Graham Attwell

Graham Attwell is a researcher working for Pontydysgu, a research and development organisation based in Pontypridd. His research interests include knowledge development and sharing, open source software and the use of social software and web 2.0 for teaching and learning.

Recently Graham has been working with the European Mature IP project on the use of mobile devices for learning.

Graham Attwell writes for journals and books but prefers making videos and writing on his blog - the World Wide Web - www.pontydysgu.org

Charlotte Aynsley, UK Council for Child Internet Safety

Charlotte is currently seconded from BECTA to lead the implementation of the education recommendations of Dr Tanya Byron’s’ ‘Safer Children in a Digital World’ report through the UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS).  She works with the chair of the Better Education working group to ensure that the recommendations are taken forward.  Her work includes collaborating with national agencies, government departments and industry.

As well as working on the UKCCIS project team, Charlotte leads Becta’s strategy on safeguarding online which means that she is responsible for Becta’s advice and guidance to schools, local authorities and government.

She was an original member of the Home Secretary's Child Protection on the Internet Task Force and managed the education sub group, she was also a member of the Internet Watch Foundation Board and sits on CEOP’s Education Advisory Board.
 

Dr Sangeet Bhullar, Executive Director, WISE KIDS

Sangeet is the Founder and Executive Director of WISE KIDS, a non-profit organisation providing innovative training programmes and consultancy in New Media, Internet and Mobile Technologies, Internet Proficiency, Literacy and Safety. An older Digital Native, trained as an Electrical Engineer, she believes strongly in the potential of Internet and Mobile technologies to transform learning, youth, community and business development.

WISE KIDS works with a wide range of partners including Schools, Colleges, Youth Organisations, Community Projects, Private and Public Sector Organisations. Sangeet is also on a number of government and non-government groups where she promotes Digital Inclusion and New Media Literacy. These include the Welsh Assembly Government supported Communities 2.0 Programme,  WISP- Wales Internet Safety Partnership (which she Chairs currently), UK Council for Child Internet Safety, the BBC Audience Council for Wales, and CEOP’s Education Advisory Board. She has spoken at conferences, been an external examiner, written guidance and provided training across Britain, Singapore and Malaysia. She can be found on Twitter as @sangeet.



 

Leon Cych

Leon Cych is currently UK Director of Learn 4 Life and specialises in consulting on the effective use of emerging technologies in business and education. He divides his time between speaking, project managing, filming, blogging and podcasting with key innovators in the UK education sector, especially practitioners' use of Web 2.0 technologies in the education sector.

He is a regular contributor to the Futurelab blog at http://flux.futurelab.org.uk  and also maintains an educational Vlog and podcasting site at http://www.L4L.co.uk.  His next major project will be to facilitate teaching and learning for teachers in Second Life as part of a BSF project in Salford. He is currently working as a filmmaker for Open Source Schools and is training people in immersive environments

 

Alan Davies, Conference Chair

Born in London in 1955, Alan is a Welsh-speaking Welshman with deep family roots in West Wales. He now lives in Cardiff and is the proud husband of Mari, and father to 2 sons, Tomos and Tecwyn both of whom are at Aberystwyth University (2008). Alan spent 18 years in the British Army before embarking on a successful business career in Wales which saw him involved in leading various business start-ups and in creating several hundred jobs in high tech companies.

During one of these roles he was NTL and Virgin Net’s representative on the Internet Watch Foundation and has a great personal interest in the use of technology in business and personal life. Alan regularly comments on TV and radio on a number of issues, predominately related to his military experience and understanding of technology.

Tim Davies, Practical Participation

Tim Davies is founder and co-director of Practical Participation, a consultancy working to promote the human rights of children and young people and the active involvement of all citizens, young and old, in the decisions that affect their lives. Over the last three years Tim has been responsible for a range of research and action learning projects exploring the use of social media in youth work and youth participation settings, including the Youth Work & Social Networking research project and action learning sets on social media in local democracy. Tim is currently studying for an MSc in the Social Science of the Internet at the Oxford Internet Institute, and actively blogs at http://www.timdavies.org.uk , and Tweets via @timdavies.

John Davitt

John Davitt is a writer, broadcaster and a digital toolmaker. He has worked in the education sector for the last twenty-five years as an English teacher, senior manager and regional adviser with the EU Flexible Learning Project. As a journalist he wrote for the UK Guardian, The Times and The Observer, with a regular feature in the Education Guardian. John has worked extensively with teachers in schools in UK, USA, China and Africa and he is committed to levelling the playing field regarding access to new learning opportunities. He is the author of the book “New Tools for Learning” (2006) a practical guide as to how to make the technology fit the learning need, and the WordRoot CD an interactive guides to words and their etymology. He has recently developed The Learning Score a visual tool that lets teachers map out and share learning intentions as a graphical event - rather like a music score. His latest project is the open source Learning Event Generator (http://legwork.pbwiki.com ) and the Rag - an interactive learning tool for the iPhone where you can literally shake up a learning challenge. His new book 'Setting Learning Free - The Difference Engine runs again' will be published in winter 2009.

