UWSAG talks to Diane Hawkins
of Teaching & Learning Resources

Owner: Teaching & Learning Resources
Winner: UWSAG Top Ten! March, 2003 - June, 2003 - July, 2003 - October, 2003 - December, 2003
Winner: UWSAG Ultimate 25 Gold Award

1. What got you started in website design?
   
   "Curiosity and fascination mainly. I wanted to extend my IT skills as the teacher responsible for IT development within our school and persuaded the Head Teacher to send me on a couple of basic web design courses run by the Local Education Authority. I showed her a few school websites and the potential such sites had for promoting the school and establishing an on-line community. Once she saw the potential, she was a convert!."
   
   
2. What have you accomplished within the awards community?
   
   "I have been an evaluator for 1Simple Guide and K2. I was a Board Member of TEAM. If I ever did decide to have my own AP, it would be for educational and / or school sites only. Feedback would play a vital role in the AP, because without it applicants cannot move forwards. I learnt so much myself that way, and am still learning."
   
   
3. What plans do you have for the future?
   
   "I’d love to create websites for the school market. I know how little time I had when I was teaching and building the school site – it was fun, but left me no personal time."
   
   
4. What else do you like to do?
   
   "I enjoy riding horses and reading in particular, but having been a full time teacher for the last 17 years (even when I had my family), I’m enjoying the simple things in life enormously since we moved to Wales and I gave up my job. It’s wonderful to have a clean, tidy house and no jobs mounting up to impossible proportions! I love having the freedom to please myself for the time the family are out – I’ve never had that until now!"