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From WikiEducator

I seem to be constantly over me head in piles of trouble. This is me after knocking out the chimney which turned out to be a bigger job than anticipated

I live in Andersons Bay in Dunedin New Zealand with my beautiful wife Sunshine, our dogs Mira and Lego, and cat Anai. My professional interest is in social media, education and networked learning. Non professionally I am developing experience in permaculture and building. I currently work in Educational Development for the Otago Polytechnic and specialise in the use of social media for education.

• Feedback on Leigh's work

Contact

• eMail: leighblackallATgmailDOTcom
• Skype: leigh_blackall
• Phone: +64(0)21736539
• Second Life: Leroy Goalpost
• Profile: http://www.wikieducator.org/User:Leighblackall
• Blog: http://leighblackall.blogspot.com
• Photos: http://flickr.com/photos/leighblackall/
• Videos: http://leighblackall.blip.tv/ and http://www.youtube.com/leighblackall
• Other media: http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=leighblackall
• Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Leighblackall

Books, papers, blogs, presentations and workshops

1. Measuring our open education - A paper for the International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, and user guide for the Regional Hub of Ako Aotearoa
2. Sustainability considerations relating to the use of Second Life for education - A scoping document to add to a literature review for the NZ research project looking at Multi User Virtual Environments (spaecifically Second Life) in education.
3. Socially constructed media and communications - A keynote for the Desire2Learn and Ascilite round table discussion in Wellington on the evening of 18 June 2008
4. The Disconnect Between Education and Learning - Keynote presentation to Skills Tasmania 2008 Conference Business in the 21st Century: Growth through skills and Innovation
5. Educational Development at Otago Polytechnic - An article for PennState University's web journal Terra Ingognita.
6. Open educational resources and practices. Keynote presentation with audio and article made for WIAOC 2007, George Siemens Future of Education, and the Italian e-Learning Association Journal - Je-LKS (n.2 2007).
7. The Future of Learning in a Networked World - Book of compiled articles from the Future of Learning in a Networked World conference.
8. Teaching is Dead, Long Live Learning - A keynote presentation to Global Summit 2006
9. Learn Online blog - Articles, opinion and ideas to do with online learning, networked learning and flexible learning.
10. Teach and Learn Online 2005 book - A collection of articles, ideas, opinion and instructions for teaching and learning online, published through Lulu.com
11. Digital literacy and how it affects teaching and learning - A critique for the Knowledge Tree
12. Networked Learning Continuing on Knowledge Sharing by Sean FitzGerald and Leigh Blackall, Networked Learning attempts to simplify the concepts and stimulate wider audiences.
13. Knowledge Sharing with Distributed Networking Tools - A presentation for the Networks September 12–14 2005 Mini-online Event - Cool Results: Engaging Clients in E-learning hosted by LearningTimes Australia
14. Networked Learning in Action - An interactive session for the 2005 AUSTAFE Conference. Thursday 28 July 2005, Sydney Olympic Park.
15. Using Free and Open Source Software to Create Free and Open Courseware - a resource for the Australian Flexible Learning Framework Community

Facilitation and teaching

• Facilitating online communities
• Designing for flexible learning practice
• Networked learning
• Social media
• Learning 4 Content Wikieducator workshops

Educational development examples

1. Otago Polytechnic - various open educational resource developments on a MediaWiki platform with staff at Otago Polytechnic
2. Screencasting - a series of video, audio and print format demonstrations on the use and how to for a range of software, web services and netowked learning techniques.
3. Construction Modules - Interactive video using Flash for the TAFE Connect, Horticulture Online project. The construction modules include: Concrete and Masonry Drainage Timber and Metal Paths and Paving all feature timelapse video, animation, and a vast number of short audio visual demonstrations recorded from an actual construction job and developed into these sharable object based educational resources.
4. History and visual arts in Australia - My first online media development for a year 8 class. Looks at the paintings of Sidney Nolan and their relationship to Australian history, in particular, Ned Kelly.
5. Political Posters - Carol Wells from the Centre for the Study of Political Graphics came to Newcastle TAFE to give a talk on political posters and the women of Juarez, Mexico. I was called in to record the presentation and make this resource for future design students.
6. Building Online Communities - I recorded this presentation by Rolf Kleef while in Johannesburg South Africa in 2001. Later I did the best I could with the poor quality sound to create this resource for the Association of Progressive Communications.
7. Screencasting - A blog containing MP3 audio files with PDF screen grabs explaining how to use various applications to teach and learn online the free and easy way!
8. BlendedChocolate.com - An interactive audio visual resource about chocolate preparation in the baking trade.
9. Surf Life Saving Australia - An interactive audio visual resource to assist lifesavers in learning for the Bronze Medallion.
10. People - 10 lesson plans for visual art students aged 12 - 14 interested in people. Plans are to the Australian NSW secondary visual arts syllabus.
11. Networked Learning - an image stack and audio track loaded to flickr that illustrates the concept and practice of networked learning.
12. Pay it Forward Learning - an image stack with text to explain a model for free, open and therefore accessible learning.
13. Open Courseware - an image stack comic strip loaded to flickr that demonstrates free and open learning using free and open tools.

