & Skills
Council based at the national office in Coventry.
He has worked in this position for the last five years with responsibility for
managing a budget of approximately £40 million per anum that is dedicated to the
development of technology in teaching and learning in the FE & Skills sector.
Examples of these investments are Janet network installation and upgrades in the
FE and ACL sectors, development of the regional support centres, staff training
programmes, mobile learning projects and the Learning Innovation grants.
Steve came to the LSC from Elwa, the welsh equivalent of the LSC, where he
worked in the procurement department. Prior to that he worked for 25 years in
manufacturing, mainly in the electronics and automotive sectors.
Stuart Edwards
Stuart is a Deputy Director in the Further Education Directorate at the Department
for Business, Innovation and Skills.
His role includes policy responsibility for quality improvement, workforce and
harnessing technology across the FE and Skills sector, and oversight of the
Department’s relationships with the Learning and Skills Improvement Service
and Becta.
Stuart has previously worked on the Every Child Matters agenda in the London
Borough of Southwark, and in a range of roles in the former Department for
Education and Skills, including being responsible for developments to reduce
teacher workload and apply technology more effectively to manage information
in schools.
Stuart has a Doctorate in Educational Administration and is a Chartered Fellow of
the Institute of Personnel.
Greg Smith
Greg graduated from Kingston University with a degree in Business Studies and
after completing a PGCE in Further Education Teaching at Garnett College (University
of London) Greg became an FE lecturer and taught both in the UK and abroad.
Greg became Principal of Henley College, Coventry in 1993 and moved to his current
post of Principal of Gloucestershire College in 1997. Both colleges were in extreme
financial difficulty when Greg became Principal. Under his leadership, both were
turned into thriving and successful colleges.
In 2004, Greg was appointed Chair of the Gloucester Heritage Urban Regeneration
Company which is charged with delivering £1bn of regeneration over 10 years. The
work of the GHURC is well on budget with £400m already invested and £600m in
the pipeline.
Greg led the complete rebuild of the Cheltenham campus (£20m) in 2002 and the
Gloucester campus (£35m) in 2007; both sited in areas of deprivation and at the
forefront of economic and social regeneration in those areas. In partnership with
Cleeve, Tewkesbury and Chipping Campden schools, Greg led the building of the
new Launchpad Centre (£6m) in Tewkesbury.
James Clay
James Clay has been with Gloucestershire College since November 2006.
James is responsible for the VLE, e-learning, mobile learning, the libraries, digital
and online resources and the strategic direction of the college in relation to the use
of learning technologies.
James’ current interests include researching learning on the handheld devices that
learners have and how can we create learning activities which work on personal
mobile devices. He also likes to experiment on how we use Web 2.0 to support
learning. He was awarded Learning Technologist of the Year 2009 by ALT.
Previously he was Director of the Western Colleges Consortium where he was
responsible for the management, strategic direction and development of e-learning
using a shared MLE across the four partner FE colleges of the WCC.
Before the WCC he worked for at-Bristol, a Millennium project within the Harbourside of Bristol – a job which involved delivering hands-on science education and designing
educational websites on subjects as diverse as handheld learning experiences,
Antiguan racer snakes, space science and the mummification process of the
ancient Egyptians.
Prior to the above, James spent ten years in Further Education as a lecturer in
Business & Economics, employing a variety of learning technologies.
Cathy Ellis
Cathy is Director of Harnessing Technology (Improvement and Leadership) in the Further Education & 14–19 Directorate at Becta. Cathy’s experience in learning
technologies dates back to 1994 when she led the deployment of computer assisted
language learning systems in Further Education. She has led institutional ICT and
ILT developments in three FE colleges – and was one of the early adopters of VLE
technology in the FE sector. Her main areas of interest and experience centre on
the following:
- strategic management of ICT and e-learning
- ICT as a leadership issue
- ICT and institutional change
- curriculum remodelling via ICT
In 2004 Cathy won an international award for innovation in the field of e-learning.
She has spoken at regional, national and international conferences and written
several articles on her experience of ICT/ILT. Cathy was also a member of the JISC
Committee for Organisational Support and was President of the Association for
Learning Technology (ALT) 2008–009. Cathy is Governor of a large FE college.
Bob Harrison
Vice Chair of Governors, Northern College and Education Adviser, Toshiba
Information Systems (UK) Ltd.
MSc Education Management, BEd (Hons) Certificate in Education, Member
Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development – BELMAS, NAACE, NIACE, ALT,
MLEARN, Fellow BILD.
As a Principal, Bob established robust partnerships with a range of providers
including the schools in his area. He has had extensive experience in schools and
colleges as a teacher, senior manager and consultant. He has worked with head
teachers and senior leaders in developing leadership skills for the NCSL. With strong
expertise in the post 16 sector Bob is also Vice Chair of Governors at a Beacon College
and a school governor and Chair of the Personnel and Curriculum Committee.
