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Robert is Associate Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Education and a Senior Research Fellow in the Australian Institute for Sustainable Communities at the University of Canberra and Director of an ACIAR-funded research project based in Cambodia. He has a strong record of research and publication in information and communications technology (ICT) particularly around its application to learning and capacity-building. The Australian Research Council’s (ARC) College of Experts recognise him as an 'expert of international standing' and he serves as an Assessor (INTREADER) for their National Competitive Grants Program (NCGP).  Robert is a highly-regarded teacher and an active researcher who has successfully undertaken funded research in the areas of learning, literacy and information technologies. He has  held a research fellowship at the University of Canberra since 2004 and has over sixteen years experience in research, teaching and administration in higher education. Robert's two current projects, Digital Learning Communities (Carrick Institute for learning and teaching in Higher Education) and Electronic Marketing Communication Systems in Cambodia (Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research), are leading-edge projects attracting international interest and involvement.

Areas of Interest

  • Elearning and the application of Web2.0 and social technologies such as blogs, wikis and folksonomies (tagging) to learning and problem solving.
  • ICT integration and the application of collaborative technologies
    to learning and teaching; the development of online communities of
    practice; and the use of team meeting systems such as Zing.
  • Application of ICT for development (ICT4D) with recent successful experience working on a rural information and capacity building project in Cambodia.
  • Activity Theory (cf Engestrom); Communities of Practice (cf Lave;
    Wenger) and Social Psychology (cf Vygotsky, Luria and Leontiev).
  • Active builder-user currently working with Drupal, Moodle, Wordpress, Mediawiki, Elgg, OpenAcademic and other systems built on the LAMP platform.

Past Media Coverage

•    Cambodian farmers turn to their phones, kiwanja.net, Wednesday, 8 October, 2008,
•    FrontlineSMS, Interview with mobileactive.org and featured on their website, October 2008.
•    Wikis, Interview with Mike Jeffreys Breakfast 1206 2CC, April, 2008.
•    Networking technology making possible new forms of pedagogy, Carrick Communique, March 2008.
•    Social Software Next in Education, Canberra Times, March 2008.
•    Social Networking, Herald Sun, March, 2008.
•    Digital Text Books, Sunday Mail in Adelaide, February, 2008.
•    Values teaching works: study, Canberra Times, February, 2008
•    Virtual games, ABC 702 Sydney (Sydney). Interview with James O’Loghlin, 8:30 PM, 17 October 2006.
•    Higher learning, Meagre Bytes, Canberra Times, 11 September, 2006.
•    Short Message System (SMS) for improving the marketing of maize and soybean in Cambodia, Rasmei Kampuchea Daily, Kingdom of Cambodia, 27 September, 2006.
•    Computer games and double lives, Interview with Alison Manning, ABC Radio (Western Plains),  2:45 pm, 15 February, 2006.
•    Schools must tune in to the new technologies, Canberra Times, Page 1, 28 September 2005.
•    Kids’ computer games not all bad: academics, Canberra Times,  Education Section, 24 September, 2005.