Please note: these pages are no longer regularly maintained. Please visit http://jondron.athabascau.ca for a more recently maintained site
My blog has moved to http://landing.athabascau.ca/pg/blog/jond
I teach learning technologies plus some other networking, communication and Web technologies at the University of Brighton, UK, where I am a principal lecturer. I research in the area of network-based learning (though with some other interests including cross-cultural collaboration, learning communities, educational systems & complexity, and metadata). I am course leader for a distance-taught foundation degree in eSystems Design & Technology, as well as teaching/leading modules on networking, the Internet, uses of communications technology, learning technologies etc mostly at level 3 undergraduate and masters levels (see my teaching links) as well as having a growing number of PhD/EdD students (currently 4). I am also one of two course leaders of the PGCert in E-Learning Design.
I can usually teach my way out of a paper bag - I was a recipient of the University of Brighton's teaching excellence award 2005, and subsequently have been awarded a National Teaching Fellowship which is nice. 
I am the Head of Learning Environments at my school (CMIS) which makes me responsible for the teams supporting computing and networks as well as making the environment a fine place to be.
My PhD was in the area of self-organisation in network-based learning systems, trying to find ways to get rid of teachers by enabling new forms of collaboration and communication between learners using the Internet. Here is a Windows Media version of the movie of me receiving the award.
I am an active member of various University of Brighton groups and committees dedicated to learning and especially learning technologies. I am also a Registered Practitioner of the Higher Education Academy and member of the Association for Learning Technology.
Once upon a time I used to be the Academic Support Manager for the University's Faculty of IT network and knew a lot about technology. I still like those toys.
A long time ago I used to sing for a living. This is a publicity photo of me singing and a few thrown-together songs. That kept me going for about ten years, whilst I learnt about computers and practiced on gullible businesses who knew less than I did.
Somewhere in between I persuaded the University of Sussex to give me a degree in philosophy (whilst I was busy having a nice time) and the University of Brighton to give me a distinction on an MSc Information Systems degree (whilst I was busy with two children and a charming wife).
One day I might get back to trying to be a writer. Here is a flavour of the kind of thing I write.
Dron, J. 2006. Any color you like, as long as it’s Blackboard®. Paper presented at the E-Learn 2006, Hawaii.
Dron, J. 2006. The Pleasures and Perils of Social Software. Paper presented at the 7th Annual Conference of the ICS HE Academy, Dublin, Ireland.
Dron, J. 2006. Social Software and the Emergence of Control Paper presented at the ICALT 2006, Kerkrade, Netherlands. (best paper award)
Dron, J. 2006. Controlling Learning. Paper presented at the The Sixth IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies, Kerkrade, Netherlands.
Andone, D., J. Dron, C. Boyne and L. Pemberton. 2006. Digital Students Across Europe. In ED-MEDIA 2006, Florida, USA: AACE.
Dron, J. 2006, ‘On the stupidity of mobs’, In WBC 2006, San Sebastian: IADIS.
Dron, J. 2005, 'Discovering the complex effects of navigation cues in an e-learning environment', E-Learn 2005, AACE, Vancouver.
Andone, D., Boyne, C. W., Dron, J., & Pemberton, L. 2005. What is it to be a digital student in a British university? Paper presented at the ICALT 2005, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
Andone, D., Boyne, C., Dron, J., & Pemberton, L. 2005. Digital Students and their Use of eLearning Enviroments. Paper presented at the IADIS WWW/Internet 2005, Lisbon, Portugal.
Dron, J. 2005, 'A Succession of Eyes: Building an E-learning City', E-Learn 2005, AACE, Vancouver.Dron, J. 2005. Control, Termites and E-learning. In Web Based Communities 2005, Carvoiero, Portugal.
Dron, J. 2004. A loophole in Moore's law of transactional distance. In ICALT 2004, Joensuu, Finland: IEEE.
Dron, J. 2004. Termites in the Schoolhouse: Stigmergy and Transactional Distance in an E-learning Environment. In Ed-Media 2004, Lugano, Switzerland: AACE.
Dron, J. 2003. Sidewalks on the Information Superhighway. In E-Learn 2003, Phoenix, Arizona, USA: AACE.
Dron, J. 2003. The Blog and the Borg: a Collective Approach to E-Learning. In E-Learn 2003, Phoenix, Arizona: AACE.
Dron, J. and J. Masthoff. 2003. Online Formal Course Meetings. In 4th Annual LTSN-ICS Conference, Galway.
Dron, J., Mitchell, R. & Boyne, C. W. 2002, 'Evaluating assessment using n-dimensional filtering', in e-Learn 2002, AACE, Montreal.
Dron, J. 2002, 'CoFIND - Sharing to Learn', in LTSN-ICS, ed. McAllister, G., LTSN-ICS, Loughborough, p. 99.
Dron, J., Boyne, C. & Mitchell, R. 2001, 'Footpaths in the Stuff Swamp', in WebNet 2001, AACE, Orlando, Florida.
