I have always felt very lucky on the journey that I am experiencing as part of my university career. Though I have prided myself on working hard and being committed to my university - I strongly believe that luck (or timing) has always played an important role in success. One of the things I have [...]
Over the last decade, piracy has emerged as a growing field of research covering a wide range of different phenomena, from fashion counterfeits and media piracy, through to 17th-century buccaneers and present-day pirates off the coast of Somalia. In many cases, piracy is a metaphor or an analytical perspective to understand conflicts and social [...]
Over the last year or so I have been working on the concept of 'data ethics' and 'data fairness', doing some awesome work with the folk in the Centre for Research Mathematics (at Western Sydney University), the Consumer Policy Research Network, ABC investigative team as well as the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN). [...]
Democracy is not a once achieved goal - it requires ongoing work by all of us to make sure it works. This includes engagement in both formal politics (often call 'big P' Politics and includes voting) as well as 'small p' politics (the everyday engagement with our communities, neighbourhoods and online involvement such as [...]
This blog was written almost 12 months ago and in that time so much has changed – but the post itself remains relevant so I am re-posting on my new website. I was also surprised at the overwhelming response to my essay discussing the work of the amazing artist, Kathrin Longhurst, and her portrayal of [...]
Someone who has always inspired me is educational philosopher Paolo Freire. One of the reasons is that he argues that as educators, we should experience inner transformations as we work to transform the lives of our students. Freire presents us with the concept of ‘threshold’, which he drew from Martin Heidegger (a complex and flawed [...]
I have just finished reading the autobiography of United States Senator, Professor Elizabeth Warren, titled A Fighting Chance. I am a bit of a fan of Senator Warren ever since I saw her discussing the causes of the Global Financial Crisis all over US television explaining the culpability of the banks and the hollowing [...]
Last week I gave the opening keynote at the 34th International Conference on Innovation, Practice and Research in the Use of Educational Technologies in Tertiary Education (or ASCILITE) which was hosted by The University of Southern Queensland. The conference was amazing - and I felt truly lucky to be able to indulge myself in the [...]
Every year, tens of thousands of students sit the Higher School Certificate (HSC) In New South Wales alone (over 77,000 in 2016). I remember doing my HSC and the associated stress that it involved. It was over thirty years ago now, but I still remember the stress involved in doing my HSC. The issue [...]
Before beginning this blog, I want to say that a ballot (or poll) on same sex marriage (or marriage equality) is one of the worst policy failures I have ever witnessed (up there with energy ‘policy’ and climate change ‘action’). It is less about policy formation and more about an ideological battle within the Liberal/National [...]
