Ian Yorston - Head of Digital Strategy, Radley College, UK
I spend quite a bit of time visiting schools and conferences to lecture on Change and on the Future of Education.
Change Management isn't easy.
Douglas Adams came up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to change.
- Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just part of the way the world works.
- Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
- Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.
The trouble is that just about everybody who has any influence over education is over the age of thirty-five...
I spend most of my time attempting to address this problem...
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Writing
My WebLog - The UnreasonableMan - is at www.unreasonableman.net
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Speaking
I've spoken at many, many conferences. These seem to be representative:
- "The Fourth Screen" - Australian Education Conference, Canberra, Oct 2009
- "Reach for the Sky" - ISA Education Conference, Oxford, Nov 2008
- "Looking to the Future" - New Zealand Schools Conference, North Island, July 2008
- "Google Earth and Google Sky" - Directors of ICT, Rugby School, 2008
- "Every Child Matters: Not Just the Present Tense" - BSA Deputy Heads Conference, Manchester 2008
- "Re-engineering Schools" - Australian Bursars' Conference. Adelaide Oct 2007
- "VLEs made Simple" - Institute of Education, Jun 2007
- "KISS it Better" - MidYIS Conference. London 2007
- "Nothing New under the Sun" - BSA Heads Conference. Stratford 2007
- "Against the Natural Order" - IAPS Management Conference. York 2007
- "ICT in Boarding Schools" - BSA Housemasters + Housemistresses Conference. Brighton 2007
- "Future Technologies in Schools" - ISC Annual Conference. London 2006
- "Changing Classrooms" (with David Smith) - Reboot8, Copenhagen, Denmark. June 2006
- "The Future is Another Country" - State Boarding Schools Annual Conference. UK 2006
- "ITs only the End of the World Again" - ISBA Bursars Conference. UK 2005
- "Why you should Panic" - GSA Deputy Heads Conference. UK 2005
- "Big Numbers (and the Approximate Size of the Universe)" - IAPS Science + Technology Conference. UK 2004
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Advising
I'm an ISI Inspector, a School Governor and I act as an occasional advisor to ISC on ICT matters.
I also seem to have visited a lot of schools, including State Schools. This list probably isn't complete...
- Solihull School, Birmingham
- King's College, Taunton
- Withington Girls' School, Manchester
- Portsmouth Grammar School
- King's School, Chester
- Dauntsey's School
- St Mary's, Calne
- Hutcheson's Grammar, Glasgow
- Repton School
- Cheltenham Ladies College
- Stover School
- Bedford School
- Winchester College
- Perse Boys
- Blundell's
- Clifton College
- Wymondham College
- Dean Close
- Trinity, Teignmouth
- Downe House
- The Royal Belfast Academical Institution
- Oundle
- Fettes
- Piper's Corner
- The Royal School, Haslemere
- The Abbey, Reading
- The Dragon, Oxford
- Summer Fields
- Cothill
- Caldicott
- Ashfold
- Aysgarth
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Biography
Conferences always seem to need a Biography:
Ian Yorston is Head of Digital Strategy at Radley College in the United Kingdom.
He has previously been Head of Science, Head of Physics and Head of Careers. The fact that Radley keeps giving him new jobs suggests that perhaps he's not very good at any of them.
Prior to Radley he spent 10 years in the Royal Air Force including 3 years as an Electronic Warfare Officer. This involved a lot of computers and a number of wars. He also spent a great deal of time working alongside Americans. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
He has a weblog at www.unreasonableman.net. If you type "unreasonable" into Google he is the worldwide number one hit. His wife intends to use this in the divorce case...
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Photograph
Download hi-res photograph from here
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Contact information
Ian Yorston
Head of Digital Strategy
Radley College
Oxon OX14 2HR
United Kingdom
e-mail: isy.speaker.2@xemaps.com
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