Jonathan now works as ICT co-ordinator and teacher at Kings Road Primary School in Chelmsford, Essex. Kings Road Primary School is a large school, serving a mixed socio-economic catchment area. Jonathan's role is to embed creativity and ICT into the curriculum through the use of innovative technologies. This is a role Jonathan is excited to pursue and work has already begun with children reflecting on their learning on the school blog site.
Previous, Jonathan led a team at Stepping Stones School in Hindhead, Surrey, in a role which he enjoyed for 2 years . Using his strengths in learning and visionary approaches to using technology in providing an education for children with Hemiplegia, Stepping Stones became a reality and is the only school for children with Hemiplegia, in the UK. Hemiplegia is a condition which affects some 10,000 children across the country. Many have a physical disability, affecting just one side of their body depending upon which side of the brain has been affected. This is an exciting new project, not least because the school is situated in a converted chapel and has subsequently been remodelled in its new guise as a specialist school. The school built its curriculum around the use of technology and creative approaches to learning using computers, and as such, our pupils each have access to a personal laptop computer.
Earlier, Jonathan worked at Ultralab, taking on the roles of software developer, and consulted on several projects relating to the design of learning spaces. Ultralab, was a learning technology research centre in Chelmsford, Essex. Jonathan has been affiliated to Ultralab for over a decade, bringing with him his experience in technology and education.
Jonathan's background is in teaching, where he trained and subsequently taught for several years at a primary school. Jonathan enjoyed his very rewarding time in the primary classroom, teaching children from 5 to 11 years old.
Over the past ten years, much of Jonathan's work has centred around using, supporting and building, online learning communities. Back in 1997, he supported the first pilot of the Online Learning Network (OLN), Learning in the New Millennium, Oracle's Codename Scoop (think.com), and more recently, Ultraversity - Ultralab's online degree course for undergraduates. He has been responsible for developing the online community software and portfolio tools which allows the researchers to share their action research work amongst themselves and facilitators.
In addition, Jonathan has written the specification for the Distributed School project, a key opportunity to explore whether children living in small village communities can use technology to bring them together into a much larger community of learners. Imagine a 'node' of 12 children connected to two other 'nodes' of equal size via video walls that opens the door to discussion and collaboration - sounds interesting? Get in touch.
Besides his involvement in many other projects, Jonathan sits on the Royal Television Society jury for Multimedia in Primary and Secondary Education.
Tried to post this as reply
Tried to post this as reply to proper blog entry, but no worky. Bah.
Jonathan,
take a peek here http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/index.php/GPSOnNewton . Ron, myself and others have compiled quite a bit of data on GPS for Newton.
Ron and I use GPS mouse-type receivers (Ron on a MP120 with external USB pack as power supply, I with my MP2100 and a custom cable adapter by Adriano that feeds my Newton GPS data and pulls power for the receiver -- works great!), but you can also use a Garmin or Magellan as GPS antenna, or a PCMCIA or CF card receiver. Whatever you can borrow or buy cheap, as long as it talks NMEA. No prob!
If you want to know more, check above link and catch me or Ron at http://www.newtontalk.net and post or drop us a mail. -- You may also want to browse the Wiki and rediscover the Newton. Today it does Bluetooth, Wifi, mp3, runs webservers, talks to you, works with cheep and large (CF-)ATA cards, has an OS X emulator, runs a Nintendo emulator, and still has the best screen for reading eBooks on the (non-)market...
Cheers,
'Kasko
The Temporary Newton Library http://www.stillnewt.org/library
Jonathan
Hi Kasko,
I'm sorry that you've experienced problems posting your comment to my blog. In the past 24 hours I have been bombarded with SPAM comments which is becoming a bit of an issue. To help fight against the 'one every 10 minute' scenario, I switched on the SPAM filter. Certainly helped, but it's also treated your comment as SPAM - so probably acting a little fierce at the moment.
Anyway, thank you very much for the comment, the information you have supplied is very very useful indeed. Thank you. It is just what I've been looking for. Brilliant! :-)
Wendy O'Connor
Hi Jonathan. A colleague and myself have been granted a travel scholarship by our College and we would love to visit Learn3K in early December this year. I am currently the Team Facilitator of a pilot program in Bendigo, Victoria, Australia. We have set up a centre for students who have been disengaged from mainstream education for a whole range of reasons. Some kids come to the Centre to learn, others learn online from home. I would love you to email me to let me know the best way to contact you guys and to try and set up an opportunity to visit you and learn about your great work. oconnor.wendy@bssc.edu.au Hope to hear from you soon. Cheers!
Jonathan
Hello Wendy, I emailed you yesterday, thanks for your comment. Hope to hear from you soon.
Matt
Well I hope you have had a nice christmas and new year, and that you recieved all the prezzies you were hoping for. I see you have stopped going into the lab so early, its now 7.30 and nobody is there. Anyway I hope you are well and that the kids from stepping stones had a good time at bafta, and are still enjoying there ipod nanos,
take care,
Matt
p.s do you know where I can find the photo's for the most recent bafa event?:)
Jonathan
Hello Matt, good to hear from you again.
Happy New Year.
Ah yes... early starts a thing of the past at the moment, dark mornings make it not so attractive for getting out of bed early, and working late into the evening/morning doesn't help matters much.
I am still compiling the photographs, just need some help from Lys with names. I'll post them here as soon as they are visible somewhere :-)
Take care,
Matt
I am glad you are well and that you have not forgotten me. I am very pleased that you are going to put the photo's on show as they might work in my favour. You see I am applying to go to bournemouth university next year to study media business and entrepreneurship. As I will be classed as a mature student, and lack in qualifications, I am trying to develope a portfolio of previous work and projects I have been involved with. The main reason for this is, I really miss learning, which is one thing I could achieve so freely at the lab. With you guy's (and girls) I was surrounded by a whole wealth of knowledge, (the way I would describe working at the lab is, "stuck in a pool of knowledge surrounded by people who know exactly how to use this knowledge to improve the world of eduction today, and the future") and people that were incredibly willing to teach me something new, which is something I had never experianced before, mainly due to the fact that I was so unco-operative during my years in education. I really want to go to uni to study media because it is a subject that I just thrive on, and i long to know as much as I can about. I am ever so sorry that I missed richards 50th birthday, and I hope that he had a wonderful couple of days celebrating, please wish him a happy belated birthday for me. I am so relieved that you treated me with so much respect and hospitality at the BAFTA event, because I did expect a little bit of hostility due the way I behaved at the lab. I long to work once again within the digital media sector, and i am ever so upset that I Ieft such an incredible chance in life with the lab, however I will forever be in debt to the team at the lab that gave me so much, hope, knowledge, experiance, self respect, and changed my outlook on life completely, thankyou. So my friend, I have realised, life goes on. You must move forward to improve the future and ones self as a human being.
Please say hello to everybody at the lab for,
take care and enjoy life,
matt
Matt
p.s please excuse any typo's......
PDonaghy
Hi Jonathan
Have just been enjoying reading your blog and thought you might be interested in adding your blog details to the International Edubloggers Directory at http://edubloggerdir.blogspot.com
Patricia
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