Cardiff School of Technologies>Staff Profiles>Nigel Jones

Nigel Jones

Department: Department of Applied Computing and Engineering

Office/Location: Cardiff School of Technologies, Llandaff Campus

Telephone:

Staff Overview

Nigel Jones is a Lecturer at Cardiff Metropolitan University in Wales with more than 25 years of teaching experience. His first degree was in Systems Analysis from the University of the West of England, where he was a research assistant before joining the NHS in Medical Physics. He became a senior manager for health records and then returned to education to study for his second degree in Business Education and Economics with Qualified Teacher Status (QTS). He has taught in public and comprehensive schools in the UK, and Further Education Colleges.

Teaching

For the last twenty years, he has taught on many of the modules and programmes in Cardiff School of Management and Cardiff School Technologies.

For the last ten years, he has taught in the School of Education to introduce the use of technology in the classroom. These yearly sessions introduce undergraduates to information technologies they can use in their classrooms, including personal response systems, OCR pens (supporting students with dyslexia), mind reading headsets (supporting students with different forms of dysphasia), virtual reality (Google expeditions), and small robotics for supporting coding and mathematics.

He spent a two-year period in the Quality Enhancement Department where he was asked to review and plan the introduction of Online Learning (FDL) to the University. For the last five years he has been a Field Chair for modules in computing, a moderator of courses and modules in the Computing and Business fields; Super Moderator and Link Tutor of multiple programmes for Transnational Education (TNE), this is all related to ensuring compliance to Quality Standards. He has Chaired and been a panel member for the validation of new and the revalidation of programmes. These programmes have been from Foundation to Master levels and included programmes in Education, Arts, Sports, Management, Agriculture, and Technologies. As a senior fellow of the HEA he has acted a mentor for candidates and a reviewer of submissions for the devolved HEA competency framework committee.

Research

He received his first internal funding for research in 2007 for work on Student Feedback via screen capture digital video.

This was followed by funding for the development of the Red, Amber, Green Experience (R.A.G.E.) in the classroom system from the Higher Education Academy (HEA). The last version of RAGE in 2014 integrated Google glasses as an interface with a limited heads up display with details of student response to questions and their emotional state regards the current teaching.

Key Publications

Jones, N., Georghiades, P. & Gunson, J. Student feedback via screen capture digital video: stimulating student's modified action. High Educ 64, 593–607 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-012-9514-7

Jones,N., Dobson, J., Jones, E., Working Paper - FANATIC SCUBA DIVERS DO IT IN THE COLD? ESTABLISHING THE NEED TO EXAMINE THE ATTITUDES AND MOTIVATIONS OF SCUBA DIVERS IN SOUTH WALES (UK). CMT 2009 Conference proceedings, South Africa.

Other Projects and activities

1997-8 he was a member of the technical committee for the S4C Digital college.

During 1988 he was sent by the British Council to Australia to review how teachers were being taught to use learning technology in the classroom; this was the beginning of his interest of using Learning Technology in the Classroom and teaching other Educators how they could use it.

Teaching on Summer schools between 2012-14 - project management in Cyprus and Wales.

JISC – two webinars in 2012-13 about Screen capture feedback. Booklet on using Teams as collaborative software in education.

2013-14 HEA presentations about Video Screen capture Feedback and R.G.E. in the classroom – York, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Manchester, Birmingham.

He was part of a report about virtual reality and tourism that appeared on the BBC news and resides on their website.

In 2018, he developed NotesSui, a system to support students with visual impairments and the presentation of materials. From 4000 entries, he was one of 100 who were invited to San Francisco to display their work. The presentation was made using the system, which enabled those challenged by dyslexia, being partially sighted, colour blind, and with the visual side effects of multiple sclerosis to have the presentation in a more acceptable format. In addition, the system allowed the presentation to be displayed in English, Welsh, Spanish, Mandarin, and limited form of British Sign Language. This system has been supported by Erasmus with a European tour of Turkey and Finland to explore possible use, and it continues to be developed to be more portable.

2019 – date - Database development of the pilot system for the Next Tourism Generation Alliance (NTG). This was the first European partnership and alliance for improving a collaborative and productive relationship between education and industry. The NTG Alliance provides employees, employers, entrepreneurs, teachers, trainers and students with a set of Core NTG modules in digital, green and social skills.

2020 - date - Member of the Education Advisory Board committee for the Modern University for Business and Science, Lebanon.

External Links

Virtual reality: Tourism firms use VR to attract visitors: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-41635746

Notes Sui - is an online system which controls the release by instructors of PowerPoint slides to students who can engage with the slides in a colour scheme of their personal preference on their personal browsing device. http://notessui.com/

RAGE in the classroom - http://rage.intheclassroom.org.uk/