XClose

UCL News

Home
Menu

Spotlight on John Potter

24 October 2017

This week the spotlight is on John Potter, Reader in Media in Education, UCL Knowledge Lab, UCL Institute of Education.

John Potter

What is your role and what does it involve?

I am Reader in Media in Education based at the UCL Knowledge Lab. I have a range of roles across teaching, research and admin: Masters teaching, research projects, funding applications, leadership, doctoral supervision, research and so on.  I work on the MA Digital Media, Culture and Education where I am acting programme leader with Prof Andrew Burn. It's a large MA with a fantastic team working on it. I enjoy the way it evolves constantly, as indeed it should, and the way we all shape it and work on it together. It has a long-standing partnership with the British Film Institute and a close research-teaching relationship with the Digital Arts Research in Education (DARE) Collaborative. I've held leadership roles of teaching and learning and PGR tutoring and I've supervised a number of PhD students. Recently, my role has involved a lot of travel, all over the world…

How long have you been at UCL and what was your previous role?

I've been here for a little over 10 years as a staff member; I joined the Institute of Education in January 2007. But my association with the IOE goes back to the 80s when I trained here as a primary school teacher, and the 90s when I did my MA here and the early 2000s when I started my PhD!  I've also held roles in teacher education at Goldsmiths College and the University of East London. And, for ten years, ending in 1996, I was a primary school teacher, mainly in the wonderful Harbinger School in Tower Hamlets, which is still flying the flag for a multicultural, playful, child-centred learning!

What working achievement or initiative are you most proud of?

It's hard to pick one from one particular area, though I think I am most proud of coming from my background as a primary school teacher in the 80s and 90s into academic life.  At UCL-IOE: For research: see below. For teaching: Keeping the MA going through some difficult years as programme leader and seeing it go from strength to strength, mentoring new colleagues and teaching students who are far from home. I'd say another was supporting my PhD students, one or two of whom have had very difficult situations to deal with outside of their studies. Seeing them succeed has been wonderful. Being asked to keynote at conferences I've attended over the years. Writing books from my research which are really well received by people I look up to. Finding people who have read it in many countries and talking to them about it. In the wider admin roles I've held: supporting teaching, learning and supervision in the department. Working with colleagues across UCL-IOE and beyond.

Tell us about a project you are working on now which is top of your to-do list?

I'm Co-I on the EPSRC funded two-year project, Playing the Archive, with a dream team of people from UCL-IOE, CASA, the Museum of Childhood and Sheffield University.  It combines the digital with the archival, explores children's play, its relationship with the virtual and brings together so many passions and interests! I am lucky to be working on this with Prof Andrew Burn, Jackie Marsh, Helen Wolley, Andy Hudson-Smith and host of really talented people. Closer to home, this project is bringing me back into fieldwork in schools and I am very lucky to be working on that aspect with a brilliant early career researcher, Kate Cowan.

What is your favourite album, film and novel?

Album: This is very difficult as I listen to vast amounts of different kinds of music and go to live gigs as often as I can.  It changes all the time.  But when I am travelling I always go back to one of my all-time favourites, Brian Eno, and, of his many albums, I'd probably pick Another Green World. 

Film: Too many favourites.  The last one to really surprise me and stay with me a long after it finished was Arrival. And I think Amy Adams should have been Oscar nominated for her performance in that.

Novel: Again, there are way too many to choose from.  Possibly Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things. I'm also really enjoying Richard Flanagan's Narrow Road to the Deep North at the moment.

What is your favourite joke (pre-watershed)?

"I've given up asking rhetorical questions. What's the point?"
(Alexei Sayle)

Who would be your dream dinner guests?

Living or dead?  If it's a dream I can combine I guess. Several singers, artists, writers, musicians: Grant McLennan, Laura Veirs, Brian Eno, Ali Smith, Michael Rosen, Laurie Anderson, Paul Klee, Arundhati Roy …and so on and on…

What advice would you give your younger self?

Listen to the quiet voice. (Eno)

What would it surprise people to know about you?

I make music in my shed that is often slow and has field recordings in it from all over the place. That's just what I do to unwind. Some people sketch or write poetry but…

What is your favourite place?

Usually: Anywhere with family not too far away: Home. SE London. Point Hill or Greenwich Park. Sunday.

On holiday: Coral Bay in Western Australia several years ago with all of us there.  That stays with me.