In 1971 he initiated the James Bay Community School Project and in 1973 became a consultant to the Ministry of Education and the B. C. School Trustees Association in Community Education. He served in the same capacity with the Northwest Community Education Development Centre in Eugene Oregon and also worked with the National Community School Education Association in the United States. During this period, he authored several articles and papers on Community Education.
Later in his career, while serving as the Principal of Marigold Elementary School, he renewed his acquaintance with electronic technology by starting along with his Vice-Principal, Merv Campbell, the first microcomputer program in the school district.
Under his leadership, the school became an Apple Centre For Innovation in 1988. In 1990 Marigold became a charter member of The Apple Global Education Network and was involved in such groundbreaking work as "The Jason Project". This project was done with a group that included: the Royal British Columbia Museum and Bob Ballard of "Titanic" fame.
During this period David became a member of Apple's HyperSchool Consortium and did work with: Florida State's School Year 2000 initiative; the European Council of International Schools; and the Vienna International School. In the early 1990's he did ground breaking work with a new organization for learning he called Learner's Guilds. Among the accomplishments of the first guilds that he both organized and taught was the First Nations Project. This project utilized global telecommunications and culminated with an interactive HyperCard and Laser Disk. His work with emerging communication technology led to his writing a number of articles and papers on technology in education.
David is the only 3 time recipient of The Marshall McLuhan Distinguished Teacher Award for Innovation in Educational Technology, being recognized three years in a row from 1988-1990. He was also the 1990 recipient of the British Columbia Principals' and Vice Principals' Associations' Leadership Award. In 1991, he received an award for Outstanding Contribution to the Apple Global Education Network from Apple Europe. It was presented to him at Kings College Cambridge. Then, in 1992, he was named the first and only Apple Global Education Fellow at Askov Denmark
After retiring from public education in 1994, David became a director of the Apple Global Education Network and established Phoenix Associates. He immediately began work for BCTEL's Discovery Learning Services. As well he spent a year as a consultant to his former school district. At the same time with six partners, he established TechTots, an innovative day care and early childhood education centre that put computers in the hands of very young children. He left this enterprise in 2001 but still holds his position with Phoenix Associates.
A major client of Phoenix Associates has been Intuitive Media, the former UK based award winning company behind some of the best education websites in the World. Among the work done was: a prototype design for a Dream Street website; graphic and educational design for the early Grid Club; design development and coordination of the Global Learning Projects within Schoolnet Global; and various other concept and prototype developments. David continued to work with principles, Bob Hart and Carole Fletcher, whom he first met at Cambridge in 1991, with their landmark enterprises until 2005. Phoenix oversaw the Canadian contribution to the mediation of SuperClubs Plus and Goldstar Cafe until 2009 when Intuitive Media relocated to Melbourne Australia. He has, however, stayed involved with Fletcher and Hart who have now developed a new enterprise, KidsOKOnline.
Currently, David, while carrying out the work of Phoenix Associates, designs, maintains and manages a number of robust visually appealing websites for a variety of clientele and works to launch "The Movement!"
