Colin Elsey's Profile

Matthew Eaves is a kidder. Matthew Eaves told me to take my passport with me when I flew from Stansted Airport to a UK airport, Glasgow Preswick on one of our data collection trips for lifeboats.TV. I didn't take it, but it was embarrasing when the guy at the checkin at Stansted said 'passport please' . Matthew wasn't kidding. They let me get on the plane when a neighbour faxed the photo page of my passport to Stanstead.

Why do you work there?

Because I was asked to. Because I love it. Because it is one of the very few places that would entice me away from teaching 'A' level Technology at a sixth form college.

Tell us about your home life:

I live in Rayleigh with my wife Viv, who is the most understanding woman I know. My son Mark moved out last year, about sixteen years later than expected.  My other son Paul has a young lad called Tate who is great and is expecting a daughter (to be called Millie) sometime in April.

Favorite book:

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Favorite film:

The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone

Favorite web link:

The first and original HTML help just for kids - est 1997

About me...........

I failed the eleven plus. I left school at 16. I then spent five quite enjoyable years in the Royal Engineers and trained as a lithographic printer. I then teacher trained in D&T and Science. I taught CDT tor 15 years to 11 to 16 year olds, I worked for 8 1/2 years with Essex Advisory Service and another seven as a Head of Faculty in a sixth form college. I picked up an MSc, BA, Ad.Dip,Ed, and Cert Ed along the way but am still very much learning My 'free' time is split between sailing the east coast, DIY at home or round my other son Paul's house, playing guitar in a shanty band and reading.

mail me:

colin@ultralab.net

Colin Elsey

Research Interests

Institutional Self-Evaluation

This was part of Essex TVEI Project when I was then the Project Director of TVEI pilot in Essex. The research was in collaboration with Dr David Hopkins of Cambridge Institute of Education, and involved generating support materials for a wide scale staff development exercise, including all secondary schools and FE colleges in Essex. The outcomes were that all staff involved received a certificate in Staff Development from Cambridge Institute, and the LEA had a well-developed model of Institutional Self-Evaluation that it could use as part of its school evaluation programme.

Evaluation and Accountability

This was an exercise to explore whether the three primary evaluation strategies adopted by the LEA met any or all of the three primary constituencies, namely Public or Bureaucratic, Professional or Consumer. (Kogan, M, 1986,  Education accountability: An analytic overview. London: Hutchinson.) The three evaluation strategies were:
1. An external inspection with the agenda externally set;
2. An external inspection with agenda internally set against external targets:
3. An external moderation, verifying a process of internal institutional self-evaluation based on internally set targets.

This two-year study led to the award of MSc in Educational Management from Anglia Polytechnic University.

Sharing Innovations

This was a collaborative study between Ultralab and The Design Council. The Design Council had awarded in excess of thousand British companies the status of a Millennium Company. This was in recognition of their particularly creative or innovative products or services. The idea was explore to what degree the companies could be used as a school resource in a variety of subject contexts. There were some notable successes, with an maker of a ‘rescue kite’ working with some year nine textiles pupils designing and making kites and another company who converted plastic cups into pencils working with some ‘A’ Level Design and Technology students on a study of recycling issues. The study highlighted the problems of using busy, for profit organisations, at a time of economic downturn, in laudable but not profit making activities.

Creativity in Design and Technology

This is an ongoing project with its first research proposal drafted in March 2003. It was largely in response to a PhD thesis that Stan Owers completed at Ultralab entitled ‘The Place and Perception of Design and Technology in the National Curriculum’ as well as a document entitled ‘Creativity in Crisis’, working paper 18 from the Design and Technology Association. The four key areas that we intend to address are:
1. The nature of creativity and how it can be ‘provoked’?
2. What are the ‘critical functions’ in terms of knowledge; skills and understanding that pupils actually need to explore and solve technological problems?
3. How can ‘real world’ issues be used as the focus for technological projects?
4. How can pupils be encouraged to work collaboratively in an assessment system that only supports individual work?

This early work, together with Ultralab’s expertise in online communities, eportfolios and the Ultraversity, has led to a project in Wales with a number of partners looking at CPD and new assessment strategies in Design and Technology.

Ultraversity Research

The focus of my contribution to the ongoing research into Ultraversity, Ultralab’s online BA (Hons) degree in Learning, Technology and Research is to compare Ultraversity with established theoretical models, the primary one being Gilly Salmon’s, E-Moderating: the key to Teaching and Learning Online (Salmon 2000).
Gilly Salmon proposes a ‘Five stage model’ and to date we have looked in some depth at the early stages of an online programme, which include the notions of readiness to start and cognitive, technical skills and social skills to be able to work in an online environment. This has lad to the development of simple diagnostic tools to identify readiness shortfalls with a view to producing an appropriate induction programme.  We are also using the model to bring together the work of other Ultraversity research teams into a coherent package.

Summers Schools

I am working with several colleagues in Ultralab who have been involved in the delivery of a number of Summer Schools in the UK and abroad, to explore the nature and purpose of the Summer Schools and the creative use of Multi Media in allowing young pupils to explore and present their ideas in an innovative way. The outcome of this work will be a publication intended to be of value to other people proposing similar work.