Daniel (Dan) Hickmott

I am an educator with experience in digital technologies education, research and software engineering. I am a versatile and adaptive problem solver who enjoys working with technology and people on projects that aim to have a positive impact.

I completed my PhD in Education at the University of Newcastle, Australia in 2020. The focus of my PhD research was on the design and evaluation of a professional learning program for K-6 school teachers learning and teaching computer coding, called Coding in Stage 3. You can read more about the program on the Coding in Stage 3 program page. You can also view my thesis on the university's OpenResearch website.

Research Interests

  • Computing Education
  • Teacher Professional Learning
  • Learning Analytics
  • Online Learning
  • Serious Games

Education

  • Doctor of Philosophy (Education)

    2016 - 2020

    University of Newcastle, Australia

  • Bachelor of Software Engineering, Honours Class 1

    2010 - 2014

    University of Newcastle, Australia

  • Certificate IV in Training and Assessment (TAE40122)

    2024 - 2025

    Forsythes Training

Projects

These are some of the projects I've worked on over the last decade or so:

A screenshot of alearning analytics dashboard that shows students' scores in a course.

Dashboard Study

2025 - 2026

During March 2025 to March 2026, I worked as a researcher on a project that involved designing fair and inclusive Learning Analytics Dashboards (LADs). I developed four prototype LADs using HTML, CSS and JavasScript (with Vue), which were tested by university students and teachers.

A screenshot of a tool that visualises findings from Daniel Hickmott's PhD study.

Inhibitors and Enablers

January 2025

This projects presents results from my analysis of interviews that I conducted with primary school teachers in 2018, as part of my PhD research. I used TypeScript and Phaser.js to create the interactive project, which allows you to explore my research results.

A white tiger infront of a mirror and next to a mug in cartoon style, the image has been generated with AI.

Memory Trick Widget

November 2024

I created a simple widget that can be used to generate images for passphrases, as a way to help people remember their passphrases. I wrote a Python script to generate images for all the passphrases that can be generated with the widget and used HTML/JavaScript to create the widget.

A person's hands, with one hand writing in a notebook and the other on a laptop that shows students in a video chat, in cartoon style.

MEd (Digital Technologies)

2020 - 2022

I lectured in the Master of Education (Digital Technologies) at the University of Sydney, working with the Australian Computing Academy. This program was for teachers upskilling for and leading the implementation of the Digital Technologies curriculum.

A grid with a beetle that is at the origin point (0,0) and a purple dot at the point (4,2).

Coding in Stage 3

2016 - 2020

I developed and ran a sustained professional learning program for primary school teachers, as part of my PhD study's data collection. My PhD project involved measuring the program's impact on participating teachers' coding knowledge, confidence about teaching coding, and plans for integrating coding across the curriculum.

A screenshot from the Sentence Hero game, showing a penguin jumping over a rolling boulder.

Literacy Apps

2014 - 2016

I worked with a team of educators and engineers to develop the iOS versions of the Apostrophe Power and Sentence Hero mobile learning apps. I also applied Serious Games Analytics to data collected through the Apostrophe Power app to gain understanding about how players interacted with the app.

The cartoon Scratch cat next to two Scratch coding blocks. One block says 'When green flag clicked' and the other says 'say Coding!'.

Coding and STEM 4 Schools

2013 - 2019

From 2013 to 2019, I worked with a team of educators and engineers to prepare resources for and co-ordinate a variety of professional learning programs for upskilling teachers for the Digital Technologies curriculum.

Selected Publications

I have highlighted three of my favourite publications below but the the rest of my publications are on the Publications page.

A scoping review of studies on computational thinking in K–12 mathematics classrooms

Published in Digital Experiences in Mathematics Education (April 2018, Volume 4, Issue 1)

Exploring play-learners’ analytics in a serious game for literacy improvement

Presented at the Joint International Conference on Serious Games in Brisbane, Australia (September 2016)

To Assess or Not to Assess: Tensions Negotiated in Six Years of Teaching Teachers about Computational Thinking

Published in Informatics in Education (September 2018, Volume 17, Issue 2)

Resources and Media

I have included some different resources and media (videos and presentations) on this website. I have highlighted my favourite resources and media below but you can see more on the Media page and the Resources page.

Learning to Teach Coding Resources

A list of high-quality resources that I have collated for teachers that are looking to start teaching coding

I have created a page that has a list of resources for teachers that want to start learning coding. These resources are high quality and beginner-friendy resources that we use, or recommend, in the professional learning programs that we run.

Integrating Coding and Maths in K-12: Research and Practice (Open PDF)

Presentation from talk given at Google's CS Education Partner Summit in 2017

In this talk, I explained three projects that I had been involved in that had investigated the teaching of computational thinking and coding alongside Mathematics.

Creating Virtual Worlds Workshop Pitch Video (Watch on YouTube)

A winning entry in the University of Newcastle's Centre for 21st Century Humanities startup competition in 2018

This is a video that I submitted to a competition ran by the Centre of 21st Century Humanities. The competition involved creating a pitch video for a Digital Humanities startup idea that had to be less than 1 minute.