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Lesley McGuire's Profile

Lesley McGuire's Profile Description
Current Role and Experience:

I am a researcher and project manager for a number of action research initiatives at Ultralab. My association with Ultralab began in 1998 when I joined the SchoolNet 2000 Project as an advisory teacher and the years working here have proved to be a truly ‘delightful’ learning experience.

In a former life, as head of ICT in a Hampshire secondary school, I was enlisted by the Local Education Authority to join a working group responsible for improving the assessment of ICT across the county. The materials we developed were promoted and adopted nationally.

I pursued this interest in assessment and ICT through my Master’s Research and completed my MSc in 1997. It was during this time that I first came across Professor Stephen Heppell and  when the opportunity arose to work with him I jumped at the chance.

In 2001 I joined the Talking Heads project working with NCSL to research the value of an online community of headteachers in reducing isolation and promoting good practice. My particular areas of research focus were; identifying an appropriate model of online facilitation, and developing an online course to disseminate our research and practice.

Eighteen months later I took on one of my most rewarding challenges so far at Ultralab, as Project Director of eVIVA, an innovative research project for QCA, exploring the use of digital technology in the assessment of pupils in ICT at KS3. This project was great fun and, because of the way in which it used mobile phone and voice (VXML) technology, it attracted a lot of media attention. I was involved in writing the two project bids for funding, both of which were successful, as well as leading the multidisciplinary research team of eight research colleagues.

The project ran for two years and came to a very successful conclusion in August 2004 with the presentation of our final report to QCA. We have since run another small eVIVA pilot study in New Zealand, and hope to extend this in the future. We are also exploring other UK partnership opportunities in a bid to take eVIVA into phase 3.

Currently I am working as project manager on the Ultraversity project (a fully online, work-based degree course: BA in Learning, Technology and Research) leading the research into the third cohort, which started in February 2005. My particular research focus here is on the patchwork media approach (Winter 1999) that we have developed to assess the work of our students. At present I am working with colleagues putting the finishing touches to a paper on this that we successfully presented at BERA 2006.

This Ultraversity role also involves me in working as a consultant with other establishments interested in adopting the Ultraversity online model. I am working with Bournemouth University at the moment, helping them to develop an online Master’s Degree in Digital Media. I am hoping to use the research from this to develop a consultation model that we can use in future consultancy work.

My final area of responsibility is to oversee ‘Ultralab Learning’ (Ultralab's online Master's programme). Currently we are working to develop an MA in Learning, Technology and Research to provide a natural path of progression for our BALTR students. We are also developing an online facilitation course in conjunction with CORE-ED in New Zealand which hopefully will be launched in June.

Research:

My research interests at present are focussed on two areas and the second of these is the subject of my PhD studies:

  • Promoting an approach to the assessment of ICT, which places greater emphasis on the authentic work and voice of the student, and offers innovative ways of assessing that work using mobile phone and/ or web technologies.
  • Investigating the role of the online facilitator in developing delightful online learning community environments

    Here is a link to my recent publications and conference presentations

  • My COS Profile can be found at http://myprofile.cos.com/lesleym

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