{ Walter Milner }

My first degree was in Natural Sciences at Selwyn College in Cambridge University, mostly involving Physics and Mathematics. After graduation I took a PGCE in S. Katharine's College, Liverpool, and since then I've worked in education in various ways, as school teacher, college lecturer and consultant. I've taught students from the age of ten to over eighty, from basic skills to post-graduate level. I worked at Joseph Chamberlain College as Head of IT for about 10 years, having several student textbooks published.

For the last ten years I have been employed as Lecturer in Computing and IT at the University of Birmingham, in the College of Social Science, and previously in the Centre for Lifelong Learning. There I developed a course intended for mature students attending on a part-time basis, covering programming and web development skills in a practical manner. During this time I also completed (as a student) the Post-graduate Certificate of Education in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education.

I have now left the University, and have just submitted my PhD thesis, on concept development in novice Java programmers. I am interested in the various meanings of the word concept, and how students develop personal notions of a set of related concepts, using the theoretical background of cognitive linguistics and conceptual integration networks in teh style of Fauconnier and Turner. I use learning Java simply as a focus - more generally I am interested in concept formation in 'scientific' disciplines in general, especially maths physics and computing. My supervisor is David Tall

I live in Coventry in the UK.