School of Education
Associate Professor Barney Dalgarno
Associate Professor of Education
BSc ANU, GDipEd MAppSc Canberra, PhD Wgong
Associate Professor Barney Dalgarno
Bio
My journey as a teacher probably began in 1980, when I participated in a ‘cross-age tutoring’ program as a year nine English student. I was struck by the intellectual and social challenge of teaching long division to a struggling year five student, and achieved a great deal of satisfaction upon my success. My career prior to commencing as an academic included periods where my primary focus was the application of my Information Technology (IT) skills and periods in education and training roles. These education and training roles included private tutoring, workplace training, secondary teaching and academic staff development. My teaching approach and philosophy developed substantially through these roles as well as through formal study towards a Graduate Diploma in Education and a Research Masters and PhD focussed on Technology and Learning and have continued to develop through 10 years as a lecturer at CSU.
My research can be divided up into two distinct streams, an applied stream, which focuses on the application of technology to teaching and learning in primary, secondary and higher education, and a second stream, which addresses fundamental questions relating to the learning process. Projects which fit into the first category include a cross institutional project funded by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council titled Educating the Net Generation: Implications for Learning and Teaching in Australian Universities, and earlier work involving evaluations of 3D learning environments and paperless marking. Projects fitting into the second category include the application of functional brain imaging methods, specifically functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to questions about interactivity and cognition in multimedia learning environments, and a series of studies exploring the relationship between attention, active exploration and spatial learning in 3D learning environments.
Research
Research Grants and Consultancies
2006, Carrick Institute Competitive Grant, $177,929, titled Educating the Net Generation: Implications for Learning and Teaching in Australian Universities.
2006, CSU Small Grant, $7500, titled An exploration of the physiological basis for engagement in computer games and interactive learning environments
2005, Research consultancy for the CSU Division of Information Technology, $9903, titled Investigation and evaluation of techniques and required resources for paperless marking and return of student assignments using EASTS
2004, CSU Scholarship in Teaching Grant, $7286, titled Evaluation of a Virtual Laboratory for Distance Chemistry Students.
2000, CSU Small Grant, $6951, titled Desktop Virtual Environments as Navigation Tools for Locating Information within Educational Web Sites
1999, CSU Faculty Seed Grant, $3816, titled Usability Testing of Desktop Virtual Reality Software for Educational Use
Teaching
- Information and Communication Technology (ICT) across the Curriculum
- Secondary Information Technology and Software Development Curriculum Methods
- Educational Research Methods
Research student supervision topics currently include:
- Learning management systems in a secondary environment
- Information literacy and transfer
- ICT pedagogy in early childhood teaching
- Factors affecting broadband adoption
- Factors contributing to pre-service teachers’ preparedness to use ICT in the classroom
- The development and use of computer-based models and simulations: implications for professional practice
- A security framework for the static and dynamic detection of malicious code
Professional Engagement
Research Fellow in the Charles Sturt University Centre for Research in Complex Systems (CRiCS)
Member of the Executive Committee of the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ASCILITE) for 2006 to 2008.