Dr Geoff Elliott

Dr Geoff Elliott has been actively working and researching in the field of learning technology since 1992. Geoff completed his PhD in Educational Hypermedia in 1999 and lectured in the subject at the University of Glamorgan before becoming the production manager of the innovative eCollege Wales project delivering degrees in entrepreneurship online in 2001. In 2003 Geoff joined Pembrokeshire College as learning technology manager where his work in developing the systems and encouraging the use of learning technology led to several high profile awards:

·         2006 Beacon FENC award for the ‘Effective use of Learning Resources’

·         2005 Association of Colleges/ BECTA Beacon award for the ‘Effective use of ICT and e-learning to Enhance and Support Organisational Development’

·         2004 NILTA ‘Management Learning Systems’ award

Geoff has a keen interest in the use of mobile technology to support and enhance learning and led an innovative three year project in using mobile learning to engage NEETS back into education or work which was recognised by the 2006 FENC Beacon award.

Lucinda Fell

Lucinda joined Childnet in October 2007 taking responsibility for Communications and the formulation of Childnet's policy responses as well as contributing to the production and publication of various key resources.

Lucinda regularly represents Childnet’s point of view at various meetings and policy fora, both in the UK and also internationally, promoting a balanced approach to online risks, highlighting the importance of education and recognition of the positive opportunities that engagement in the online world can bring young people. 

Lucinda is a member of UK Council for Child Internet Safety and sits on several of the working and sub groups.  She is also a member of the European Commission Social Networking Taskforce.

Lucinda is leading Childnet’s Youth IGF Project, designed to take the voice of the youth to the UN mandated Internet Governance Forum and has worked closely with Government officials in Egypt devising an eighteen-month training programme and delivering successful training sessions on the topic of e-safety to young people, parents and government in Egypt as part of the Cyber Peace Initiative undertaken by the Suzanne Mubarak Women's International Peace Movement.

Lucinda holds an honours degree in Politics and International Relations from the University of Birmingham and was awarded the University International Relations Award.

Ruth Hammond, Manager Safeguarding Programmes, BECTA

Ruth is a graduate teacher with experience of the primary, secondary and FE sectors.  Since joining BECTA in 2002 her work has involved collaboration with a wide range of national agencies, government departments and subject associations on effective practice using ICT.  Since 2003 Ruth’s work has focussed on BECTA’s advice relating to Internet Safety, representing BECTA on the Home Secretary’s Task Force on Child Protection on the Internet, the Associate Parliamentary Media Literacy Group and the UKCCIS Better Education Working Group.  She was invited by UCLAN to be an external examiner on the validation panel for the University Certificate in Child Safety on the Internet.

Ruth was seconded to CEOP prior to their launch and continues to work closely with their Education team and other key agencies striving to ensure the safeguarding of children online.  She has worked closely with   TDA, Childnet International and Microsoft to produce online e-safety training and CPD resources for trainee and practising teachers.

Fiona Lennox, Ofcom

As a key member of Ofcom's media literacy team, Fiona is responsible for developing Ofcom's comprehensive programme of media literacy research. Fiona continues to be one of the UK's leading experts on media literacy research and presents across the UK and Europe. She is a member of the UKCCIS Expert Research Panel and was instrumental in developing the successful International Media Literacy Research Forum.

Ofcom is the independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries, with responsibilities across television, radio, telecommunications and wireless communications services. Ofcom has a duty to promote media literacy under the Communications Act 2003.

Previously Head of Standards at the Broadcasting Standards Commission, Fiona joined Ofcom in 2003. She has a degree in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University.
 

Tamara Littleton, eModeration

Tamara Littleton founded eModeration (www.emoderation.com) in 2002 and has nurtured its growth into one of the world's leading moderation agencies, whose direct clients include MTV, ITV, Lifetime Games, 02, and ESPN as well as working for leading agencies like Ogilvy, Saatchi & Saatchi, Euro RSCG, Wieden and Kennedy and Publicis.

Tamara comes from an established background in editorial quality control, fault escalation and process management, experience gained from previous work as the Product Delivery Director for Chello Broadband and Online Operations Manager for BBC Online where she managed the world's first ISO 9000 accredited team for digital publishing management and monitored over 400 BBC websites. She has a psychology degree and a history in consultancy and publishing.

A member of the Home Office Sub Committee advising the British Government on moderation of communities to help safeguard children, she is currently revising the guidelines with the Moderation Sub Group as part of the UK Council for Child Internet Safety. Tamara was also the Chair of emint (2006-2007), the online community for community professionals. She regularly speaks at conferences and contributes white papers to aid learning and development within the social media industry.

Rebecca Newton

As the Chief Community & Safety Officer, Rebecca leads public policy, community, safety, moderation and customer services efforts at Mind Candy Inc. Prior to joining Mind Candy, Rebecca worked at Sulake.com (Habbo Hotels) as Moderation Manager, Safety Officer and Director of Community where she oversaw community, moderation and safety efforts in 24 countries for the world’s largest teen virtual world/gaming sites.   Rebecca also serves as Safety Advisor to Crisp®, where she shares her industry expertise - from best practice policies and management of Crisp® anti-abuse rule sets, to advising clients and assisting in driving product enhancements across the Crisp range of products.

