Lecturer in Play and Playwork

Email: fbarton@glos.ac.uk 

Academic Profile

I have been teaching on the Playwork course since 2006. Previously I worked in a variety of public sector and voluntary sector playwork settings including after-school clubs and holiday playschemes.

I feel it is important that students see themselves as participants in communities of practice, and as active researchers and knowledge creators. I have helped to introduce the use of various online services such as social bookmarking, twitter and blogs with colleagues and students, though this remains a contentious area and one which requires ongoing development. I have a variety of teaching and research interests across disciplines including geography, philosophy, animal behaviour, and social theory, and am (so far) enjoying developing my own research project towards an MPhil. initially.

Twitter account: http://twitter.com/oddhack
Academia page: http://glos.academia.edu/FrancisBarton
Research diary blog: http://ludictechnologies.wordpress.com/
Online bookmarks: http://pinboard.in/oddhack

Qualifications

• PGCert Higher Education (2008)
• BSc. (Hons) Biological Science and Philosophy (University of Sheffield, 1999)

Membership of Professional Bodies

• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
• RGS/IBG Geographies of Children, Youth and Families Working Group

Research interests

Actor-network theory / material semiotics
Philosophies of technology
Video ethnography / ethnographic film
Play, playwork and playgrounds
Online pedagogy & distance learning
Posthumanism
Children’s cultures & geographies

Research Degrees in Progress

MPhil (part-time) due to complete by January 2017
Proposal title: Ludic technologies: The creation of order, disorder and ambiguity in a playwork setting

Conference Presentations

“On ‘Providing Play’: Jean-Paul Sartre and the Question of Authenticity” – with Beck Pitt (ICCP World Play Conference, Tallinn, 2012)

“Innocence and experience: Walter Benjamin on childhood and play” (The State of Play, Gloucester, 2012)

“Actor-network theory considered as a research methodology in playwork” (Centre for the Study of Play and Leisure, Greenwich, 2011)

“A Twist on Heidegger: The ambiguous ontology of playspace” (Philosophy at Play, Cheltenham, 2011)

“Development, destiny, doubt: Exploring developmentalism as a utopian vision of childhood” (Utopian Visions, Gloucester, 2010)

Teaching – selected modules

PL112 - The Legal and Policy Context for Playwork
PL114 - Managing Play Provision
PL201 - Research Methods for Playworkers
PL214 - Disciplinary Perspectives on Play
PL302 - Children’s Communities and Play Cultures
PL310 - Perspectives on Play