Jane Down's Profile

Ultralab is a unique organisation dedicated to research and development in the use of ICT in education, and I have been fortunate enough to be a part of it in a principal facilitator / lecturer position for nearly seven years now. I am a researcher and project innovator / developer of large scale action research initiatives during this period of time, including Talking Heads for the NCSL and currently the Ultraversity BA (Hons) Learning, Technology and Research degree. I work as a member of a large multidisciplinary team that develops innovative pedagogical and technical pathways for learning, teaching and assessment.

The Talking Heads project involved facilitating the head teacher communities in Think.com and later in Talk2Learn. I worked on this project from its early inception through to six months prior to handover. My research work allowed me to gain valuable insight into the development and sustainability of online community, facilitation practice and innovation in the use of community tools for a wide variety of dialogue and interaction between participants. Over a period of three years the work involved a number of iterations of action research methodology to provide an ever-widening range of improvements and arenas for use. For example I was involved in the development of Leading from the Middle online courses for middle managers in schools, Network Learning Communities, the Online Facilitation and Tutoring Course and the Online Mentoring course.  With my colleagues I published research findings for documentation for handover to NCSL at the end of 2003.

In 2003 I moved to the Ultraversity project, again involved with it from inception to the current time, and again very much in a development / innovation role, as well as completing action research studies throughout to improve and develop module delivery, retention and standards of achievement for our student researchers. Ultraversity is a completely online research based degree for undergraduates. I have been module leader for the Learning in the Workplace Setting 1 [UNB 2606] for Year 1 students, Learning in the Workplace Setting 2 [UND 2602] for Year 2 students, and in Year 3 I am module leader for Implement Action Research [UNH 3603] and Exhibition and for Graduate Skills for Personal Development and Employment [UNH1995]. This year we hope to see 150 undergraduates complete a BA (Hons) Learning, Technology and Research. As a member of the first cohort team throughout the three years I feel both extremely excited and proud to see the impact of this on programme on so many people.

Prior to working for Ultralab I worked for ten years in West Glamorgan Advisory Service, again on the leading edge of development and innovation in the use of ICT in Education. I was particularly involved in key developments and learning related to Design and Technology in Food, Textiles and CDT areas. I helped develop and implement the use of software for food analysis, kitchen planning, textile design and CAD/CAM in embroidery, woven and knitted fabric; and also played a key part in developing CAD/CAM in electronic and pneumatic systems, and the use of cutter plotters. My roles over the years have included early development of GNVQ courses and key skills, Design and Technology examination syllabuses and papers for GCSE [City & Guilds], and authoring a range of books and CD Roms for publication in the areas of D & T and GNVQ.

My initial link with Ultralab was through the Tesco SchoolNet 200O Millennium project  when I became the Advisory teacher for the project for West Wales. This again allowed me to work at the leading edge of ICT in education when we were encouraging children to research and produce materials for the Internet at a time when others could only see the Internet as a resource for children to gain information from. This idea is still largely prevalent today, six years on, with very few schools encouraging pupils to develop materials to share with others via the Internet.

To maintain my links both with Wales and the way ICT is developing in secondary schools I am an Estyn school inspector with 30 inspections completed to date. The areas I inspect covers key self evaluation questions, ICT at KS3, GCSE, AS/A level, as a Key Skill / GNVQ, and ICT across the curriculum. I also inspect Design and Technology [all materials] from KS3 through to AS/ A level; Home Economics related subjects of Food, Textiles, Child Development, and GNVQ subjects of Health and Social Care, and very occasionally Manufacturing.