Sienne Veit

Project manager

JaneG@ctad.co.uk

Originally from South Africa, Sienne has first class BA Honours degrees in both linguistics and journalism. She taught journalism to black township-dwellers, and working voluntarily with township school-leavers. She then became a linguistics lecturer at Rhodes University, and engaged with issues such as language and gender and learning styles. Sienne has also worked as a market research analyst, doing research design, competitor and business analysis. Major accounts included e-tv (the first free-to-air TV station), The African National Congress, First National Bank and many other blue chip clients in SA. After a career break and she joined CTAD as a project manager in 2004. Her current main project is about improving the communication between patients and health professionals in a multi-ethnic community in Leicester, using multimedia tools and developing good practice.

Jane Garrett

Financial controller

JaneG@ctad.co.uk

Jane Garrett has worked for CTAD since 1984, always in a financial role. She was company secretary and financial administrator to October 2000 when CTAD was acquired by Tribal Group PLC.  On acquisition Jane was appointed Financial Controller, retaining responsibility for CTAD’s management and financial accounts, and reporting to the group financial director.  She runs a small accounts team of three people and has experience of running European projects.

Jane is a qualified Accounting Technician with the Association of Accounting Technicians, and is part-qualified with the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.

Gill MacMillan

Multimedia project manager

gillm@ctad.co.uk

Gill is one of CTAD’s senior project managers with a background in adult education. Before joining the field of multimedia, she taught English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) for over 10 years, both in the UK and abroad. She has worked at CTAD since 1993, on a wide range of projects. Recent projects she has managed include Swan Housing Learning Portal (an innovative set of taster courses delivered on TV), Personal Learning Coaching (a CD and web-based training package for learning mentors) and Skills Explorer for BSL users (a CD resource to help deaf adults develop literacy skills), in which she worked closely with practitioners, learners and key organisations in the field. She is currently managing CTAD’s role in the Portland Partnership project, an EQUAL/ESF-funded project to develop a range of pre-entry online materials for adults with severe physical, sensory and learning disabilities. 

She has an MA in French and Spanish, a Diploma in TEFL, and is currently completing a part-time PGCE in Adult Literacy. She has passed Stage 1 BSL.

Stuart Church

Content architect

Stuart is CTAD’s senior information architect. After an early career in academic research and lecturing (he has a PHD in Animal Psychology), his focus turned to Human Computer Interaction, and to IT management and implementation. At the Institute of Learning and Research Technology at the University of Bristol he combined web development, usability and information architecture roles. He then went on to set up his own web usability consultancy, offering usability and accessibility testing and evaluation, training and information architecture. He was developer with the Cambridge-based Millennium Maths project, creating exciting online materials for the maths curriculum. This work is now acclaimed throughout the UK for its quality and its pioneering use of the capabilities of the World Wide Web.

Since he joined CTAD, he has had a key role in a wide variety of projects – a recent project, for example, is a portal project developing training for the Creative Industries in three inner cities. As information architect, his work involves establishing user requirements, drafting functional specifications, and developing navigation designs and page schematics.

Stuart is a member of British HCI Group.

Jo Colley

subject expert and materials developer

Joanna is a highly qualified tutor and tutor trainer in the fields of Literacy, Numeracy and English as a Second or Other Language (ESOL), with twenty years experience in Further Education and a Masters degree from Sheffield University. She has had articles published by BeCTA, in Literacy Today, and in the BSA and RaPAL journals. She has a strong interest in computer-based learning and is one of CTAD’s key writers and subject experts. She has been lead author on a number of CTAD’s Target Skills titles and is part of a European-funded project team looking at mobile devices and learning (mainly phones and PDAs). She is also involved in several current national initiatives in basic skills, e.g. as a member of a focus group piloting new national tests in literacy and numeracy, and member of the  LSDA regional planning group and working with Learning and Skills Councils to monitor basic skills workforce capacity in the North East.

Jo Dixon Trifonov

expert and materials developer

Jo has a first class honours degree in Modern Languages, with qualifications in Teaching Adult Literacy and an MEd in English Language Teaching (ESOL). She has wide experience of teaching English in the UK and abroad and has been teaching Basic Skills and ESOL for Southampton City College since January 1996 and currently works there on a part-time basis with particular responsibility for ‘English through ICT’. She also works part-time for CTAD as a developer of learning materials and is a key author of Target Skills, our flagship suite of products for basic skills.

She has direct experience of e-learning (both through her Masters and other online courses), e-tutoring on Basic Skills On Line, our online course for basic skills tutors wanting to use technology in their work. She is a fluent user of web-based technology with her students and has a national reputation for this. She has recently been asked to contribute to the Ferl BECTA website with case studies of her work with Basic Skills students and ICT.

Geoff Stead

Director of Software

After completing a first class degree in Computer Science at the University of Cape Town, Geoff worked as a freelance contractor building advanced database applications and developing educational and training products. He joined CTAD in 1994 to work with the team who created the award-winning product, The New Reading Disc, and its South African, French and US versions. He subsequently led the development of several projects, including a learning network for the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts known as On line LIPA. This created a great deal of interest because it was one of the first UK products to offer a mix of online distance learning with off-line multimedia resources on CD-ROM. Since becoming Director of Software in 1998 he has designed and led the development of many major projects now in the commercial domain. He is currently leading our development work in three major European projects on technology delivery for basic and key skills. He is also the architect of our recently developed (and evolving) online environment: the Cambridge Online Learning Environment, which has been implemented in a series of basic skills courses.

Patricia Neville

Consultant, materials developer and tutor of the deaf

Patricia has a degree in English and a PGCE, and has taught English since 1970. She taught in secondary schools, before retraining as a specialist teacher of the deaf in 1976 working initially with profoundly deaf infants and later with deaf school-leavers and mature deaf adults. She is the English co-ordinator at the City Lit Centre for Deaf People (CfDP), and played a key role in the Access for All project and training, a national initiative for the Department for Education and Skills. She is currently working on materials development with the RNID, including a revision of the CfDP’s own publication: Teaching Literacy Skills to Deaf Adults.

She has extensive experience in developing materials for deaf adults, and will be working alongside CTAD materials developers on the Dedalos project, as a consultant, reviewer and writer.