John Bilton

I am an experienced teacher of ICT, Business Studies and Design Technology. I have been a Head of Department for more than 20 years and I am currently teaching at Esher High School.

I remember being handed a BBC Micro when I took up my first teaching post. Learning to program it was the start of my Computer Science journey. In the UK, Computer Science was a subject that evaporated into the national curriculum ether in the 90s, swallowed up by the need for a nation to learn Office applications. It was through robotics as a hobby that I expanded my knowledge of Computer Science. Things have now turned full circle and Computer Science is on its way back. I’m looking forward to starting teaching it at GCSE in September 2013.

I am constantly reviewing and adapting my work in the classroom. Recently I have been working on 2 big projects:

• My interest in the flipped classroom model has led me to begin developing a Podcast-Worksheet-Video project called 60SecondMindMeld. This project still in its infancy so its going to be interesting to see where it will lead.
• In seeking to gather as many opinions as possible whilst developing new resources for teaching Computer Science, I have founded #ComputingHour, a weekly Twitter chat session on all things related to computing within education.