Patsy Clarke

Patsy is from Durban in South Africa. After teaching high school followed by an extended period of research with the Human Sciences Research Council, she joined the University of KwaZulu-Natal (formerly Natal) around the time when personal computers became a desktop reality. To address an early interest in online technologies to facilitate teaching and learning she completed a Masters in Computer-Assisted Education that focused on an online virtual classroom. As senior Education IT Consultant at UKZN's Centre for IT in Higher Education (ITEd), she designed, co-ordinated and implemented online and blended postgraduate and staff development courses on using online technology to facilitate teaching and learning to be more inclusive, interactive and collaborative. In addition she was involved in research support and teaching particularly involving computer-based qualitative data analysis.

After moving to Oxford Patsy spent 4 years as an Educational Developer (e-Learning) at OCSLD, Oxford Brookes. In addition she was part of the Appreciative Inquiry project for the JISC-funded Users and Innovation Research Programme and subsequently a member of the Institutional Innovation Support Synthesis and Benefits Realisation Team. Since her retirement, Patsy freelances as a researcher and NVIVO software trainer. Her current PhD topic at the University of KwaZulu-Natal is on women 'doing old' in the 21st century and focuses on women in the 75+ age range who adopted online technology with no previous experience of computer technology.

Patsy has particular interests in interactive, collaborative learning, social software, diversity, and poetic inquiry.