Movies Leigh has made

All media including these movies have been loaded to Archive, Blip.tv and YouTube.

1. Born in the USA AN experiment in editing together short clips that were uploaded to Youtube from a mobile phone while touring West Coast USA.
2. Black Bulga Range - In the spring of 2002, The Black Bulga Range was scheduled to be logged. A small group of locals banded together to stop the operation and set up a spectacular tree sit that was suspended by a 100m cable attached to an excavator. Jo Vaughn asked me to come out and make a video on Black Bulga's little blockade. We spent an afternoon walking around the area, into the creeks, around the forest, under the tree sit. The locals gave me whatever footage they had and I pieced together this video that afternoon.
3. BooYoongGworLie - Booyoong Gwor Lie is Mandarin for 'no need to come here'. It was shot in Taipei City, DaAn Park 2000. At the time I was only just beginning to fall in love with Taiwan after about 6 months of hating it. Originally I was filming the electric billboard (in the background but hard to make out in this compressed version of the movie). The boy and his grandmother just appeared in shot so I focused on them instead. What a funny little boy he was. I gave the grandmother my card and told her to email me for a copy of the footage. Sadly she never did. Music by Brisbane electronic composer Hydatid
4. The Snow - In the winter of 2002 I went back country skiing with Miriam, Theo and Clare. While we did have a few false starts, on the whole it was a great trip. We tried cross country skiing in Thredbo and nearly killed ourselves coming down steep and icey runs, but when we traded our touring skis and leather boots for skinned downhill skis and plastic telemark boots, our troubles were over. We took a beautiful drive to Guthega and headed towards Blue Lake. While we didn't make it to the Lake on account of the weather we did have quite an adventure building a snow shelter and sitting it out. When it all cleared to a glorious sunny day we made one last attempt to see the Lake. We ran out of time to make it to the Lake but at least we got a dream run down fresh powdery slopes back to Guthega. Music by Tasmanian Band, Flying Phallas.
5. There's a Light in My Eyes - Shot over 2 runs down the Corker Trail, There's a Light in my Eyes is a dramatic account of the incredible 35Km down hill bike run from Carey's Peak, Barington Tops National Park down past Lagoon Pinch and onto the amazing forest single track that follows the Williams River to the Barrington Guest House. The sound track is one of my favourite songs out of Tasmania in the late 1990's by a band called 50 Million Clowns.
6. Stencil Graffiti at Mullum High - During my second 4 week prac session while studying to be a teacher, I ran a class in stencil graffiti. Staff from the school tell me that new kids still ask if they're going to do stencil graffiti even though the original class was 4 years ago!
7. Urban Planning - In 2001, the Newcastle City Council ran a conference on urban planning. I and a couple of others were contacted to run a session. We ended up doing a performance art piece, this video was the back drop.
8. Dancing to Architecture - I directed this 25 minute open source documentary/motion picture about the 2002 This is Not Art media festival.
9. YenShui on Fire - In 2000 I went along to the amazing anual event in Yenshui, Taiwan where they spend 48 hours letting of fireworks right amongst hundreds of thousands of spectators! Its spectucular and easily the best festival I've ever been to.
10. Riding Taipei - I got right into mountain biking while living in Taipei, Taiwan. There are some very beautiful spots right in the Taipei county, I'm so thankful that I got to see them.
11. Spring Scream - in 2000 I attended the Spring Scream music festival in Kenting, Taiwan. I think it may be the first time those crazy kids saw moshing. Look out for me jumping from the stage, camera in hand!
12. Yu Shan - The mountains in Taiwan are very beautiful.
13. Yeliou - is a coastal tourist and fishing village in North Taiwan with some interesting rock formations.
14. Association of Progressive Communication - Uraguay Conference 2001 - I did a brief stint working with the Melbourne, Australia group Community Communications Online (C2O) and represented them at the AGM of the Association of Progressive Communications (APC) in Uraguay, South America in 2001.

