Ray Tolley

Way back in 1963 I started out on my career as a teacher of Design and Technology.  I have always been a 'problem solver' and thus when computers first arrived on the education scene, in about 1980, I was one of the first to see how computing could make life easier for both teachers and pupils.  And this has been my mission ever since!

Here in the UK over the last two decades a steady revolution has been unfolding in our schools.

Many schools started using a stand-alone computer in their school office for simple administative tasks and, significantly, the transmission of end-of-year data to the Local Authority which they, in turn, would pass on to the pupil's next school.

Concurently, schools were also begining to use computers for simple curriculum management tasks, like examination results, and slowly became used in classrooms.  Soon, small numbers of computers were networked together in one room - and we saw the primitive evolution of the 'computer lab'.

However, for many years, because of fears about security, the Admin systems and curriculum systems were kept quite separate.   It is only in recent years that office administrators and senior staff have begun to accept that integrated systems or VLEs give considerable benefits to all stakeholders

This portfolio, therefore, documents my 'life-work' particularly in the development of computing in education and, in particular, the inestimable benefits that the e-Portfolio has to offer at this time.