Dron, J., Mitchell, R. & Boyne, C. W. 2001, 'Getting out of the Stuff Swamp Alive', in UKAIS, eds. Roberts, M., Moulton, M., Hand, S. & Adams, C., Zeus Press, Portsmouth, pp. 341-350.
Dron, J., Mitchell, R., Boyne, C. & Siviter, P. 2000, 'CoFIND: steps towards a self-organising learning environment', in WebNet 2000, ed. Gordon Davies & Charles Owen, AACE, San Antonio, Texas, pp. 146-151.
Dron, J., Mitchell, R., Boyne, C. & Siviter, P. 2000, 'Darwin among the indices: a report on COFIND, a self-organising resource base', in Sixth International ISKO Conference, eds. Beghtol, C., Howarth, L. C. & Williamson, N. J., Ergon, Toronto, pp. 136-142.
Dron, J., Mitchell, R., Boyne, C. & Siviter, P. 2000, 'Towards a Self-Organising Learning Environment', in WWW9, Foretec Seminars Inc, Amsterdam, pp. 118-119.
Dron, J., Mitchell, R., Boyne, C. & Siviter, P. 2000, 'Website Evaluation System: Collaboratively Discovering what makes a Website Good', in WebNet 2000, ed. Gordon Davies & Charles Owen, AACE, San Antonio, Texas, pp. 685-686.
Dron, J., Mitchell, R., Siviter, P. & Boyne, C. 1999, 'CoFIND- an experiment in n-dimensional collaborative filtering', in WebNet 99, ed. Paul de Bra & John Legget, AACE, Honolulu, Hawaii, pp. 301-306. (TOP PAPER AWARD)
Dron, J. 2007 The Safety of Crowds. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 18, 31-36.
Dron, J. 2006. The Teacher, the Learner and the Collective Mind. AI & Society. (available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00146-005-0031-4)
Dron, J. 2005. E-learning and the building habits of termites. Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 14(4), 321-342.
Dron, J. 2005. The Way of the Termite: a Theoretically Grounded Approach to the Design of E-learning Environments. International Journal of Web Based Communities 2(1).
Dron, J. 2005. Epimethean Information Systems: harnessing the power of The Collective in e-learning. International Journal of Information Technology and Management, 4(4), 392-404.
Dron, J., C. W. Boyne and R. Mitchell. 2004. The Evaluation of Forms of Assessment Using n-Dimensional Filtering. International Journal on E-Learning, 3 (4): 21-28.
Dron, J. and J. Masthoff. 2004. We are, of course, bored with course boards: an online alternative to formal course meetings. Italics e-journal, 3 (2).
Dron, J., C. Seidel and G. Litten. 2004. Transactional distance in a blended learning environment. ALT-J, 12 (2): 163-174.
Singh, S. & Dron, J. 2002, 'Networking: a study in planning and developing cross-cultural collaboration', ALT-J, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 29-37.
Dron, J., Mitchell, R., Siviter, P. & Boyne, C. 2000e, 'CoFIND- an experiment in n-dimensional collaborative filtering', Journal of Network and Computer Applications, no. 23, pp. 131-142.
Dron, J., Mitchell, R. & Siviter, P. 1998, 'From Answer Garden to Answer Jungle,' Education and Training, vol. 40, no. 8.
Dron, J. 2006. Evolving Learning Ecologies. In J.-P. Rennard (Ed.), Handbook of Nature Inspired Computing for Economy and Management Hershey, PA: Idea Group International.
Dron, J. 2004. Self-Organized Networked Learning Environments. In Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, Vol. I-V ed. Khosrow-Pour, M., 2459-2463. Hershey PA: Idea Group Reference.
Dron, J., C. Seidel and G. Litten. 2004. Getting the right blend: a blended- learning approach to Foundation Degree delivery. In Making Foundation Degrees Workeds. Brennan, L. and Gosling, D. London: SEEC.
Dron, J., Mitchell, R. & Boyne, C. W. 2002, 'Evolving Learning in the Stuff Swamp', in Adaptive Evolutionary Information Systems, ed. Patel, N., s.
Dron, J., V. Rajapillai and S. Singh. 2003. Planning and Developing Cross-Cultural Collaboration in Web-based ICT Education. In Navigating Innovations: Indo-European Cross-cultural Experiences, Vol. II ed. Brandt, D., 161. Delhi: India Research Press.
Mansingh, A., H. S. Sekhon, J. Dron and V. Rajapillai. 2003. Innovations in IT Education in India. In Navigation Innovations: Indo-European Cross-cultural Experiences, Vol. II ed. Brandt, D., 77. Delhi: India Research Press.
Dron, J. (2007) Control and Constraint in E-Learning: Choosing When to Choose, Hershey, PA, Idea Group International. (forthcoming) (more about this book)
Brusilovsky, P., Dron, J. & Kurhila, J. (eds.) (2006) Proceedings of the Workshop on the Social Navigation and Community-Based Adaptation Technologies (SNC-BAT 2006 ) at AH 2006, 4th International Conference on Adaptive Hypermedia and Adaptive Web-based Systems, June 20, 2006, Dublin, Ireland
University of Brighton standard format CV (Microsoft Word)