Leigh's educational record

2004 - Certificate 4 in Small Business - Hunter Business and Enterprise Centre

2003 - Certificate 4 in Workplace Training and Assessment - Hunter Institute of TAFE NSW

2002 - Diploma in Education, secondary school visual arts - University of Newcastle

1998 - Bachelor of Arts/Visual Arts - University of Newcastle

1994 - Associate Diploma in Fine Arts - Northern Sydney Institute of TAFE NSW

1994 - Initial Employment Training - Australian Army Reserve, Infantry.

Leigh's work history

2008

Full time with Otago Polytechnic in Dunedin, New Zealand, working in educational research, development and implementation. Research and consultancy with various other educational institutions. Presentations and papers.

• EduPOV - A talk given to NSW TAFE about social media and educational approaches to it.
• Elected to Wikieducator Council
• Key note speaker at eFest2008
• Elected to the DEANZ Council
• Presentation to the DEANZ 2008 conference on Educational Development in Otago Polytechnic
• Guest speaker to Ascilite and Desire2Learn in Wellington: Deconstructing Behaviorism within Social Constructivism
• Keynote presentation to Skills Tasmania 2008 Conference Business in the 21st Century: Growth through skills and Innovation - The Disconnect Between Education and Learning

2007

Full time with Otago Polytechnic in Dunedin, New Zealand, working in educational research, development and implementation. Research and consultancy with various other educational institutions. Presentations and papers.

• Keynote presentation to Webstock Mini in Wellington NZ about SecondLife and Virtual Worlds in society and Education.
• Keynote presentation for WIAOC 2007 - Open Educational Resources and Practices.
• Attended the Commonweath of Learning's Tectonic shift think tank meeting in Vancouver to discuss the future of Wikieducator and free educational content.
• Assisted in the drafting of a new Intellectual Property and Copyright policy for Otago Polytechnic that utilises the Creative Commons Attribution license.

2006

Full time with Otago Polytechnic in Dunedin, New Zealand, working in educational research, development and implementation. Research and consultancy with various other educational institutions. Presentations and papers.

• Key note presentation to Education.au's Global Summit.
• Facilitation of the Future of Learning an a Networked World international open-space conference tour across New Zealand.
• Presentation to KnowledgeBank on [networkedlearning:digital literacy and how it affects teaching and learning practices Digital literacy and how it affects teaching and learning].

2005

In business offering educational resource design and consultation services. Part time teaching at the Western Sydney Institute of TAFE.

• Presentation: Networked Learning to KnowTips conference Canada. March 2006.
• Full time Educational Development for Otago Polytechnic - research into new practices and development of learning programmes.
• Presentation: Networked Learning to the Tasmanian Learnscope Showcase 2005
• Teaching: Hadleighs Ways. Introducing a group of men in the Blue Mountains to computers and the Internet.
• Teaching: BlacktownYoof. Introducing digital photography and editing to a group of young kids having troubles in school.
• Event Coordination: [talo:taloswapmeet05 Coordinated the TALO Swap/Meet 2005 conference]. Hosted by the Western Sydney Institute of TAFE NSW.
• Writing: Critique for eLearning Journal, Knowledge Tree. Looking at digital literacies in Australian education.
• Consultation: [networkedlearning:knowledge sharing Online Presentation for Networks, Cool Results]. A presentation delivered with Sean FitzGerald over Elluminate, hosted by Learning Time Australia.
• Consultation: Learnscope project training 14 individuals from private training organisations around NSW about the Internet and tools that may help them in offering online training.
• Resource design and development: Blended Learning teacher training resource development initiated for the Western Sydney Institute of TAFE NSW to support workshops on using free, easy and open source software in online teaching pratices.
• Consultation: [hypar:home Presentation to the Helping Young People at Risk (HYPAR) Conference] on the use of blogs, RSS. audio and mobile devices in education.
• Consultation: [payitforwardlearning:home Presentation to the NSW TAFE Outreach Exchange project] of an idea to use wikis in Outreach programs.
• Consultation: Presentation to the Australian Flexible Learning Framework - eLearning event on using free and open source software to create free and open courseware.
• Consultation and development: Maintaining the Teach and Learn Online weblog and email list, providing ongoing support, information and training resources to teachers and trainers around Australia.
• Teaching: Introduction to animation. A 9 week class looking at some of the concepts. tools and techiques behind animated and sequential art.
• Consultation: [networkedlearning:Integrating technologies Integrating Technologies to Support Learning] - A full day workshop with Marty Cielens for Learnscope 2005 teams.
• Consultation: [networkedlearning:knowledge sharing Knowledge Sharing with Distributed Networking Tools]. A presentation with Sean Fitzgerald to the "Cool Results" Online conference.
• Consultation: Numerous workshops and presentions to various projects in TAFE NSW, including NSW Outreach, Illawarra IT, Western Sydney and South Western Sydney Institutes Professional Development Units, and the Australian Institute of Sport.

