User:GeoffreySaid/sandbox

Biography
Geoffrey Said was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1956 to parents who had immigrated to Australia from Malta several years earlier. He attended St. Albans East Primary School, Sacred Heart Primary School, St. Albans Secondary College (nee St. Albans High School) and Victoria University. He initially studied at university for a Bachelor of Business (majoring in Accounting and Economics) before further embarking on a Graduate Diploma in Business Computing (completed in 2001) and a Master of Business (Professional Accounting) (completed in 2004). He achieved the “Best Graduating Student - School of Information Systems” award and the “Best Result in Systems Design” award during his university studies.

His early employment was in financial accounting, administration, audit, information technology, management and corporate training. He was finance manager at a range of organizations including the finance, food, manufacturing, mining, service, and trading industries. He worked with various corporate enterprises and structures during his accountancy, management, consultancy and training career, including corporations in the government, commercial, publicly listed, private, and entrepreneurial start up sectors.

During this time, he expanded his skills and qualifications by completing certifications reflecting his varied interests. These included a Recreational Boating Operators Certificate (Marine Safety Victoria), Senior First Aid Certificate (St John Ambulance), Cisco CCNA Networking (Victoria University), Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (SAP) Certificate (Sapient College), TESOL Certificate (Teach International), and Certificate IV Assessment & Workplace Training (Centre for Adult Education).

Academia
Before entering the academic world, he operated his own independent consultancy servicing a wide range of corporate clients. He had worked extensively with adult learners, particularly in relation to business, software, knowledge management, marketing and change management. Most of his clients served were drawn from his previous accountancy and management contacts developed during his career.

He left Australia for Shanghai, China in June 2005 and began teaching in the business department of one the largest private education providers in the Asia Pacific region, Raffles Education Corporation, which was based in Singapore. His interest in online or e-Learning developed with his exposure to Moodle while working with his students. He played an active role in developing a range of personalised college textbooks for a range of business subjects. He was appointed Program Director of the business department and the acting Academic Director of the college before he left in 2010.

He was a contributor and co-author of several Business English publications while living and working in Shanghai. These include BEC Preliminary (Contributor), BEC Vantage (Contributor) , Contemporary Business English 2 (Listening & Speaking Course) (Co-author) , Contemporary Business English 3 (Listening & Speaking Course) (Co-author) , and Contemporary Business English 4 (Listening & Speaking Course) (Co-author) published by the East China Normal University Press, Shanghai, China.

He arrived in Dubai, UAE in August 2010 and began teaching at the Higher Colleges of Technology at the Dubai Men’s Campus after he left Shanghai. He further expanded his skills and qualifications by completing certifications reflecting his growing interest in online or e-Learning, including the Professional Online Instructor Certification [POIC] (Higher Colleges of Technology), POIC Certified Assessor (Higher Colleges of Technology), and Blackboard Learn Certification [Basic] (Higher Colleges of Technology).

He presented papers at various conferences including the Association of the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE) World Conference on E-Learning in Higher Education (E-Learn 2013), October 2013, Las Vegas, USA. (Co-author & Presenter of “Right Here, Right Now, Online: Using Synchronous Tools to Teach Business Subjects to Students Learning in a Second Language”) and the Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT) Learning by Doing Conference, April 2013, Dubai, UAE. (Author & Presenter of “Management Case Studies & BlackBoard Learn Collaborate”).

He also acted as a panel discussant at the Accounting & Finance Association of Australia & New Zealand (AFAANZ) annual conferences in Darwin (“The Value Relevance of Enterprise Resource Planning”) (2011) and in Melbourne (“Determinants of Excessive Executive Compensation”) (2012).

He is currently specialising as a business teacher with a demonstrated blend of academic and corporate experience. He is currently an accomplished education practitioner with experience ranging from corporate training, vocational training classrooms and tertiary learning environments. He is a successful curriculum developer specialising in Accounting, Finance, Management and Marketing programs. He has demonstrated competence teaching in Accounting, Economics, Entrepreneurship, Finance, Information Technology, and Management classrooms. He also has experience teaching English to non-native English speaking students.

His current academic research interests include Educational Technology, e-Learning, Information Systems, Corporate Governance, Knowledge Management, TBL Accounting, Change Management, Gender Access to Education, Instructional Design, and Lifelong Learning.