Carole's work page

• working with schools, headteachers and Dorset LA to develop the proposed Portland Academy
• supporting the development of inclusion projects worldwide
• from January 1st 2011 working with heppell.net and the Nominet Trust on the Cloudlearn digital research project

whilst at Inclusion Trust my official role was 'Head of Research and Evaluation'; my responsibilies were wide ranging.

I was exteremely proud to be working mainly on Notschool.net, a project which I helped design in the late 1990's and which was novated from Ultralab to Inclusion Trust in 2005. You can read a brief history of the development of the Notschool.net project here.

Although the Trust has expanded its interest and research in disengaged learners, Notschool.net remains its flagship programme. A brief overview of my responsibilites whilst at Inclusion Trust include;

• development of the 14 - 19 curriculum for young people at risk.
• liaison with examination boards, care homes, local authorities, schools, third sector organisations and families of vulnerable children.
• undertaking evaluations of 'out of school' learning for other countries, notably Sweden and Ireland.
• co-ordinating research data.
• co-authoring research papers for public consumption.
• carrying out research and writing research papers for framework 7 EU project on 'Mobile Technology and Disengaged Learners'
• co-managing a one year research project, In2uition, funded by the DfES Innovation Unit and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, for those identied by schools as being in danger of falling out of education.

During my time at Ultralab I undertook a wide range of research and managed a number ofsignificant project of which I am very proud. In their own way many of these were groundbreaking. The full details would tak many pagesso if you are interested please use the links to look at some of the highlights identified here.

• running a longitudinal online community research project, in collaboration with Nortel Networks and seven schools (primary and secondary), from 1993 and 2000. This project investigated the possible use of new technologies in schools, and included an examination of the classroom use of the world wide web, video and mobile phones. This video discusses the project methodology and some of its achievements in phase one.
• responsibility for co- developing and implementing the first cohort of new BA online programme - the Ultraversity project. In this video learners from cohort one discuss the impact completing the BA has had on their lives.
• working in collaboration with DfES and National College of School Leadership from 2000 - 2003 to develop the new, online National Professional Qualification for School Headship and cordinatiing and co-writing the final report documenting the programmes iimpact.
• developing and running the 'Talking Heads' community and the 23 facilitators who worked with the headteachers in the community. Managing the novation to the National College of School Leadership in 2004.
• managing the Culture Online project 'Every Object Tells a Story" from 2004 until November 2005. This project was a collaboration between Ultralab, Channel 4 and the Victoria and Albert Museum. The highlight of this project was the 'video taxi' which drove around the country, including visiting some of the least accessible sites (for example traveller camps) to collect the public's stories about their objects.

my work whilst at Ultralab included undertaking a number of commissions for various parties, most of which resulted in research reports. An indicative list of these is below with links to the reports where they are in the public domain.

I was involved in education for nearly twenty years, teaching and then running a large department in a secondary school in Waltham Forest, part-time teaching while caring for a young family and working for the Essex home tutoring service working with children outside traditional education.

• BECTA to evaluate Gridclubs (2004)
• CABE on 'Building Learning Futures' (2004)
• NCSL to lead the writing of an overview of learning community handover (2005)
• DfES to lead and investigation into, and critique of, learning management systems (2005)
• Microsoft to investigate the use and application of their virtual learning environment (2006)
• Notschool.net Ireland to evaluate the effectiveness of their online community (2009)
• Portland Academy to complete the Expression of Interest (2010)