2004

In business offering educational resource design and consultation services. Part time project management for the Hunter Institute Teaching and Learning Innovations Centre. Part time mentoring for the Hunter Institute Outreach program.

• Resource design and development: Designed, developed and produced the Surf Life Saving Australia CDROM for training the Bronze Medallion. Resource included interactive videos and extensive Flash development. See portfolio for screen grabs and more information.
• Resource design and development: Designed, developed and produced BlendedChocolate.com, a multi media resource used by the Baking Section of the Hunter Institute of TAFE NSW.
• Consultation: Wrote a paper for the Australian Flexible Learning Framework entitled Using Free and Open Source Software to Create Free and Open Courseware. Full text version here
• Project Management: Worked part time for the Hunter Institute of TAFE NSW in their Institute Teaching and Learning Innovations Centre (ITALIC) managing staff and resource development projects.
• Resource Design: Co wrote a learning object script for the Learning Federation and their Innovation, Enterprise and Creativity brief.
• Mentored a group of 'youth at risk' for the Hunter Institute Outreach program.

2003

In business offering educational resource design and consultation services. Part time project management for the Hunter Institute Teaching and Learning Innovations Centre. Mentored for the Newcastle Youth Venue. Casual teaching in high schools.

• Resource design and development: Designed, developed and produced interactive videos and flash movies for the Horticulture Online project as part of the TAFE Connect initiative. See portfolio for screen grabs and more information.
• Project Management: Worked part time for the Hunter Institute of TAFE NSW in their Institute Teaching and Learning Innovations Centre (ITALIC) managing staff and resource development projects.
• Film Direction: Directed the documentary film Dancing to Architecture, an open source documentary about the This Is Not Art (TINA) festivals in Newcastle that year.
• Mentored individuals from the Newcastle Youth Venue who had an interest in multi media for the web.

2002

Studying full time the Diploma in Education at the University of Newcastle. Tree planting.

• Part time tree planter for Greening Australia

2001

Full time public servant in Taiwan. Part time artist and film maker. Representative

• Full time project officer for the Public Relations and Cultural Affairs Unit of the Australian Commerce and Industry Office in Taipei.
• Art: Solo exhibition of the installation Room For Rent including the publishing of the zeen What's in the Brown Paper Bag 5 at Brian's Place Gallery, Taipei.
• Film Making: A series of short music films about Taiwan.
• Art: Attended the residency Solar Circut on Maria Island, Tasmania - producing a series of new media artworks and performances based on the human history of Maria Island.
• Representative for Community Communications Online to the Association of Progressive Communication AGM Montevideo - Uruguay, and development meeting in Johannesburg - South Africa.

2000

Full time public servant in Taiwan.

• Full time project officer for the Public Relations and Cultural Affairs Unit of the Australian Commerce and Industry Office in Taipei.

1999

English Teaching in Taiwan.

• Taught English at the Kid Castle Primary School in Taipei
• Taught English at Li An Elementary High School in Taipei
• Taught English private tuition around Taipei

1998

Bachelor of Arts degree. Part time sales assistant. Events management.

• Part time sales assistant for MacCleans Book Sellers Hamilton.
• Set up and managed The Warehouse, a venue for events and art exhibitions in Newcastle.
• President of the Arts Club of the Newcastle University Students Association.

1997

Bachelor of Arts Degree. Part time sales assistant. Environmental campaigner.

• Part time sales assistant for MacCleans Book Sellers Hamilton.
• Part time environmental campaigner for the Newcastle Wilderness Society.

1996

Bachelor of Arts Degree. Environmental campaigner. Builder's Labourer.

• Part time environmental campaigner for the Newcastle Wilderness Society.
• Part time labourer for Bernie Hockings.

1995

Bachelor of Arts Degree. Reserve infantryman.

• Part time infantryman with the 1 Commando Regiment.

1994

Associate Diploma in Fine Arts. Reserve infantryman.

• Part time infantryman with the 1 Commando Regiment.