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About Me
- I am a Digital Media Artist. I like being able to make up my own job title.
I live in Coventry in the West Midlands. Places are very important to me.
I like cameras and screens. I am an evangelical gadget geek.
I like to hide in the space between analogue and digital.
I work with all kinds of people in all kinds of places. I like to learn new things and have new teachers.
All of my contact information is hiding down in the bottom right corner of your screen.
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BIO
- I am a digital media artist. I like the fact that I can make up my own job title.
Technology is at the centre of everything I do. I have never been daunted by it, but understand how others are. I am a geek (see definition http://ludi.cc/zusG4V). I grew up with technology in the house, my dad worked in IT and I was dialup networking before my primary school had a computer. I was the only kid in my secondary school that used our photography dark room. I divided my lunchtimes between the music department drum room and the maths department computer lab copying BASIC code from gaming magazines. I joined the Watermill Youth Theatre and volunteered backstage for in house and touring productions. I coasted through college with mediocre grades because I didn’t work hard enough. I hadn’t yet found a real passion.
I settled in the Midlands after moving from Berkshire to Coventry to study Communication Culture and Media at Coventry School of Art and Design. The course centred around the role of the media in a global society and the ways that technology effects the way people communicate. I found my passion, worked really hard and graduated with first class honours.
Whilst I was a student I began freelancing with local creative organisations. I worked extensively with Talking Birds (http://www.talkingbirds.co.uk) a company specialising in site-specific theatre and they taught me the importance of space. I worked as a camera operator and was paid to point cameras at Tony Blair and Jasper Carrot (among others). After graduating I made short films in Egypt and the Czech Republic, did the festival circuit and had regional broadcasts. I have exhibited and published my photography and toured as guitarist with a signed 7-piece ska outift. I also started Predacom, a multimedia production company that specialises in the documentation and evaluation of creative projects and performances.
After being involved in the Arts Council’s Capture programme for choreographers and moving image makers I began to experiment outside the traditional single-screen formats, particularly working with museums and art galleries. I collaborated with Jo Roberts to create video elements for Finding a Way Through, an exhibition commissioned by the Leamington Spa Art Gallery and Museum, the same venue that exhibited Mercurial Dance’s 100 Faces (http://ludi.cc/yQwJ12) in 2006. Other productions have included Reflections (2004), Little Glimpses (2005) and BeRibboned (2007) for The Herbert, and heritage projects An Act of Life (2008, http://vimeo.com/3539165), Bedbox, Blanco and Boots (2009) and Building Sights (2010, http://www.buildingsights.org) for Nuneaton Museum and Art Gallery.
I love working with new people, of all ages shapes and sizes. Much of my work is participatory, collaborating with young people and communities. I completed my ITT at the University of Warwick in 2008 with a specialism in Post-Compulsory Education and Training. I have lectured part-time in media theory and practice since 2003 at FE and HE levels. Installation BeRibboned (2007) for the Herbert was short listed for the Educational Initiative Award at the MLA Museum & Heritage Awards for Excellence and centred on the city’s ribbon-making industrial heritage. Greenham Common (2004) a film produced with children from St Nicolas Junior School about children’s vision for the former military base in Newbury, won Runners Up in the Young People’s Trust for the Environment’s LivingLand Awards. I have worked with over 150 schools, educational institutions and community venues across the country as a creative practitioner and digital media specialist, exploring how educators and educatees can make better use of digital media.
I pride myself on the fact that I rarely work with an organisation just once and have fostered ongoing relationships with regional galleries, museums, arts centres, cultural, community and education organisations. I love working with new people and find the process of collaboration incredibly rewarding.
I work really, really hard because I love what I do.
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Tweets
- @petambu @arctic_sunrise that app is called Aurasma and the actual user experience is pants. Takes ages and rarely works. Future not now.
- @arctic_sunrise @rayclenshaw Yes that's the stuff you ate.
- @RayClenshaw Apparently they contain peanuts. Not sure myself.
- There's a new Russian food shop opened in the Canal Basin. I am now eating Prjaniki. Nope, me neither.
- @Philippa_Cross @mooshtang I haven't watched it in years but used to be a family staple when I was a kid. Plenty of LOLs
- @ShivHarrison I love the idea of the public rioting because Godiva wasn't naked enough.
- @ShivHarrison Smith, A and Fry, D (1997) Godva's Heritage: Coventry's Industry. Simanda Press.
- The city waited 10 years before hosting another Godiva procession.
