About+John+Walker

OK, here's my page. I just clicked on "New Page" on the left, and here it is! Here is some information about me.

I've worked at the National Science Learning Centre for three and a half years, doing 3 days a week. The other two days of the week are spent doing a variety of other things, mostly concerned with science education, although not always. I spent 15 years teaching before this, and in between finishing at my last school and starting work at NSLC, I ran my own training and consultancy company for about 18 months. As a teacher I held a variety of positions at four schools around South and West Yorkshire - all challenging! Although it is harder work in tough schools, I honestly believe it has the potential to make you a better teacher.

I always ended up being the person in charge of ICT in the science department when I was teaching, although I do not consider myself to be an expert, more an enthusiast. I think my background helps me to appreciate the sort of issues and problems that other people have with ICT. I see lots of advantages of ICT, but also some disadvantages, and I think one of the issues for teachers is to help pupils to be discerning and able to make judgements about uses of ICT. We should also make sure we are always in control of ICT, not the other way round.

I'm hoping we'll be able to give course participants on the Online Science course some new ideas about how they can do some imaginative science activities using the internet or computer networks. The course will be a starting point, not an end in itself.