Teaching

I lead the Education Group within Electronics and Computer Science, which sits alongside our traditional research groups, and contains all of the teaching staff located within the department. The goal of the Education Group is to support education pathway staff in their career development and to empower them to improve education across the whole of Electronics and Computer Science in a meaningful, healthy, and sustainable way.

I also teach at both Bachelors and Masters level on our Computer Science and Software Engineering courses (and have previously taught on Information Technology in Organisations, and Web Science), and I am a recipient of the Vice-Chanceller’s Teaching Award for my undergraduate teaching. I have also designed and delivered MOOCs on the FutureLearn platform with cohort sizes of upwards of 12,000 registered students, have developed courses for designed and delivered courses for the Southampton Data Science Academy, and have worked with Wolearn to deliver mini-courses and video lectures to students in Beijing Normal University in China.

University Teaching

Games Design and Development

I lead this module, which introduces students to the fundamentals of game design and interactive narrative. Students take part in three game development sprints, each focused around a particular aspect of games design and each culminating in a student games expo.

Third year undergraduates. Cohort size is typically 60+

Many of the slides used for the course are publicly available on Southampton’s Edshare site.

In addition the Let’s Play videos of our assessment of student’s work can be found on YouTube.

Advanced Games Design and Development

I helped to create this module, which builds on the Games Design Course with topics around the game design pipeline, AI, multiplayer design, and mixed reality games. Students develop an idea for a game throughout the course, from initial prototyping in game jam, to a game design document, and finally a fully realised vertical slice.

Fourth year undergraduates. Cohort size is typically 20+

Several of my lectures from the course are publicly available on YouTube.

Dissertations and Projects

I supervise between six and ten individual Bachelors and Masters dissertation projects each year. These are done under four separate University modules:

• Third Year Individual Dissertation Project 
• Fourth Year Individual Research Project
• Fourth Year Group Design Project
• MSc Individual Dissertation Project

I typically supervise projects in the areas of Games, Interactive Narrative, and Social Media Analytics.

FutureLearn MOOCs

I have helped to create and run three MOOCs (Massively Open Online Courses) on the FutureLearn platform, of which the University of Southampton is a founding partner. You can read more about my first experiences of working with MOOCs here. Currently two of these courses are available:

• WEB SCIENCE: HOW THE WEB IS CHANGING THE WORLD – Explore how the web has changed our world and what the future might hold, with this free online course introducing Web Science (2 weeks)
• THE POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA – Explore the impact of social media on the world and learn how to put it to good use in everyday life.

Other Online Courses

I have also designed and delivered courses for the Southampton Data Science Academy. This is part of the Web Science Institute at the University, with the remit to bridge the data-skills gap in industry through high quality online courses and tutoring. I have been lead academic on two courses:

• Data Science for Digital Marketing – from the current ways in which data is used in marketing, through to the application of new technologies and techniques, including machine learning.
• AI and Machine Learning for Business – an introduction to AI and its potential applications in business, from good old fashioned AI techniques, to common machine learning approaches, and recent developments in deep learning. The course looks at how AI could be integrated into an organisation effectively and ethically.

Previous University Modules

I have also taught a number of other modules that are either no longer running, or now in far better hands:

Social Media and Network Science

In this module we take a technological and social science look at Social Media technology. Throughout the course students develop a social media idea on a group portfolio blog. These are then pitched at a Dragon’s Den event at the end of the course.

Postgraduates. Cohort size is typically 40+

Most of the resources for the course are publicly available on EdShare.

Programming 1

In this first year module we develop student’s skills in Java and explore the fundamentals of programming. The course is self-streamed, allowing students to choose the activities that match their existing skills and best support their development as programmers.

First year undergraduates. Cohort size is typically 300+.

Many of the slides used for this course are publicly available on Southampton’s EdShare site.

Interactive Multimedia Systems

In this third year CS module we explore a range of cutting edge Multimedia technologies and systems, covering topics such as games and interactive fiction, virtual worlds, augmented and mixed reality, emerging display technology (3D, holographic, digital paper) and novel interfaces (touch, gesture and haptic). The course takes the shape of a student organised conference, with the students forming their own committee and arranging the details of the day themselves. Each student prepares a paper on a IMS topic of their choosing, and through a review and revision process they collectively decide who gets to present their work on the day, and who gets to participate on panels or via posters.

Third year undergraduates. Cohort size is typically 40+.

Most of the materials we provide give guidance on writing academic papers and running an academic conference, many of them are publicly available on EdShare.

You can also take a look at some of the papers on the conference websites (2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2006, 2004, 2003, 2002).

Systems Design

This module introduces students to a variety of modelling techniques for the design of complex systems. In addition to classroom sessions they also undertake a group activity and work with a real business to apply the techniques covered in the course.

First year undergraduates. Cohort size is typically 25+.

Some of the slides used for the course are publicly available on Southampton’s EdShare site.