Alan Pritchard – Education

Alan Pritchard has worked in education for over thirty years. He is currently Associate Professor of Education at Warwick University. He has published many books, concerned with children’s learning and the effects of new technologies on teaching and learning. He has written articles for the academic and professional press, and spoken at educational conferences around the world.

After a fairly happy time at school, where he did more or less the minimum amount of work needed to keep the teachers off his back, Alan Pritchard left with little idea of what to do next. He worked for a while with children in care in a Liverpool children’s home before training as a teacher. He worked as a primary school teacher – which he took to like a duck to water – and quickly became involved in the first round of the introduction of computers into schools in the early 1980s. His interest in learning and the ways in which new technology can make a positive impact on how and what children learn led him into new areas of work.

Before becoming a deputy head he was seconded for two years to a team of advisors who introduced teachers to the then new and mysterious ways of computers and their potential as tools for teaching. He moved to an academic career, where he has taught a wide range of programmes in a thriving university education department where teachers are trained. Higher level teaching and doctoral supervision form the mainstay of his work.

Alan has been involved in many funded research projects, both at home and abroad, spoken at educational conferences all over the world, and spent time as a visiting scholar in Australia. He has held several educational consultancies, including City Technology Colleges and children’s television. He is the author of several books based on his research into learning in general, and his specialist research into the effective use of the Internet and related technologies for educational purposes.