| Teaching & Writing: (also known as Blowing the Trumpet) Qualifications Career Publications |
| Qualifications Degrees from La Trobe University: B.A. (English, History), M.Ed. (Media Studies, incl. film theory, analysis and history, with thesis in comparative film and literature). Short course (16 weeks each) certificates from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology: * Magazine Editing & Sub-Editing, * Magazine Publishing and Production, * Magazine Desktop Publishing. Semester course certificate from Monash University: Introduction to Programming in Visual Basic. Career * Secondary teacher (mainly English and Literature studies), including Year 12 English evening courses for adults. * Sessional TAFE teacher (various units in Communication Skills for the workplace). * Education writer and editor for print and the electronic media (see Publications below). * After leaving school, and before attending uni, graduating and taking up school teaching, I was a medical laboratory technician (unqualified!) for five years. You could do that kind of thing a few decades ago... Publications * Non-fiction: mainly education-based newspaper and journal articles, also textbook chapters, study guides and resources for the electronic media (internet and CD-ROM), and indexing of newspaper book, film and art exhibition reviews. A general listing of items follows: ** Education liftout weekly supplement of The Age newspaper (Melbourne): essay-style articles mainly on Year 12 English texts (Victorian Certificate of Education [VCE]), covering novels, short story collections, biographies, films and TV programs, including such titles as: *** Blade Runner; Cabaret; The Player; The Third Man, Gattaca (films). *** Short stories of Henry Lawson; The Outsider; The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (fiction). *** First They Killed My Father; Night; Jackson's Track (non-fiction). *** Hamlet; King Oedipus/Oedipus Rex (plays). *** Frontline; Frontier (TV comedy and TV documentary series). ... and many more. From mid-2003 each published Text Talk article has been accompanied by a listing of further reading and viewing, and of relevant internet web addresses. To come in the Text Talk columns for 2008: articles on Look Both Ways (film), The Kite Runner (novel) and more. ** Two chapters for Quest 4 (Year 10 English textbook). ** English and Media Studies articles in the following subject-area journals: Idiom (Victorian Association for the Teaching of English - VATE), Metro (Australian Teachers of Media - ATOM), Agora (History Teachers' Association of Victoria - HTAV). ** Study guides on fiction and non-fiction books, films and TV programs (VATE; Victorian Education Department). ** Practice exams, with sample answers, for Year 12 VCE English and ESL, each year 2000-2005. ** The Electric Chronicle: available both in internet web and A4-sized 12-page newspaper format, of 100-year-old newspaper reports and current affairs cartoons, researched, collected, compiled, written and edited every second month. Covers World, Australian, General and Crime/Court Case news items, and is suitable as a resource for History, Media and English studies. The web version news is presented as originally written, although edited for length; the newspaper edition presents century-old news items in a modernised, rewritten way. ** The Cartoons of Australian Federation - a "spin-off" of the Electric Chronicle, containing a digitised presentation of newspaper cartoons originally published around the time of Australian Federation, 1900-1901, with explanatory notes accompanying each cartoon, plus background resource information; available on CD-ROM and by internet download, and viewable in a web browser. ** Vintage Australian Comic Books on CD-ROM - twelve Australian comic books originally published between late 1940s and early 1960s. Copyright to release these comics on disc has been granted. Background notes and information included on disc. On-line activities for school classrooms are available. ** Weekly indexing of book, film and art exhibition reviews from Australian newspapers. ** Non-fiction essay-style magazine articles (generalist, for non-education market). These include items on the Professor Challenger stories of Arthur Conan Doyle, the On Our Selection (Dad and Dave) stories of Steele Rudd, the "entertainment novels of graham Greene, plus short reviews of recently released books. Occasional short items for The Age "Green Guide" TV, Radio and I.T. weekly newspaper supplement. ** Study guides for documentary films produced by Film Australia - available on their web site via internet download; also editing, adapting and re-writing other authors' Film Australia study guides and classroom activities modules. Also study guides for ATOM. ** Manuscript reader for education book publisher. * Fiction: short stories in various Australian literary journals, magazines and newspapers. One of these stories was originally written as a short horror-fantasy film script which was not produced; I adapted and rewrote it as a prose story, where it was later published in the "Island" journal. * Other - Development of computer software and internet web database applications: As a result of learning Visual Basic (see "Qualifications", above) I have developed a number of small computer applications, including database programs to assist in the indexing of newspaper items such as news commentaries, book, film and art exhibition reviews. In connection with this, I have also set up on-line internet databases using the MySQL program; I have built PHP-encoded web pages that allow on-line users to access the indexing data records in search-and-display format. Two basic examples of this are available for viewing and testing on the RMS Education web site at www.rmsed.com.au (which is probably the site you have just come from). * More Other: many years ago I was short-listed to a group of three for a "New Writers" award after submitting a script for a short science fiction film to an Australian Film Commission competition. A short time later I wrote a film script treatment for a detective story, and was given a small AFC grant to develop it. Neither script has been produced. That's life... Updated 18 June, 2008. |