In recent years he has been working for the DIUS as a consultant to their
Improvement Group where he has provided advice and support for the workforce
development plan and the PQP. Bob is an Honorary Life member of CGLI for
services to Vocational Education.
Bob is also one of Becta’s expert consultants, is supporting the implementation of
the Harnessing Technology strategy and is a judge for the Next Generation Learning
Awards. He has been Toshiba’s Education Adviser for 10 years, is a writer and
researcher on mobile learning and next generation learning and is currently busy
with the Building Schools for the Future Programme. He is guest blogger for Futurelab
(http://flux.futurelab.org.uk).
Markos Tiris
Markos Tiris is the Programme Director for Teaching and Learning and Skills for Life
at the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS).
This role involves leading on all programmes under the Teaching and Learning
Programme umbrella including:
- Subject Learning Coach programme which supports Coaches with world class
resources, a professional training programme and subject specific networks
- the Centres for Excellence in Teacher Training (CETTs)
- the E-Guides eCPD workforce development programme
- eCPD Professional Development Advisers
- the STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics programme)
- Skills for Life
- the National Learner Panel and the 14–19 Learner Panel
Markos joined LSIS from the Learning and Skills Development Agency (LSDA) where
he led on workforce development strategies, including e-learning and technology. He was awarded the 2004 NILTA award for the impact of his work on e-learning. The
Subject Learning Coach programme online MFL resources were awarded the Royal
Television Society (RTS) award for Innovation in Education in 2008.
Alistair McNaught
Alistair McNaught explored the use of technology to support learning for over 20
years, most of that time as a mainstream teacher in FE.
He now works for JISC TechDis as a senior advisor with particular interest in accessible
learning experiences and resources. He is currently involved in exploring the
accessibility of e-books and e-book platforms with the Publishers Licensing Society
and is beginning to explore the use of RFID and Optical ID in teaching and learning.
John O’Donnell BSc (Hons) CEng MIET
Systems Engineer Manager, Higher & Further Education team, Cisco Systems.
John leads the technical Systems Engineer team focussed on the Higher & Further
Education market at Cisco Systems, alongside the Healthcare team. Cisco have had
a focussed team in the HEFE market place since 1997.
John studied Electronics and Electrical Engineering at Loughborough University.
John’s early career focussed on telecommunications which included digital telephony
systems, he also worked on the digital interfaces for the analogue public telephone
exchanges connecting to digital exchanges. He expanded his expertise by moving
into the intelligent TDM market in the late 1980s with N.E.T. and picking up on the
first data routing solutions. In this role John deployed the first commercially available
8Mbps (E2) and 34Mbps (E3) systems in the UK.
John then focussed on the emerging data networking environment, working at
Wellfleet and Bay Networks before joining the Public Sector team at Cisco Systems
in 1998. At Cisco he specialised in designing pioneering IP Telephony solutions
which were deployed alongside other data networking equipment.
Since 2006 John has led the Higher and Further Education technical team
alongside a combination of the Local Government and now Healthcare teams.
Mick Mullane
Mick Mullane started his FE career programming an Apple Macintosh based MIS system. Since then he has moved on to networking, ILT and e-learning with a special
interest in mobile learning.
He is a current MoLeNET mentor with a skillset based around the use of podcasting,
SMS, and the iPhone. His full time job is as the Network Manager at Yorkshire Coast
College in Scarborough.
Andy Goff
Andy Goff, Education Director, Connected Education.
Our Education Director Andy Goff will deliver the presentation from ConnectED.
Andy is an expert on technology in schools, its use and application in the
classroom. He regularly delivers hands-on demos and workshops on advances in
mobile technology in schools and as an ex-teacher at Merchant Taylor’s School,
Rickmansworth he has unique understanding of how the education sector can
harness the learning potential of mobile platforms across the curriculum.
Jill Attewell
Jill Attewell leads LSN’s Technology for Learning team and manages the Technology
Enhanced Learning (TEL) Research Centre. The Technology for Learning team focus
on the use of ICTs to facilitate, enhance, support or improve access to teaching and
learning, especially post-compulsory learning. Jill is also Programme Manager of
the Mobile Learning Network (MoLeNET).
A particular focus of the TEL Research Centre’s work for seven years has been new
and emerging technologies for learning including handheld technologies, computer
games and interactive digital television. Jill’s experience includes 15 years in
education, mostly with LSN and predecessor agencies, and 10 years in the IT
industry in the UK and the Far East. She led m-learning (2001-2004) the first large
mobile learning project funded by the EU and is Vice President of the International
Association for Mobile Learning.
Carol Savill-Smith
Carol Savill-Smith, together with Jill Attewell, leads the Research and Evaluation
strand of the MoLeNET Support and Evaluation Programme. She is a member of LSN’s
Technology for Learning team and Senior Researcher in the Technology Enhanced
Learning Research Centre at LSN, where she has principally worked in the field of
mobile learning and computer games including the m-learning project and the mobile
learning teachers toolkit project which enabled teachers and tutors to author or
adapt mobile learning materials for the specific needs of their students in their
particular context.
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