I have a potted biography that I share when I am invited to present or run workshops.

Colin Simpson is a Lecturer in Learning Futures at Deakin University. He has previously worked as a Learning Technologist, Education Designer and Academic Developer since 2003 at the Canberra Institute of Technology, Australian National University, Swinburne University, Monash University and the University of Sydney. Colin has also taught units relating to multimedia production and designing/developing learning resources.

Colin is a founder and co-convenor of ASCILITE TELedvisors (Technology Enhanced Learning educator advisors) network, an Australasian community of practice for learning designers, educational technologists and academic developers with more than 600 members.

In 2025 Colin completed his PhD research at the University of Sydney into the nature, practices and purpose of third space practitioners in Australian higher education, centred around investigating strategies to enhance the collaborative working relationships between edvisors, academics and institutional leaders. He is currently undertaking research (alongside his day job) into sustainable educational innovations in Higher Ed at Deakin’s Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning (CRADLE) as a CRADLE fellow.

Colin can be found on most social platforms as @gamerlearner

That’s pretty bare bones overview of nearly a quarter of a century spent working in a range of ways to enable good/better learning and teaching for adults. It says little about why I do this or what my values are and these things matter. I believe that education is a social good and that I make a positive contribution to the world by facilitating it. I am endlessly curious about how things/systems/people actually work and what is needed to pragmatically make a difference. I have a deep need for fairness and integrity which may or may not always align with actual rules and policies. I value humility and see kindness as a strong indicator of competence. (Being human I don’t always live up to my values but it is the trying that matters).

I started my career in third space work at the Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT), a vocational education and training (VET) institution which I believe equates to the further education sector in the UK and (maybe?) community colleges in the US. (Embarrassingly my knowledge of education systems outside the Anglo-sphere is more limited). The VET sector has a heavily practical focus on preparing adult learners for the world of work and uses competency based training (competent/not yet competent) approaches within a strict nationally uniform system of industry informed qualifications. (Up to and including Bachelor level degrees). I worked with teachers in a wide array of disciplines who had all previously worked extensively in their fields and all (mostly) valued my pedagogical and technological advice as an equal.

Moving to higher education was a culture shock. While I enjoyed exposure to more very clever people talking about very clever things and a big picture philosophy of learning about the world, as a professional staff member my own expertise was no longer valued in the way it had been at CIT. I was no longer automatically invited to high level discussions about learning and teaching and I had to learn to navigate an infinitely more complex and confusing sociopolitical ecosystem. Some of this I understand - entry to ‘the academy’ for many involves the trial by fire of a PhD for most and there are also powerful other psychological and emotional factors involved in occupying a culture where everyone is tacitly expected to be the ‘smartest person in the room’. (This is all my working theory so far - I told you that I am curious about how systems work).

This cultural divide cemented my professional identity as a third space practitioner. It made me want to understand why things were as they were and what was needed to enable people in my kind of roles to make a more impactful contribution to learning and teaching. It led me to continue to build the connections that I had already built with colleagues in the third space (because we love to share and talk) by being one of the founders of the ASCILITE TELedvisors Network special interest group, a community of practitioners for people working in roles to facilitate good/better learning and teaching such as learning designers, education technologists and academic developers. In searching for a collective term, we discussed and discarded many options - particularly those featuring “support” which diminished our role in the relationships - and settled on the portmanteau of edvisor (educator advisor). TEL (technology enhanced learning) was bolted on at the last minute because the academic heavy leadership of ASCILITE at the time questioned whether our name aligned with the technology focus of the organisation. I must admit, it is a clunky term which many people (with good intentions) get wrong or need explained but it is kind of established branding now, so…

In parallel with building this community, I decided to start a PhD. Initially I was interested in exploring the factors that led academics to resist advice about or change in teaching practices but this quickly morphed into trying to understand EdAdvisor roles (I ended up tweaking edvisors due to the the aforementioned confusion around the term), their contributions to learning and teaching and the factors which shape their impact. There were probably a few drivers for this: wanting to understand this profession more and to make it better, wanting the challenge of the scholarly journey, recognising the systemic privilege of academics in HE, and probably also a small dose of ‘you’re not better than me’. (I contain multitudes)

Nine years later, I finished (Simpson, 2025) and I think I learned a thing or two. I appear to have chosen the right time because in parallel, this field of scholarship seems to have exploded - at least among practitioners. The TELedvisors Network is thriving, with members in more than a dozen countries (mostly Australia and New Zealand though) and I am overjoyed to be part of a lively third space culture. I continue to do the work that I have always done, to some extent, but now with the Dr. in front of my name and opportunities to do more research that I had before. I am still trying to make sense of my new identity as a third space academic and so the learning continues.

I still want to understand, debate, advocate for, build community and celebrate third space practitioners as I believe that we can and do make a vital contribution to learning and teaching as part of a larger educational village and this is what this blog/newsletter/whatever is all about.

One more thing about me: I don’t use GenAI because I enjoy writing and I would rather write something slowly which reflects who I am and helps me to understand what I am trying to say. If I do use it at some point, I will tell you. I have used it in the past - mostly for image generation - but personally now I think the bad outweighs the good and it’s not for me. I am open to some uses in teaching and learning but years of ed tech hype cycles have led me to think it is still being massively oversold.

Simpson, C. (2025). Educator Advisors in Australian Higher Education: Their Roles, Purpose and Contribution to Learning and Teaching [PhD, University of Sydney]. https://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/34308