I'm involved in various practical projects - which all feed into my interests in the disruptive nature of the Internet and its impact on 21st century lifestyles, learning and livelihoods.
The only example I've written about here so far is Dadamac - but there are others. By the end of 2014 it should be easier to explain some of the others as they will be more visible.
Along with Nikki Fishman I'm the person behind Dadamac in the UK and online. I describe Dadamac as my work - but that doesn't mean it's my "paid employment". I think of work as "effort that creates value" (and my idea of value is mainly to do with hard-to-measure things that never appear on balance sheets).
My work related to Africa has always been done in collaboration with other people (usually starting in a "friend helping a friend" kind of way). It has never felt right to talk about "what I am doing" as if I was doing it alone. I've always needed a name beyond my name (originally the Dadamac name came from "John Dada and Pamela McLean" - i.e. me). Dadamac is a reflection of where I've directed most of my energy, interests, creativity, and personal resources since 2000 - interests that can be explored via the dadamac webspace and my blog
I live in SE London. I'm an experienced, qualified teacher, and a grateful graduate of the Open University (OU) - two strong influences on Dadamac. Thanks to the OU I'm a systems thinker, and, since the late 1970s, a practical investigator into relationships between computers and people (especially regarding new approaches and opportunities for teaching and learning).
My work pulls together education, development, the world of work, the impact of the Internet, and much more besides. I see life as a learning journey. I see the present as a time of enormous (often invisible) deep changes. I believe that the more we can "rub minds" and share what we know the better it will be for us as we go hurtling into an unknown and uncharted future.
I have written a personal history below.
A journey that started in the 1980s
I have been asking myself questions, doing practical stuff to explore the answers, and then writing or teaching about it since the late 1970s.
Back then I was an infant teacher and was often invited to speak about my innovative work exploring the role of microcomputers through programs she wrote herself. My contributions to the lecture circuit reach back to CAL 81 (symposium on Computer Assisted Learning) and the 1981 Micro Computer Show at Wembly Conference Centre.
Used copies of some of my early work - published under the name Pam Fiddy - can still be found on amazon: Micro-computers in Early Education and the children's book series on "Computers in Action" .
Fast forward to the present century
Since 2001 my practical work has been in Africa, at home in the UK, and perhaps most significantly, online. My work in Africa, from 2001, depended on the Internet. In 2008 I set up this Dadamac website to increase the visibility of collaborative work in Nigeria, especially supporting John Dada's work at Fantsuam Foundation (see UK -Nigeria weekly meetings) Evidence of my own work is scattered over the Internet, and is also gradually being included on this website. See Bringing more of Dadamac UK and elsewhere to Dadamac.net
The long view
I find that the older I get the more interested I become in the long view, forwards and backwards. This shows up in recent contributions to Despatches from the Invisible Revolution and The Future we Deserve where I wrote about The Invisible Revolution, The Future we Got and The Education we Deserve
Other interests
My current interests are reflected on the dadamac website, through postings to Dadamac's Posterous (note added July 2013 - posterous has now been closed so the archive has been moved over to Tumblr) and Twitter @pamela_mclean, and through the regular meetings I arrange online (First Thursdays) and face-to-face (Dadamac Meetups). Some of my previous interests and connections over recent years can be seen on an earlier personal blog LearnByDoing.
Note added February 2014
Last year I set up a new group in GlobalNet21 - GlobalNet21 and Africa group.
I contributed a chapter to Teaching and Learning Online; New Models of Learning for a Connected Wlorld. Volume 2.
I was also a pslaunchpad scholar (partly to represent the interests of co-scholar Nikki Fishman, but also because of my personal interests in 21st century change). I'm helping fellow scholars (and contacts) to engave in "continuing conversations" for mutual support and collaboration.
I'm working with Caro Hart to reorganise the way that Dadamac works - especially through its (currently tiny) related charity.