How I've got to this point!!

The first degree I took was in Civil Engineering, which I studied at the University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology (UWIST) back in the 1970s. Sadly UWIST no longer exists having merged with the University of Cardiff. I spent happy years there in the days when the docks were still a no go area and the clubs and pubs were pretty rough and ready but generally very friendly. I still try to support the Welsh at rugby but they make it hard sometimes to be enthusiastic!

After university I worked as a highway engineer on projects in the midlands and the north of England. Again these were happy years during which I got married and started a family. When the recession of the early 1980s came along I had a career rethink as the government was cutting back on major capital projects which meant less road and bridge construction. My then brother-in-law was lecturing and, as I was interested in the theory side of practice, I decided to follow him and applied for jobs in further education. The first interview I got was for an LII post at Reading College of Technology which I was offered and accepted.

I spent 6 years teaching on professional courses at the 'tech'. Although I had been recruited to teach engineering I quickly took on the management teaching which I found more interesting. Most of my students were studying for professional membership of one of the property or construction institutions, mainly the RICS and CIOB.

In 1989 I moved up the hill to work on the campus at the University of Reading for the College of Estate Management. The College is independent of the University but since 1971 had provided the University with full time staff and students when it moved from London to occupy the new urban and regional studies building that it funded. When I joined the College it only provided distance learning courses for the professional bodies - again mainly the RICS and CIOB. Its courses were designed following the Open University practice of supported study.

After 5 years tutoring students I took on the role of project manager to lead the specification, contract negotiation and implementation of an integrated information system covering all the College's activities. Through this two things became apparent to me. First that I had not fully understood the principles behind distance education, and second, that the rapid expansion of information and communications technology was set to change things still further.

So in 1997 I enrolled for the MA in Open and Distance Education at the Open University. I was in the first cohort of students to take what the OU claimed as its first online course, and had the benefit of excellent tutoring from staff in the Institute of Educational Technology. It was very salutatory to experience what I subjected my students to in combining work with study and a domestic / social life. I completed the degree in 1999.

As with most distance learning students I took a break on completion of the MA and got on with implementing many of the ideas I had learned in the day job and decorating and other maintenance in the free time! By 2003 I had taken on the role of Leader in Educational Development at the College and felt ready for a new challenge. The OU did not at that time offer part-time doctoral study, but a friend had recently started the EdD at the Institute of Education at the University of London. IOE had just introduced an international version of the course which I thought fitted in with the global nature of distance learning and my students. I applied and was accepted so commenced my doctoral journey.

Since starting I have completed the taught modules and the Institution Focused Study - and I have become the College's Director of Teaching and Learning. More on the course so far later in this blog.