Mark Constable's Profile

Mark graduated in 2000 with a 2:1 Honours degree in Geography where he specialised in Geographical Information Systems and Coastal Geomorphology. He has been working at Ultralab since September 2001 where he has been involved in a host of large, medium and small scale Action Research projects focusing around Education and Technology.

He is currently researching new ways of designing, delivering and supporting Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), E-Portfolios and Online Learning Communities in a 100% online distance learning context for the Ultraversity Project. Since 2003 the large-scale project involving over 700 students to date, has experimented with several different solutions, some created in house, others propietory and most recently the appropriation and development of Open Source solutions. The current 4th iteration of research focusses around the use of Plone (an Open Source Content Management System) as a VLE.

Mark is also involved in other areas of research related to the Ultraversity Project and is co-writing papers on Widening Participation based on our data and experience from the Ultraversity Project.

Another area of current research is the organisation of the BA in Learning, Technology and Research. Together with Greta Mladenova, Tony Browne, Hamish Scott-Brown and Stephen Powell we will be suggesting useful changes in our online community to improve our working practices in this important area and develop the Ultraversity model.

Mark has been working with colleague Neil Boughen, researching the use of Streaming Technologies to bring together a distributed workforce. Their research has undergone several iterations and they are now able to provide, and have disseminated to colleagues a world leading model for telepresence. The technology is now being used widely throughout Ultralab at our regular team meetings, and has been used in a wide range of projects within Ultralab, around the University and with external organisatins to provide responsive, real-time remote video broadcasting on low bandwidth.

In 2004 Mark was a researcher on a project for CABE (Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment) to investigate the Future of Learning Environment Design. Since then he has worked closely with Stepping Stones; a new school for children with Hemiplegia and with a number of other schools, helping them to exploit emerging technologies and create flexible learning spaces.

Mark worked as Lead Researcher on a national survey of the IT Freedoms and and Facilities Availiable to UK Higher Education Students, the main findings of which were printed in the Financial Times, THES and other publications. An outline and summary of the research can be found here.

During His time at Ultralab, Mark has been involved many of the Digital Creativity projects, grouped under the project umbrella Summerschool. SummerSchool was a major five year action research project exploring how evolving creative technologies can be used to increase learning opportunity, engage, re-engage and disseminate findings. Each independent project has resulted in celebration events, multi-press DVD productions and in some cases dissemination on television.

He was a member of the pilot team for ICDC (International Certificate in Digital Creativity) focussing on the assessement of creative work, specifically peer review of E-portfolios to create a meaningful qualification which values the creative elements of digital work.

From the knowledge gained from the above research Mark has run training sessions for technically challenged personnel to achieve the requirements of strategic organisational change requiring a focus on technology use in teaching.

In 2001 Mark worked as a Research Assistant to Dr Stan Owers, studying the Place and Perception of Technology in the National Curriculum which informed Dr Owers' Study of The Culture of Tools. His main responsibliltes were the collection, manipulation and analysis of large volumes of data.