introduction

teaching
I am an academic tutor at the University of Sunderland, UK, on a casual basis. I teach both undergraduate(BA) and graduate(MA) students enrolled in art, design and media programmes. I have taught a range of art and design courses in both full-time diploma and part-time continuing education programmes at the collegiate level at Algonqin College, Ottawa, Canada.

beginnings
My experience with teaching in a classroom began in 1993 when a friend, Elizabeth Mountford, who was working at Algonquin College, Ottawa, asked me to teach a basic drawing class that was part of a certificate program in Continuing Education(FE in the UK). I agreed to try it. At the time, the college was in a state of transition. The course was held at an old high school building. I remember not knowing how to begin a class, but found that the students were very patient. I slowly figured-out how to prepare material and present it. And I made lots of notes.

It got easier. I began to teach a DrawingII class and a life drawing class. Over the years, the other courses that were being offered as part of the cirtificate program fell away and the drawing courses that I was teaching were left isolated on the list of courses being offered, categorized as General Interest. I kept the courses going; making posters to advertise them, going out and posting them around the campus and the city art stores. For me, they were becoming a source of enrichment for my own art practice, a means of reflection and a sounding board for ideas about perception and cognition. And I enjoyed the students - the wide range of ages, skill-levels and experiences that they brought to the classes. The college was building a new campus. For a couple of years the courses ran in a prefab out in the parking lot. The life models huddled between electric heaters. With the new campus the drawing courses came under the direction of a new department, and again became part of a certificate program. The notes that I had been making turned into weekly, one page handouts. I developed a solid methodology for teaching drawing skills and began to compile them with samples of student work into a book named after the course, Gotta Draw.

Contacts made through my illustration work led to teaching a workshop in the full-time Graphic Design degree program at Algonquin College. Soon I was teaching Graphic IllustrationII. Then, in 2005, without being notified, Gotta Draw was dropped from the course list. It had been overflowing with student enrollment for a few semesters. The office manager of the new administration started to teach a second drawing course to take up the extra students, then, exercising some administrative control, enrolled students in the 'overflow' class and dropped Gotta Draw from the curruculum.

Later that year I moved to Toronto, and in 2007 moved to the UK to complete a masters degree at the University of Sunderland. While doing the MA, I began teaching again. As Academic Tutor I taught occassional classes in an undergraduate Illustration Life Drawing workshop. Later, while negotiating the terms of a PhD application in the Design Department, I co-taught Graphic Communications with Rob Burton, and stood-in for Dr. Manny Ling, tutroring the Design" Multimedia and Graphics MA group. I continue to work as an Academic Tutor at the University of Sunderland on a casual basis and recently taught in the Illustartion programme.

research
My area of academic interest is in communication studies and the role of visual design in experience and interaction design. With a graphic arts background and expertise in ideation and sketching I take the view that imagery, narrative and discourse play important roles in the expression and communication of user-centred design, and that visual language in the form of a 'system of significance' can enhance ideation, dialog and the propagation of ideas.

beginnings
Working with technology companies in the early nineties, I adapted brainstorming and storyboarding techniques to enhance the communication of user scenarios. Having fostered an interest in design systems and databases for some years, I began to develop scenario production and management tools to streamline the process and improve consistency. This led to the design of a kit that enables those who use scenarios to develop visual storyboards in-house, and a masters research project called ‘workPlay: An ideation and sketching Tool’(Jones MA, 2008). The designs for workPlay were critically reviewed by an international panel of academics, professionals and experts. This primary research suggested that there is a need for an expressive sketching tool in experience design, however, the ability of experience designers to compose good user stories, with or without an expressive sketching tool, was questioned. This question has become the focus of subsequent studies.

A current application for research considers low-fidelity story sketching systems under the direction of Gilbert Cockton, Professor, School of Design, Northumbria University.