
Want to contact me?
Who am I?
Mark's vision is to see all young people, across the world, receive a high quality Computing education

My passion is to: learn, teach and create.
I love long walks and cuddles with my dog, Koda. I also enjoy travelling, skiing, cycling, rock climbing, playing golf, upcycling and cooking.
What I do?
So I’m currently…
- Setup and leading the Computer Science team at Mangahigh.com, developing an adaptive learning platform that is designed to teach children the precursor coding skills and coding constructs. We launched version 1 at BETT 2019.
- Studying for a part-time PhD in Computer Science Education at Queen Mary University of London. I’m researching the use of concept mapping techniques in Computing education.
In my past lives, I’ve…
- Contribute to the Department for Education working groups for both EdTech and education text book guidance.
- Co-founded an online market place, resource repository, planning and assessment platform which we successfully sold to investors in June 2017, and was renamed to Magpie.Education
- Setup and lead the Computer Science Initial Teacher (secondary) Education programme at Harris Academy Teaching School.
- Co-authored and edited the best-selling Hodder Education Compute-IT series.
- Played a leading role in developing the English 2014 National Curriculum Computing Programmes of Study.
- Setup the Computing At School Master Teacher programme. Developed it from just an idea into a network of 10 Regional Centres with 380+ active teachers.
- Founding board member of the Computing At School group.
- Founded the internationally recognised Digital Schoolhouse, a school based Computer Science outreach programme. It is now delivered by UKIE and powered by Sony Play Station and Saga in 30+ satellite schools across England and Northern Ireland.
- Worked at Langley Grammar School leading the introduction of Computing across all school key stages several years ahead of government changes.
- First class bachelors (honours) student in Computer Information Systems Design at Kingston University, Surrey, England.
In 2016, I was awarded fellowships of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, for my work that gained me national and international recognition via the Royal Society Report publications in 2012 and 2017, winning a Times Educational Supplement (TES) Award in 2013, Informatic Europe: Best practice in Education Award in 2014, and BETT Award Finalist recognitions in 2015, 2016 and 2017.
My research?
- Dorling, M., Selby, C., and Woollard, J. (2015). Evidence of Assessing Computational Thinking. IFIP 2015, A New Culture of Learning: Computing and Next Generations. Vilnius, Lithuania.
- Dorling, M., and White, D. (2015). Scratch: A Way to Logo and Python. SIGCSE 2015, Proceedings of the 46th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education. Kansas City, Missouri, USA: ACM.
- Dimitriadi, Y., Marshman, P. and Dorling, M., (2015). Exploring gender imbalance in Computer Science: female school students' perceptions of access and engagement in Computing.
- Sentance, S., Dorling, M., and Humphreys, S. (2014). The Network of Teaching Excellence in Computer Science and Master Teachers. WiPSCE 2014, 9th Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education.
- Sentance, S., Dorling, M., and NcNicol, A. (2013): Computer Science in secondary schools in the UK: Ways to empower teacher. ISSEP 2013, Proceeding of the 6th International Conference on Informatics in Schools: Situation, Evolution, and Perspectives - Springer-Verlag Lecture Notes in Computer Science Volume 7780, 2013, pp 15-30.
- Sentance, S., Dorling, M., NcNicol, A., and Crick, T. (2012). Grand challenges for the UK: upskilling teachers to teach computer science within the secondary curriculum, WiPSCE ’12, Proceedings of the 7th Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education (Pages 82-85).
- Dorling, M., (2012) The Teaching of Relational Databases and Structured Query Language (ISBN 978-1-907207-57-0). HEA 2012, The Higher Education Academy: Information & Computer Systems
- Dorling, M., (2011) The Teaching of: Cloud Computing and Databases (ISBN: 978-0-9565220-5-4). HEA 2011, The Higher Education Academy: Information & Computer Systems
What I also do?
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Contributing author: Computational thinking
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Contributing author: Om att utveckla programmering: lärdomar från England
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Contributing author: Code breakers: Dpef Csfblfst
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Contributing author: Code breakers: Dpef Csfblfst
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Contributing author: Planning and assessing computing and computational thinking
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Contributing author: Teaching networks and communications
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Contributing Author: Embedding computational thinking: moving from graphical to text-based languages.
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Want to contact me?
If you would like me to speak at a conference or attend other events, please know that these days I’m likely to decline because I most enjoy being at home with my partner and walking our dog. I’m more likely to say yes to your invitation if your invitation extends to my dog and/or you offer to pay for my partner to attend the event with me.
If you’re still keen on sending me a message after reading this page, then use the form below. I look forward to hearing from you.