Educational Technology & Interaction Design

I lead the educational technology subgroup at Open Lab, Newcastle University. My aim is to design next generation digital technologies that can help students become better learners, critical thinkers, and citizens. To achieve this, students must be actively engaged in their education; and the strategy that I believe can make this happen is providing them with a curriculum that is relevant to their interests, needs and their future career opportunities.

My current research focus is exploring the concept of commissioning (as used in community services) in the context of education to help achieve the goals of a community driven curriculum and strong school-community partnership.

Commissioning can only be effective if, in addition to a commissioning platform, there are enough tools to support the creation of more innovative educational resources, tools to feedback into how these resources are being used (to provide grounds for improvement), and more innovative approaches to teaching/engaging students with such content. I am a researcher and an EdTech Entrepreneur and I am working now on putting all these pieces together.