About Matt

I’m a freelance instructional designer, learning technologist, trainer, and historian, but these are just titles, which say something, but not everything. On this website, I have described myself as an ‘educator, writer & historian’ as these are words that I think best describe what I do. Educator, because I teach and train on a variety of topics. I also design and build learning courses and activities online. Writer, because that is the core of who I am. I never stop writing, whether these are musings about the things that interest me, the outputs of detailed research, or something else entirely. Historian, this is what I originally trained to be and it’s still a core part of who and what I stand for. What unites all of these interests is a focus on how we learn, and how we teach.

My Background

I was born in Margate, Kent, and have lived nearby on and off for most of my life. However, I received my undergraduate and Masters degrees at the University of Hull in 2003 and 2004 respectively and then received funding from the AHRC to complete a Ph.D. connected to the John Foxe Project at the University of Sheffield, which I completed in 2009.

In 2010 I worked briefly on the HumBox data repository for teaching and learning materials and then worked full-time at the Institute of Historical Research. There I created and managed the History SPOT website for postgraduate research training and events podcasts, before moving to the School of Advanced Study (SAS) in 2012 to work on the institutions’ open access repository, research skills training for humanities postgraduates, and various other ‘digital’ projects. I left SAS in 2021 to work freelance.

A brief overview

University of Hull

2000-2003

Undergradate Degree (2:1 hons)

I specialised in medieval and early modern British history during my undergraduate studies in History, with some experimentation with archaeological approaches to the past.

University of Hull

2003-2004

Masters Degree

My Masters degree concentrated on landscape studies, which combined historical data with archaeological investigations. My dissertation looked at the deserted village of Arras, East Yorkshire, which is now nothing more than a field.

University of Sheffield

2005-2009

John Foxe and the English Reformation

My Ph.D. focused on the compilation of the medieval history in the Acts and Monuments, by John Foxe, and identified elements of his intellectual network. During this time I also learned language skills (Latin and Old English), XML by coding transcripts of pages for the online John Foxe Project, and began teaching undergraduates on medieval and early modern history.

Humanities Research Institute (HRI), Sheffield

2010

The Humbox Project

I worked on the HumBox Project for the Humanities Research Institute, learning about and sourcing Open Educational Resources (OERs) for a repository of teaching materials.

Institute of Historical Research (IHR), University of London

2010-2012

History SPOT

I designed and managed the History SPOT website in collaboration with the IT department. This was my first introduction to Moodle. The purpose of the website was to showcase some of the 50 or so seminar programmes run by the IHR, by producing podcasts (which I recorded and edited) and a series of research skills tutorials and workbooks (which I helped produce, and then designed and uploaded to Moodle).

School of Advanced Study (SAS), University of London

2012-2021

Becoming a learning technologist

In 2012 I transferred to SAS bringing History SPOT with me. My task was to transform the site into a humanities-focused training platform for students and early career researchers. This Moodle website became PORT. I also designed and built new learning resources and courses in collaboration with topic experts, managed the open access repository and open journals systems, and managed the digital resources for The Human Mind Project. During this period I also became a certified member of ALT (Association of Learning Technologists), a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and of the Centre for Distance Education, and received a scholarship from the SMKE scheme (Social Media Knowledge Exchange).

In addition, I was a co-convener of the Digital History Seminar (IHR), and later the Food History Seminar (IHR). I also periodically marked GCSE papers for Pearson.

Freelance educator, writer, and historian

2021-Present

A bold new Frontier…

I left the University of London at the end of March 2021, and began a venture as a freelance educator, making use of my skills as a learning technologist, instructional designer, and historian. Where this goes, only time will tell…