Associate Profiles
Bryan Webster
Consultant - Teachbot
BA hons in English & History; certificate of Education
Bryan is a teacher, an adviser for English, a lecturer in Education, and an educational consultant. He works closely with ELZWARE providing inputs that develop the TeachBot for English. His greatest and stupidest moments combined when he became a teacher he tells us, but behind the wry smile, he's deeply passionate about education and improving learning experiences. Interestingly, he was the one of the first to stand up and oppose SAT testing when it was introduced 10 years ago. In a brave move, he stood tall and spoke up to the BBC describing the new tests as 'a waste of time and effort'. Ten years on, he was proven right... so it's no surprise we take his advice.
An insight into Bryan's thinking?
His favourite fact is that there are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on earth, probably. In Bryan's words: 'like all the best facts, it's not been proven.' And if he was a superhero, he'd be 'let's-look-at-it-from-the-other-point-of-view-man.'
David Gibson
US Educational Touchstone
BA Music (Composition), MA Education (Administration & Supervision), Educational Diploma (Leadership and Policy Studies)
David works as Project Director on a number of initiatives funded by both the National Science Foundation and the US Department of Education. In Working with ELZWARE, David hopes to further online learning, game and simulation-based feedback systems. He also wants to push our systems to their limits as pedagogical agents. He agrees with Einstien that imagination is more important than knowledge, enjoys the fact that facts themselves are nothing more than social agreements, and is proud to have written a movie score, recorded a song and helped another person (or two...) learn something.
Food for thought for David? Take a look at his favourite links...
Global Challenge Award
Sim School
Curve Shift
For pic, click
here.
David Perry
Education Consultant and TeachBot Advocate
Teacher's Certificate, University of Nottingham & MA (RCA)
Dave has been a vital asset to the development of DesignBot, a system he sees as unique because 'it does for kids what so few teachers do - teaches them through questions that make them think for themselves'. Initially Dave co-ordinated our move into the schools sector, working up the first two prototypes of the DesignBot with Phil. These days, his input is more hands-off - he keeps an eye on the schools-sector developments (TeachBot English and now TeachBot Maths), identifying areas in need of extra work. He's also committed to building national interest in the DesignBot with the aim of securing funding for in-depth development.
The integrity throughout the organisation.
Other achievements? Dave's had a few...
Dave set up the first national broadband network for schools with just enough charity money to pay himself and a techie for two years - a one-man-and-his dog achievement. 100 schools signed up and then it was presented to Tony Blair who immediately setup the Regional Broadband Consortia to ensure BB for schools. And somewhere along the line he found the time to author and edit a 22 book series providing a full course in Design and Technology for secondary schools.
Mark Stephen Meadows
Confidante and Partner in Crime
Mark and Phil have known one another since before the birth of ELZWARE, and turn to each other for strategy, trade links, friends and advice. An author, artist and engineer, he's spent the last fifteen years moving this fascinating area of IT forward, and is currently working on a number of confidential projects. In the past he has worked at one of the top research labs in the work... and he's motivated by speeding the evolution from the 'frankly crappy' chatterbots of the past to intuitive conversational systems that'll pass the Turing Test with flying colors.
You'd never have guessed...
Formidably intelligent Mark once threw a brick in the air... and managed to hit himself in the head with it. But when not unsuccessfully dodging rubble, he can be found hitch-hiking and sailing - he's actually a USCG-registered boat captain.
Lizzie Jackson
Lizzie works with ELZWARE to put in place safeguards for young people online. She was responsible for the BBC's Internet safety initiatives from 2003-2007, assisting BBC Children's with the facilitation of their online communities and user-generated content and the development of editorial policy in that area. She is completing the first BBC-sponsored PhD, on the facilitation of participatory media content. She is currently a Research Fellow at the University of Westminster, School of Media, Arts and Design. As Editor, Communities, BBC, producers in her team created websites and services which were nominated for the Guardian Unlimited Race in the Media Award and The Internet Service Provider's Association Award for Safety on the Internet. What else is there to discover about Lizzie? Lizzie was nominated as one of the 100 innovators of the UK Internet Decade by NOP World and e-consultancy.com in October, 2004. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts, NESTA Mentor, Management Committee of E-mint (the UK Association for Online Communities), Member of the Home Office Task Force for Internet Safety.
Tony Allen
Academic and Hard AI Link Pin , BA, MSc, PhD
Tony works to make the most of academic research, aiding commercialisation through technology transfer activity. In his current role with the Centre for Innovation & Technology Exploitation, he is collaborating with ELZWARE on the development of a speech-enabled conversational agent system. He finds the fact that ELZWARE is driven primarily by innovation almost as interesting as the fact the apparently imaginary number i = v-1 really does exist, and his favourite System is Yhaken: 'it fuses fun and functionality'.
Things that might surprise you about Tony?
He crashed a single engine aeroplane on his second solo flight and his favourite quote is "To Infinity and beyond"... it 'pushes the envelope', apparently.
