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The key point to be made here is that in my reflections on the learning gains I have made as aprofessional, technology has been an integral component, usually as both the cause and agent ofchange. Professional learning has been mediated by technology. Two simple illustrations helpmake the point. They are chosen because they don't necessarily fit the pattern of the five IMsthat are the main research objects for the study but they are nonetheless indicative of therelationship between technology and learning in my autobiography. In these cases, however, theobverse effect is to be noted. In other words these were bits of technology I learnt outside theprofessional domain but which I have subsequently applied in that domain with, as indicated,career enhancement outcomes.Vignette 4. NCO and PHPIn December 2008 I began a period of volunteering for the National Children'sOrchestra . Among other roles, I took on responsibility for managing their websitewww.nco.org.uk. All I was given was a phone number of the original parentvolunteer who had the access codes to the back end database and the log in detailsfor the mail server. It quickly became apparent that the site was coded in fourdifferent scripting languages, was based on an open source solution that I had neverseen before and operated an 'htdocs' methodology which meant I could find no actualtext to edit. By re-visiting a number of logical processes I had developed over time(see below for reference to Gladwell's notion in Blink (Gladwell, 2006)) and with theaccumulated experience of working with technologies as well as making use of thephone number, I managed to learn fast enough and fully enough to keep the sitefresh. At the end of the process I had acquired skills in open source contentmanagement, php5 and MySql. When I came to set up my own moodle (vle) in thesummer of 2011 for commercial uses, I was able to deploy many of the skillsacquired at that time. Moreover, I became free from the need to use Microsoftproducts as standard.Vignette 5. From Home Movies to Teacher's TVIn the summer of 2007, it became necessary to extend the range of handheld videocameras we had available as a family. Staying loyal to the Sony brand, I bought acamera which captured video direct to DVD. There was familiarity with the controlsand the leads that came with it but there was no obvious way of getting the movies toplay on a standard DVD player. This caused me to enter a new process of selfdirectedlearning, from which I acquired new skills (creating DVD menus andplaylists, burning DVDs etc.), new language (rendering, compressing, finalising etc.)and new needs (for example, it soon became apparent that the processing power of125Simon Hughes Ph.D. Thesis (October 2012)