Work
Note: I maintain this page only intermittently. My LinkedIn Profile is more comprehensive and up to date: Matthew Riddle
Current Position
Apr 2023 – present
Principal Consultant and Director, RocketShoes Pty Ltd
June 2019 – April 2023
Principal and Director of Learning Experiences, Curio
Aug 2018 – present
Founder and CEO, RocketShoes Pty Ltd
Previous Experience
July 2015 – Aug 2019
Associate Professor and Director of Educational Innovation, La Trobe University, Australia
Aug 2013 – June 2015
Associate Professor and Director of Educational Development and Design, La Trobe University, Australia
July 2014 – 2016
Adjunct Professor at Faculty of Education, La Trobe University, Australia
September 2012 – May 2013
Acting Associate Dean (Academic), Faculty of Business, Economics and Law, La Trobe University, Australia
March 2009 -August 2013
Senior Lecturer (Academic Development) at Faculty of Business, Economics and Law, La Trobe University, Australia
February 2008 – March 2009
Educational Designer at Faculty of Law and Management, La Trobe University, Australia
January 2006 – January 2008
Research Associate at Centre for Applied Research in Educational Technologies, The University of Cambridge
October 1997 – January 2006
Educational Designer at Information & Education Services, The University of Melbourne
January 1995 – August 1997
Research Fellow at Science Multimedia Teaching Unit, The University of Melbourne
January 1993 – January 1995
Programmer at Science Multimedia Teaching Unit, The University of Melbourne
Research Interests
I have a range of research interests in higher education, including: student engagement and retention; student perspectives; active and collaborative learning; physical and virtual learning space design; and online role-plays.
My work on the Learning Landscape Project at Cambridge used a combination of quantitative and qualitative research techniques to describe learning and teaching at a traditional research-intensive UK higher education institution as part of a change management process. Two sub-projects examined student perspectives on daily technology use and the broader learning experience using techniques drawn from social studies of technology and ethnography. I continued this work in 2008 through a small project at La Trobe University entitled ICTs in the Daily Lives of Australian Students and a large national ALTC funded project, Spaces for Knowledge Generation. Following on from the latter project I co-edited a book entitled Physical and Virtual Learning Spaces in Higher Education: Concepts for the Modern Learning Environment, published in 2011 by IGI Global, and sponsored a university-wide project to create a series of faculty-based learning commons spaces at La Trobe University. In 2012 I initiated a strategic Faculty project entitled Mobile Learning Devices Pilot Project and an Open Educational Resources project known as OpenTab, and I was on the core team for the Radical Learning Project, which informed Future Ready, La Trobe’s current strategic plan. My PhD project at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education is entitled Tablet devices in the daily learning lives of university students.
Specialties
Qualitative research, higher education, e-learning consultancy, project management, development and implementation of innovative educational technologies.
Awards
- First Prize for Best Paper, The 2nd World Symposium on Sustainability at Universities, September, Manchester, UK, (co-author Colin Hocking), 2014.
- Winner of the ASCILITE Research Grant, 2007.
- Winning team in the Education category for the Financial Review Australian Internet Awards, 2001 for LaSWoP Project.
- Winning team of the 1999 ASCILITE Award for Best CD-ROM Project for An@tomedia.
- Four-time winner of Staff Scholarship to attend Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, San Jose, CA, USA (Apple University Developer Fund), 1994, 1996, 1998 and 2003.
Education
University of Melbourne (1997 – 2006)
MA, History and Philosophy of Science, achieved first class honours (H1).
Thesis title: ‘The roles actors perform: role-play and reality in a higher education context’
University of Melbourne (1989 – 1992)
BA, History and Philosophy of Science, Political Science