Consultant - Teachbot
BA hons in English & History; certificate of Education
Bryan is a teacher, an adviser for English, a lecturer in Education, and an educational consultant. He works closely with ELZWARE providing inputs that develop the TeachBot for English. His greatest and stupidest moments combined when he became a teacher he tells us, but behind the wry smile, he's deeply passionate about education and improving learning experiences. Interestingly, he was the one of the first to stand up and oppose SAT testing when it was introduced 10 years ago. In a brave move, he stood tall and spoke up to the BBC describing the new tests as 'a waste of time and effort'. Ten years on, he was proven right... so it's no surprise we take his advice.
An insight into Bryan's thinking?
His favourite fact is that there are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on earth, probably. In Bryan's words: 'like all the best facts, it's not been proven.' And if he was a superhero, he'd be 'let's-look-at-it-from-the-other-point-of-view-man.'
David Gibson
US Educational Touchstone
BA Music (Composition), MA Education (Administration & Supervision), Educational Diploma (Leadership and Policy Studies)
David works as Project Director on a number of initiatives funded by both the National Science Foundation and the US Department of Education. In Working with ELZWARE, David hopes to further online learning, game and simulation-based feedback systems. He also wants to push our systems to their limits as pedagogical agents. He agrees with Einstien that imagination is more important than knowledge, enjoys the fact that facts themselves are nothing more than social agreements, and is proud to have written a movie score, recorded a song and helped another person (or two...) learn something.
Food for thought for David? Take a look at his favourite links...
Global Challenge Award
Sim School
Curve Shift
For pic, click
here.
David Perry
Education Consultant and TeachBot Advocate
Teacher's Certificate, University of Nottingham & MA (RCA)
Dave has been a vital asset to the development of DesignBot, a system he sees as unique because 'it does for kids what so few teachers do - teaches them through questions that make them think for themselves'. Initially Dave co-ordinated our move into the schools sector, working up the first two prototypes of the DesignBot with Phil. These days, his input is more hands-off - he keeps an eye on the schools-sector developments (TeachBot English and now TeachBot Maths), identifying areas in need of extra work. He's also committed to building national interest in the DesignBot with the aim of securing funding for in-depth development.
The integrity throughout the organisation.
Other achievements? Dave's had a few...
Dave set up the first national broadband network for schools with just enough charity money to pay himself and a techie for two years - a one-man-and-his dog achievement. 100 schools signed up and then it was presented to Tony Blair who immediately setup the Regional Broadband Consortia to ensure BB for schools. And somewhere along the line he found the time to author and edit a 22 book series providing a full course in Design and Technology for secondary schools.
Mark Stephen Meadows
Confidante and Partner in Crime
Mark and Phil have known one another since before the birth of ELZWARE, and turn to each other for strategy, trade links, friends and advice. An author, artist and engineer, he's spent the last fifteen years moving this fascinating area of IT forward, and is currently working on a number of confidential projects. In the past he has worked at one of the top research labs in the work... and he's motivated by speeding the evolution from the 'frankly crappy' chatterbots of the past to intuitive conversational systems that'll pass the Turing Test with flying colors.
You'd never have guessed...
Formidably intelligent Mark once threw a brick in the air... and managed to hit himself in the head with it. But when not unsuccessfully dodging rubble, he can be found hitch-hiking and sailing - he's actually a USCG-registered boat captain.
Lizzie Jackson
Lizzie works with ELZWARE to put in place safeguards for young people online. She was responsible for the BBC's Internet safety initiatives from 2003-2007, assisting BBC Children's with the facilitation of their online communities and user-generated content and the development of editorial policy in that area. She is completing the first BBC-sponsored PhD, on the facilitation of participatory media content. She is currently a Research Fellow at the University of Westminster, School of Media, Arts and Design. As Editor, Communities, BBC, producers in her team created websites and services which were nominated for the Guardian Unlimited Race in the Media Award and The Internet Service Provider's Association Award for Safety on the Internet. What else is there to discover about Lizzie? Lizzie was nominated as one of the 100 innovators of the UK Internet Decade by NOP World and e-consultancy.com in October, 2004. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts, NESTA Mentor, Management Committee of E-mint (the UK Association for Online Communities), Member of the Home Office Task Force for Internet Safety.
Tony Allen
Academic and Hard AI Link Pin , BA, MSc, PhD
Tony works to make the most of academic research, aiding commercialisation through technology transfer activity. In his current role with the Centre for Innovation & Technology Exploitation, he is collaborating with ELZWARE on the development of a speech-enabled conversational agent system. He finds the fact that ELZWARE is driven primarily by innovation almost as interesting as the fact the apparently imaginary number i = v-1 really does exist, and his favourite System is Yhaken: 'it fuses fun and functionality'.
Things that might surprise you about Tony?
He crashed a single engine aeroplane on his second solo flight and his favourite quote is "To Infinity and beyond"... it 'pushes the envelope', apparently.