- People were also said to be upset by the tone of displays celebrating local industry. 35 premises were looted, 64 people hospitalised.
- 3 days of rioting followed the Godiva Parade of July 1919, a response to pouring rain, a speedy & brief procession & too many clothes on LG.
- @JosephineWoody our girls are obsessed with Mr Bean ATM. Watching classic episodes. Also awesome. Rowan A is a genius.
- @theokk with automatic citation for quoted content. :)
- @jobadge Voki has an Australian accent and various oz native animals. Habitats or storytelling from animated characters?
- @taylorsbutchers got any outdoor bred smoked back?
- @taylorsbutchers got to stop in for bacon and bangers as we're off camping with the @loonytoon clan
- @taylorsbutchers we'll have one please mate. Stop in Thursday if that's OK?
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Posts
First and foremost, then, all play is a voluntary activity. Play to order is no longer play: it could at best be but a forcible imitation of it … Here, then, we have the first main characteristic of play: that it is free, is in fact freedom. A second characteristic is closely connected with this, namely, that play is not “ordinary” or “real” life. It is rather a stepping out of “real” life into a temporary sphere of activity with a disposition all of its own. Every child knows perfectly well that he is “only pretending”, or that it was “only for fun”.
Huizinga, J (1955) Homo Ludens. Beacon Press- Google Teacher Academy
It’s taken a few days to sink in but on Friday I received confirmation that I had been selected to join this year’s Google Teacher Academy in London. The news followed a rather nervous day following the awesome #gtauk hastag on Twitter and maniacally clicking send/receive on my inbox. Considering the wealth of inspiring and dedicated practitioners applying to be involved I am a little overwhelmed and humbled to have been selected to train to become a Google Certified Teacher.
The GTA is a prestigious and fascinating professional development opportunity for me, not just the two days I’m due to spend down at Google’s London HQ in April but the chance to become part of a whole network of new collaborators from all over the world.
- BETT 2012
The annual technology conference at Olympia has been a regular southward pilgrimage for the last few years. It’s a great opportunity to wander endless halls of tech companies touting their wares, to get a feel for the new trends in EdTech and see new product launches.
There’s also a whole host of branded pens, canvas bags and squeezy polar bears that will save me hastily buying any beefeater or routemaster tat for the kids on my return.
If I am completely honest, I must admit that this year I failed to see any truly ground breaking new products or services that I felt were ready to revolutionise learning. In fact I saw some real stinkers.
It made me particularly happy to see Zulogic downstairs for the first time on a stand that seemed to give their great piece of stop-frame animation Zu3D the attention it deserves. I’ve been using Zu3D with primary and secondary classes for the last couple of years and am yet to find another package that offers the same functionality within a user interface that really works for both pupils and teachers. You shouldn’t support Zulogic because they are a small family business (the kind of business that spend weeks designing and making their own exhibition stand complete with giant giraffe) but because they deliver a fantastic product with a personal and focussed level of support.
I suppose this brings me to the real reason that I visit BETT each year, people.
The real magic of an event like BETT lies in the fact that educators and practitioners from across the world find themselves together. Teachmeet BETT 2012 (and its accompanying TeachEat) was again superb, an enlightening and uplifting few hours surrounded by hard working practitioners, sharing the experiences of using technology in the classroom. Next year I will also do everything I can to make it to Collabor8 For Change as I’m frankly a little disappointed in myself for two consecutive years of failing to be there.
It was also great to see more kids this year, not only as delegates but also presenting their experiences of technology in education, as rightful bastions of good practice. Thank you to all of the practitioners who worked so hard to bring young people to the conference and remind the industry of their role in teaching and learning.
Just a sneak peak of our exploration of technology during our residency at Fargo Space.
We meet textiles artist Julia O’Connell to explore the hybrid of open source electronics alongside different conductive fabrics and stitching.I don’t often tweet serious work tweets…but for Prezi users, this new feature is amazing…and I can breathe again! #prezi
Finger lickin’ car booty preliminary bend.
I bought this Lazy Town toy from a car boot on Sunday. It has four illuminated buttons that play a selection of sounds and songs from the (horrible) show. I think there is plenty of fun to be had with this, nice big case for mods. It already has a volume pot and 3.5mm minijack out.
50p.
iMovie ‘11 Trailer Mode.
Year 4 at Aldermoor Farm are working in groups to create movie trailers as part of their topic work. *Great tip* if you print out the Storyboard preview screen for the trailer, the kids can plan and annotate each shot really quickly and efficiently. It also makes a great log sheet to record your takes as you are shooting.
