DP Conference in Stockholm – September 2008
Guest speakers
Douglas Butler
After graduating in Mathematics and Electrical Sciences at Cambridge University, and a spell with EMI Records, Douglas has specialised in secondary Mathematics. He has served as Head of Mathematics at Oundle School (Peterborough UK), and was Chairman of the MEI Schools project, a leading UK curriculum development project, for 6 years. A keen pianist and dinghy sailor, he is also author of "Using the Internet - Mathematics" (revised July 2005) and a lead author of Autograph (version 3.2 May 2007), and a major contributor to the ICMI technology study in Hanoi (December 2006). He maintains a large web site of educational resources in many subject areas. In 2000 he founded the innovative ICT Training Centre, based at Oundle School, which is now creating new resources for the educational use of computers in mathematics, and running the TSM (Technology in Secondary/College Mathematics) teacher training events all over the UK and overseas.
He is a frequent speaker at international mathematics teachers' conferences, and was the opening keynote speaker at the 2006 T³ Conference in Denver and 2007 NZAMT in Auckland. He has also run a new series of conferences on Technology for Teaching Music.
Ric Sims
Brought up in a musical family in England, Ric graduated in Mathematics and Philosophy from the University of Oxford and completed an M.Sc. in Pure Mathematics at Warwick. Then followed a period of research in operator algebras at Liverpool University with Antony Wasserman and Institute des Hautes Etudes Scientifique in Paris with Alain Connes.
What happened next was something of a career change. He swapped his staff card for a student card at Liverpool and took a Master of Music degree specialising in composition and conducting. He was twice winner of the University's Alsop Composition prize in 1986 and 1988. He moved to Holland to continue his studies at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague where he studied composition with Louis Andriessen and Gilius van Bergeijk and conducting with Jan Boogaarts and Ed Spanjaard. He has also studied in Italy with Franco Donatoni and big band composition with Maria Schneider.
He was conductor of the Amsterdam based Hex Ensemble from 1990 – 1997 and the Conservatory in-house contemporary music group Ensemble Royaal from 1999 as well as other groups in the Dutch new music circuit such as Insomnio, SOIL, Barton Workshop, ICP, Rotterdam Young Philharmonic and so on. He has conducted premiers of works of Andriessen, Raxach, Ayers, Lann, Bermel, Lach Lau, Barlow, Isadora, Bollen, Mengelberg and others. His piece Responses for large ensemble was commissioned for the opening of the new Dutch parliament building performed in front of Queen Beatrix and 5000 assembled guests from all over the world.
His interest in jazz has led him to other pastures and he has travelled a number of times to Mexico to work as conductor and composer with the Argentinian singer Margie Bermejo. Ric has written music for theatre and TV and has worked on a number of multimedia collaborations.
Ric started his long association with the IB in Rotterdam in 1990 where he taught Mathematics HL and Theory of Knowledge. In 1995 he became an examiner for ToK and was brought in to the senior team in 1998. He was Deputy Chief Examiner between 2000 and 2005 and has been involved in the last two curriculum reviews for ToK. Ric is also an examiner for music composition and performance and now economics HL.
After time spent in Prague and St Petersburg Ric now lives in Sweden where he teaches Economics, Philosophy and ToK at the Katedralskolan in Uppsala. His concerto for piano and live electronics will be performed shortly in Sweden and Germany by the renowned German pianist Marc Reichow with whom he has a long standing collaboration..He is currently working on a large scale electroacoustic work A lot of things are strange and a music theatre piece Isobel.