Rebecca has been published in various publications including Teen Magazine, Yahoo! News, and Money Magazine and ENISA's guidance document "Children on Virtual Worlds: What Parents Should Know".  She speaks regularly on Internet Safety, Web 2.0 and Social Networking (EU ENISA Awareness Conference, Austin and SF GDC, FOSI 3rd Annual Conference, SIA Conference before US Congress, SXSWi, Regulatory Kids Watch Conference, the NFL.com Business Summit, SWGfL Conference. She was also a keynote speaker at the Online Child Protection Conference in London, UK.

Helen Penn

Helen has worked extensively in child protection and the internet safety arena both in the UK and the developing world. With a background in teaching and youth work she joined Childnet International in 2003 to manage their education and outreach programmes before being seconded to the National Crime Squad in 2005. Here, she led on developing an Education programme for the Virtual Global Taskforce and the creation of CEOP’s Thinkuknow agenda.

Helen now heads up CEOP’s Education department, creating new and award winning programmes for young people, parents, educators and professionals using intelligence from national and international cases. To date over 5 million children nationwide have seen the Thinkuknow programme and over 39,000 professionals are engaged with its roll out. Helen also sits on the UKCISS Better Education group and speaks nationally and internationally on protecting children online.

Christina Preston

Christina Preston is known as an advocate of collaborative, constructive and interactive modes of learning underpinned by digital technologies. In particular, she has researched the ways in which professional communities of practice share knowledge and influence local, national and international learning agendas. She has won three international awards for her work in this field: the European Union of Women, Humanitarian Award; the Trnkova medal and the World Academic Council Humanitarian Award

Christina’s specialist consultancy areas and her publications cover Innovative models for Continuing Professional Development with an emphasis on work-based learning; industry education partnership; innovative research methodologies including multidimensional  concept mapping and critical incident research: an emerging theory, Braided Learning, about knowledge creation and dissemination in Communities of Practice: and world e-citizenship.

She has worked internationally as a secondary teacher, a teacher educator, a regional adviser, a senior researcher and project director. Clients include multinational companies, government agencies and charities in Africa, Eastern and Western Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and the Far East.

Dr Paul Richardson, RSC Wales

Paul Richardson is a biologist and teacher who has promoted and supported eLearning since 1998.  As a member of the Centre for Learning Technology at Bangor, he supported the use of ePortfolios by trainee nurses, and also contributed to the SoURCE project on reusable software, in collaboration with the Open University. He was also closely involved with an innovative online part-time degree (B.A. in Internet, Learning and Organisations). Following a period as ILT Champion at Coleg Harlech WEA, he is now an eLearning Adviser to the Adult Community Learning and Criminal Justice sectors at the JISC Regional Support Centre Wales. He is also an Associate Lecturer at the Open University, facilitating an online module in Environmental Science.






 

Karen Roberts, Publications & New Media Coordinator Wales, Ofcom

Karen is responsible for rolling out Ofcom's Media Literacy remit in Wales. She chairs the Wales Media Literacy Network – which brings together organisations with a literacy and inclusion agenda to share best practice, promote understanding of media literacy and ultimately provide people with the relevant skills and knowledge to participate in a digital society.

Before joining Ofcom, Karen was the Media and Public Affairs Officer for the Independent Television Commission in Wales. Prior to that she held a series of press and public affairs posts in local government, the public and private sector organisations.  She has a post-graduate diploma in Public and Media Relations from the Centre for Journalism Studies, Cardiff University and is a graduate of Manchester University, where she studied for a BA (Honours) in American Studies. She spent a year studying journalism at the University of Missouri, Columbia.

 

Anne Stoker

Anne Stoker was born in Essex and moved to Wales when she was 6. She has been interested in technology since her secondary school days, being one of the first to sit ‘A’ level Computer Science in her school, and later gained a degree in Accountancy and Computer Science.

As a primary school teacher she specialised in teaching Mathematics, taking on the role of ICT and PE co-ordinator in several schools in Wales. Following a secondment to work for Swansea Bay online Partnership as a NOF Facilitator she became teacher Adviser and then Adviser for ICT in Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council.

For the past year Anne has been seconded on a part-time basis to the Welsh Assembly Government, working for the ICT strategy Branch in DCELLs. Her main focus has been implementation of the BECTA Self Review Framework and e-safety.

During this time she has been working on an e-safety strategy for schools in Neath Port Talbot and the development of the Neath Port Talbot Learning Gateway.

She is passionate about education and the potential of ICT as a transforming tool and recognises the importance of good quality training and support.

David Wilcox

Is co-author of Social by Social, a guide to using social technology for social impact, and co-host of the associated socialbysocial.net online community. In the past he has worked as a journalist, and as a specialist in community engagement and regeneration partnerships. He is now combining this experience in the role of social reporter, using a range of different online and offline methods aimed at stimulating conversations, telling stories and helping others do the same.
 

WISE KIDS and WISP would like to thank the following main sponsors of this conference:

WISE KIDS and WISP would also like to thank our Exhibitors and Conference Supporters: