Hi everyone, I’m Joe. Musician, teacher and gamer are a few titles you might hear people
say when referring to me. I have been teaching music and computing to children in a variety
of settings for 10+ years, from primary schools and prep schools to forest schools, holiday
camps, special needs schools and more. Being autistic myself, and experiencing lows in my
mental health, I know all too well the struggles that children and young people can face in
navigating the world, and I have always strived to help and support those who might find it
harder than others. In the classroom I do my best to make my lessons engaging and
accessible for all, and my number one goal is to inspire those who look up to me in some
way, and that’s why I’m very excited to be a part of MindJam, where I can help children and
young people use their interests and passions to benefit their lives.

As a musician, I am a classically trained trombone player and have played in orchestras, big
bands, musicals and more. I currently play in the London Video Game Orchestra, where I
have also made arrangements of a variety of tunes from different games including The
Binding of Isaac, To the Moon, Ni No Kuni and Jonathan Coulton’s classic song from Portal,
Still Alive. I also play the piano, guitar, ukulele, drums, I sing and I can beatbox. I’ve also
dabbled in music production using Logic Pro and other software.

When it comes to gaming, I have played a wide variety of genres and eras of video games
from the early 90’s all the way to the present day. My brother and I grew up with the classic
SEGA consoles playing the original Sonic the Hedgehog trilogy, Alex Kidd in Miracle World
and other games that my young mind often pretended to understand more than it actually
did. We then got ourselves an N64 and enjoyed all the greats from Super Mario 64 to
Legend of Zelda, Goldeneye, the Mario Sports games, Super Smash Bros, Lylat Wars (Star
Fox 64) and more. At this time, I tended to notice tunes that I enjoyed from the games I
played, then when the Xbox era came around and real musicians recording game
soundtracks became more commonplace, I became a video game music nerd and got very
into RPGs as well, from Final Fantasy to Skyrim and indie games too. On the tabletop front,
I’ve been getting into Dungeons and Dragons in recent years and have run campaigns for
friends and even mini campaigns for some kids I’ve taught.

I’ve seen first-hand through my teaching and events how gaming and games-based learning
can be beneficial to people of all ages. When Minecraft started branching out into
education, I was one of the first people in the world to be on board, becoming an official
Minecraft Education Global Mentor in 2018. For a time, this gave me opportunities to run
workshops and present on stage at different events, train other teachers in how to use it
effectively, and this was also a great way for me to meet people and build friendships with
other teachers, families, YouTubers and event organisers.