- 7-week Geocaching After-School Club
I’ve been working with two members of staff at Aldermoor Farm primary school to introduce geocaching into the school. To kick start it, we have devised a weekly 90-minute after-school club and I thought I’d share a brief line scheme.
The outcome of the project is to have a bank of upper phase kids who understand the game and the technology who can then assist other staff and kids to use it in the classroom.
The group will also release travel bugs and set a series of caches that are maintained by staff and pupils at the school.
Week 1
General introduction to GPS and coordinates using Google Earth to find ‘Virtual Caches’ from given coordinates and clues. Watch Geocaching.com intro 2-min video and talk about hiding and seeking. Search website for caches near to us.
Take kids outside to practice walking around using GPSr, following directions and looking at statistics (average speed, distance travelled etc)
Week 2
Kids work in groups to search school grounds using GPSr to find 12 micro caches placed by staff. Practice decoding clues.
Week 3
Groups take it in turns to hide caches and set clues. Kids practice loading cache coordinates into GPSr.Kids start researching potential locations outside of school grounds for hiding caches. Begin to build and camoflage 4 containers for their own ‘official’ series on Geocaching.com.
Week 4
Kids go to Coombe Abbey and work in groups to find official caches listed on the Geocaching.com website.
Week 5
Introducing trackables. Looking at the journeys of various geocoins and travelbugs. Kids get to hold various examples. Then working in groups to devise themes and missions for 6 school travelbugs. Naming and registering them on Geocaching.com website.
Week 6
Finish cache containers. Finalise cache descriptions, titles, hints and plot route of series on Google Earth to calculate walking distance of series.
Week 7
Return to Coombe Abbey to place caches (containing new travelbugs). Submit cache details to Geocaching.com.
- Time: 9:30am-2:30pm. Date: Monday 11th July 2011. Place: Paganel Primary School, B29 5TG. Who: Groups of 6 children, aged 6-11.
An amazing opportunity for kids and practitioners to share skills, ideas and best practice. Pick up new ideas and make new connections. If you can send 6 kids along I’m certain that the school will reap the benefits. I’ll definately be there, just got to find some kids to go with…
- Geocaching Rocks! Part 1
I’m still buzzing from an amazing day last week with Y3 at New Invention Juniors. We have just started on a really exciting three-week cross-curricular geocaching project that I have planned alongside the class teacher.
The kids are learning all about geocaching, using the GPS devices, hiding and seeking caches, trackable items etc. They are also curriculum tie-ins to literacy and numeracy as well as their science work… rocks
This week the kids used this amazing BBC resource on netbooks (and the IWB) to learn about the three different types of rock; igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic.
They spent the afternoon finding caches on the school playground. Each cache contained some examples of rocks and a letter A, B or C. The kids had work in teams to identify each rock by applying the knowledge from earlier in the day.
My work once again took a strange chicken trajectory today. Today’s school has an amazing wooded area at the back of the building, they have a story circle and benches, a pond etc. It is also now home to a rather charming chook trio and an Eglu. The birds were hatched at the school, two girls and a (quite noisy) cockerel. I found out today that (sadly) since the chickens have been resident, the outside learning space has been used less and less
The school council have decided to tackle this head-on. I’m going to be working with them to plan some exciting cross-curricular lesson ideas for the space and then the kids are going to blog about them. I’ve helped some of the teachers at the school to experiment with class blogs (like Y3) but everyone thought it important for the school council to be responsible for a pupil-led web presence for the school. Their whole-school blog is about sharing the successess and celebrating the diversity of a charming city primary.
This is a perfect example of how digital media can give kids the chance to be active in motivating and inspiring their teachers and peers, with a postitive effect their own and others’ teaching and learning.
- Making World Music with Garageband
Today I spent the day introducing Year 5 kids to Garageband.
I have been working with Y5 at Hill Farm Primary school to create a multimedia performance for the end of their topic ‘Artist’s Interpretations of the World’.
The children, across two classes, are working in groups of 8 to create music, film and dance themed to a worldwide cultural tradition.
The kids and I would love to hear your thoughts:
Make it Reel 2011 @warwickarts
This year I will once again be running a film summer school at Warwick Arts Centre.
“We’re going to set young people a tough but exciting summer challenge – five days to make a five-minute film in a five-person crew. It can be done!”
http://www.warwickartscentre.co.uk/events/family/make-it-reel-summer-film-school
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Videos
