who is Roger Frost?

In case someone asked ‘who is Roger Frost’ … the short answer is that he’s a collector of ideas for using technology. Back in his working days he wrote about using technology for learning at school. When asked ‘what did you do for a living?’ he might say he was an technology ‘evangelist’ who travelled widely to run courses or talk to teachers on ways to teach. At other times he would write reviews or marketing materials or newspaper features, or ideas for classroom teaching. His specialist knowledge in science led publishers, software companies, universities and government agencies to keep him busy for 25 years.

This site is Roger Frost’s blog that will show how to use ‘the tech’ to solve problems or answer questions such as ‘how much energy am I using’ or ‘did the postie come today’ or ‘how do I fix this thing’. There’s a lot on this site because from 1988 Frost wrote about pretty much everything made for teaching science. He would spread the knowledge about anything that could make science accessible. He also made software that made science accessible – and Organic Chemistry by Roger Frost does that for a tricky bit of it.

my short CV

Over twenty years, Roger Frost ran events to show teachers the value of using technology in school. Quite a lot of people invited him to their event to do that. Publishers would ask him to write chapters for books or review resources for teaching. The focus was always to enthuse people to improve how they taught. All that probably did start a ‘think’ that there was something useful in the computer and eventually they took root in school life. Over those years he got to learn about training : journalism : teaching science : making animation : publishing books : writing brochures : scripting voice-overs : making speeches : marketing : catching trains and planes and a great deal about sensors.

• wrote the advice on technology that featured in the UK National Curriculum for science
• led the first year development of the exam revision resource called BBC Bitesize
• wrote adverts, case studies and marketing materials for big companies that could afford my low rates.
• published many teacher guides to show how science teaching could benefit from using technology
• gave hundreds of lectures at conferences in Europe, Arabia, Malaysia and India. He even gave one of the Royal Institution Christmas lectures.
• he created a huge bank of animated resources to teach advanced level chemistry
• produced a 70 week science podcast from his show on a community radio station. He wrote monthly columns and articles for several trade publications. Was a panel guest on TV and radio shows.
• had a proper job doing education projects at the University of Cambridge. Was a visiting speaker at many other universities.

how it began, sort of

Roger Frost used to teach chemistry and science just yards from where he grew up in London’s East End*. Here on the front line of teaching, he took his science classes to the computer room to experiment with ways to make some topics understood. Back in 1985 computers only sometimes worked so there was a lot of experimenting and failure was common.

if you really wanted a class activity to blow up in your face, the school network was better than potassium.

Chemistry was a big subject up till the eighties when we weighed in pounds and fuelled in gallons. Those were its glory years. You could teach chemistry without the safety police on your back. But one day the safety police came to his school. They cleared the room of anything that might tempt a pupil to take up chemistry for the wrong reason. They confiscated a stick of potassium he was saving for millennium night. They cleared the shelf and just left a bottle of rock salt – adding the label “HARMFUL if thrown”. In later years the safety police would say that this was never their intention but frankly I think the CLEAPSS people helped to woke it up.

Frost mused on ways to regain the ‘risk’ that made chemistry experiments such fun. What could one do? The answer came after using the awful computers at school: if you really wanted something to blow up in your face, the school network was even better than potassium. So came the challenge to tame technology and find its potential.

then what?

In 1988, Frost became a school adviser at ILECC, the Inner London Educational Computing Centre and North London Science Centre, Islington. With his background in instrumentation, and after a call from adviser John Bertram, he turned a corner and became interested in data logging. He collected ideas for a booklet he gave to local schools. Soon school advisers were buying the booklets in bulk. So encouraged, he wrote and published a series of ideas booklets which became reference works worldwide. By 1992 he was working full-time as a freelance for the education press and running events in schools. Since then he has written brochures, manuals, adverts and reviewed IT products aplenty. This web site records his findings and experiment ideas. His CV is here.

But then there’s his remarkable chemistry animation. After years of never finding any help for teaching organic chemistry he developed some. It’s called Roger Frost’s Organic Chemistry It was made in partnership with his friends at White House Business Solutions and today in 2023 it’s being updated for re-release.

Does he have any other life? Yup! He has two sons into art. Roger himself can’t draw and has lost the skill of using a pen. The oldest son is artist and art lecturer Dr Alex Frost at www.alexfrost.com. The other one is an advertising copywriter and a social media prankster at www.olifro.st.

Roger can ski, ice-skate, dance, do ceroc & modern jive, paper the wall, program chips, automate the home and get drunk on a half-pint. He loves gadgets and owns a ridiculous collection of servers, cables and power bricks. He laughs most things off and he is still growing up even though he is retired. He goes on walks, dances, helps his local u3a and messes about with home automation & the Raspberry pi. You can find him on facebook or linkedin links above – use them to get in touch or write a ‘comment’ below this page – it will get through and won’t automatically be published.

Roger Frost worked on dozens of school projects and wrote these books:

• Data logging in Practice 1999 – 2005. ISBN 0-9520257-4-4
• Software for Science Teaching 1999 – 2005
• Learning Highways (NCET) – the government’s advice on using the Internet, written with co-author Roger Blamire
• The IT in Science book of data logging and control. ISBN 0-9520257-1-X
• The IT in Secondary science book ISBN 0 9520257 2 8
• Enhancing Science with IT 1994 co-author ISBN 1 85379270 5
• IT in Primary Science ISBN 0-9520257-3-6 – also in Dutch
• Information Technology (Nelson), 1993 co-author ISBN 0-17-438572-2
• and numerous textbook and software projects for education publishers

Home & work history

• Somerford Street, Whitechapel, London E1 – 12 years
• St Dominic’s Priory, Cuffley, Hertfordshire – pupil
• Old Montague Street, Whitechapel, London E1 – 8 years
• Central Foundation School, Old Street, London EC1 – pupil
• Mile End Hospital, London E1 – medical scientist – 3 years
• Hackney Hospital, London E8 – clinical chemistry – 7 years
• Institute of Education, University of London – MEd postgrad – 1980
• Forburg Road, Hackney, London N16 – home – 3 years
• Mile End, Bow, London E3 – home – 3 years
• Dalston Mount School, Dalston, London N16 – teacher – 3 years
• Sir John Cass’ School, Stepney, London E1 – teacher – 3 years
• ILECC / North London Science Centre, Islington, London – adviser – 4 years
• King’s College, University of London – postgrad
• Hackney, Homerton, London E9 – home & work – 16 years
• Cambridge, UK – home – current

(*Coincidentally, another Hackney guy called Roger Frost and four years older, was growing up to become a pretty cool actor. I apologise for any interference in his fame eg when a movie director mistakenly phoned to offer me a role starring opposite some major celebs. Of course I’d tell ’em where to go.)