Dr Tony Hirst, The Open University, UK
Tony Hirst is a lecturer in ICT at The Open University in the UK. With a background and publication history in the areas of evolutionary computation and artificial intelligence, he has co-authored several Open University courses on topics ranging from robotics to information literacy.
A founder member of the Open University Robotics Outreach Group, Tony is a firm believer in widening participation and public engagement in science and technology. He regularly runs partial attention hands-on workshops about social software and web search.
A blogger since early 2005, Tony regularly posts proof of concept web applications and educational mashups to his OUseful.Info blog, where he explores “the potential application of Web technologies and applications to higher and distance education, informal and lifelong learning.”
Since Fall 2007, he has been part of a skunkworks team developing a range of education related Facebook applications intended to support Open University students on that social network without imposing on them from an institutional point of view.