MirandaNet consultants are drawn from the over 700 MirandaNet membership and from other interested persons on the basis of their wide expertise and their similar vision for teaching and learning: a constructivist and social networking perspective. They are all experienced in the most current uses of digital technologies in teaching and learning contexts.
- Allison Allen has been closely involved in MirandaNet research and course development. She has a range of experience in organisational development within ICT, Inclusion and across the curriculum and focuses on the growth areas in education of assessment, raising attainment, self review, ICT Mark preparation/assessment and e-safety. She is particularly talented in providing professional development for teachers and consultancy for suppliers developing new and existing products. She is also expert in helping existing and start-up Academies, Free & other new schools & new builds to gain traction with ICT and meaningful vision – providing specialist consultant support and project management for ICT. Allison has held a number of senior posts in education ICT and publishes resources, news and an occasional blog on her PLE. She is an experienced coach mentor with a strong background in change management and curriculum development working with individuals, groups and teams.
- Richard Allen is a specialist in education transformation and learning services, and an experienced educator to Masters level. He has written, delivered and assessed HE courses from foundation to masters on Managing Business Processes, Operations Management, Total Quality Management, Environmental Management and EU Environmental Legislation. He has particular experience in education advising on the use of Investment Planning tools and sustainability for technology (ICT) in education. He has organized and led capital program visioning events for wide ranging stakeholders, introducing tools such as the Self Review Framework and ICT Design Quality Indicators as a precursor to developing outstanding and coherent visions. He is fully familiar with all the elements of capital program ICT Consultancy covering Education, Technical and Procurement. His business management background in international hi-tech industries, business school senior lecturer, teacher training and consultancy to government, local authorities and schools.
- Leon Cych works right at the edge of Innovative Education Tech and tries to find ways of mainstreaming it within the existing system. He tends to work in highly creative, rapidly evolving projects that require a lot of agility like the MirandaMod series of unconferences. Leon is important to MirandaNet in assessing future potential and being a disruptor of the status quo because he only uses these talents in moving people positively towards more 21st Century methods of teaching and learning. He has a vision of remodelling education in this country and pulling the edge to the centre in terms of practice. He has worked for many of the larger firms in the education industry but as his skillset is pretty out on a limb he tends to do self-financing R&D and let others pay me for ideas or innovations that come out of that.
- Paresh Dudhaiya is the Apple engineer for MirandaNet who specialises in understanding his clients’ needs and teaching them to get the best from their systems whatever their level of technical expertise. He plans the systems that his clients need, organises the best and most economical means of maintaining those systems and explains what needs to be done about future-proofing. He makes sure that his clients not only learn how the use the best systems well, but also how to harness the power of digital technologies to enhance their internal communications, their business success and their online training programmes and events.
- Dr Glenys Hart has worked in education for most of her career. She has taught in schools, been Head of Department, a Senior Leader, worked as an ICT advisor in a Local Authority and is an Ofsted inspector for ICT and science. Glenys is now an independent education consultant involved in a wide rangeof projects, including science and ICT, mentoring new science and mathematics teachers, personalised, collaborative and global learning. One of her clients is a charity which aims to bridge the digital divide by significantly increasing access to ICT for education, and specifically to ensure that every child in the UK, irrespective of background, should have access to technology for learning especially at home, working in partnership with schools, parents and businesses. She has trained many school to target track using assessment software, assessed the ICT mark, been a tutor for Masters level training for ICT Co-ordinators. Her particular interests are digital photography (still and video), use of digital microphones for specific learning difficulties and the use of video conferencing in education .
- Terry Freedman has held senior positions in education since 1975. Now an independent educational ICT consultant, he contributes extensively to the educational community. For example, he was Chair of Naace, is a member of the Society of Authors and publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Computers in Classrooms”. He blogs regularly for Technology & Learning blog and guests on other blogs. He speaks at national and international events, e.g. iCTLT 2010 in Singapore, and is an active participant in online communities. He is a Fellow of MirandaNet, Naace and the RSA, and an Ambassador for ISTE. He is involved in advising and judging for international projects, e.g. the Flat Classrooms Project and the forthcoming NetGen Project.
- David Fuller’s approach to teaching and learning is based his practical teaching in the classroom. He is keen to help teachers develop the instinctive feel for teaching that is not always encouraged by chasing targets. in his view, the classroom should provide a relaxed, relatively informal atmosphere, but one where discipline is maintained, and the children feel secure in their learning.
- Dominic Preston is strategic, creative, enthusiastic – and sometimes unorthodox – in his approach to the use of digital technologies which can be a benefit in designing teaching and learning tasks . He can grasp complex, technological problems and strip them down to the basic elements. For MirandaNet his involvement with Living, a comic designed by 11 year old children is an example of how combining professional skill with children’s enthusiasm can create impressive outcomes.
- Theo Kuechel is a consultant, researcher and has been a part time tutor at the University of Hull since 2002. He has worked on recent national Becta, JISC, QIA projects and evaluations, and has also been involved with writing and developing the FD University course in Applied Digital Media for Educators.
- Geoff Scott Baker’s As an IT professional Geoffrey been associated with MirandaNet since its inception in 1992 and was awarded a MirandaNet Fellowship for his focus on international school project exchanges in North America and China. His IT career began in 1983 with Digital Equipment Company (DEC) followed by Uniplex and Data General in a variety of international management, marketing and consultancy roles. He is currently Automation Director for Oracle Corporation designing business intelligence solutions and managing global virtual development teams to deliver those solutions worldwide.In addition Geoffrey has specific skills in user interface design, structured data interchange and solution delivery within international contexts.
- Gaynor Sharp brings a focus on science to MirandaNet but she has many specialisms including philosophy for children, mentoring beginning science and mathematics teachers and working to inspire excellence in school science through the Association for Science Education. In order to do this Gaynor has organised numerous teacher events focusing on a broad range of issues, for example transition, formative assessment, creativity in school science, equality and diversity, How Science Works and so on. The workshops are presented as a response to teacher requests and the workshops help to inspire teachers to be creative and challenging to learners in a constructive and meaningful manner.
