About

General

My job is one of my passions. I love undertaking research but I am a strong believer that learning and teaching are at least as important as research, because that is how we produce the researchers (and hence research) of the future. I have had the good fortune to receive instruction from some of the best and some of the worst teachers – I have learned a great deal from all of them. I love what I do and I can only hope that my ramblings help someone else to think through any problems that they might be facing. I believe that good teachers are everywhere but, sometimes, they don’t know how many like minded people are out there. My mission, for the next two years, is to try and bring us all out into the open, to share, to learn and to grow stronger together. Most importantly, I do not pretend or imagine that I am anything near the ideal that I’m writing about but, by thinking about it every day, I hope to get better. This blog is as much about discussion of the ideas I present, as the ideas themselves. I am most definitely not trying to say “follow me”, I’m hope that what I’m saying is more “let’s see where we can go!”

Currently

I hold a PhD in Computer Science, awarded in 2007, and am a lecturer in the School of Computer Science at the University of Adelaide, South Australia. Formally, I am a continuing Lecturer Level B, which translates to tenured Assistant Professor in the US system. I mention this purely because some of you will not realise how to place me into your local context. For the next two years, I have been selected as an inaugural Fellow of the Australian Council of Deans of ICT’s Learning and Teaching Academy  (ALTA). For the next three years, I am also the Associate Dean for Information Technology for the Faculty of Engineering, Computer and Mathematical Sciences (ECMS) at Adelaide, which is usually assigned to more senior academics but I have extensive experience in practical and applied IT management from my 10 years spent in industry.

Research

My research interests include information management, network topology and taxonomy, new language models for networks and, of course, computer science education, which I regard as one of the ultimate ontological and information management challenges.

Other Careers

I have been a Captain in the Royal Australian Armoured Corps (Reserve), a practising professional winemaker for some of the best wineries in South Australia, a systems and network administrator, a programmer and worked in routing and VoIP, even going down a few Cisco certification paths. All of these serve to broaden my view on life and make me excellent dinner party company – just keep the guitars away from me after 2am because I also used to play guitar in the world’s worst backyard band.

Disclaimer: The views in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of any of the staff or policies of the School of Computer Science, The Faculty of Engineering, Computer and Mathematical Sciences, The University of Adelaide, the Go8, ACDICT or ALTA. For any official statements on matters in this blog, you should contact the appropriate marketing or media contact in the respective organisation(s). I am available for media comment but this must be arranged with me, through correct channels, explicitly. While I welcome cross-linking and controlled quoting from other bloggers and educators, commercial and non-commercial media outlets must seek approval prior to linking to or using any of the content found in this blog.