Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from November, 2014

Making CPD fun - the 12 apps of Christmas

I've just signed up for this initiative - the 12 apps of Christmas - offered by the Learning, Teaching and Technology Centre at DIT, and facilitated by Frances Boylan. Based on a similar programme led by Chris Rowell at Regent's University London, this looks like a fun approach to continuous professional development and kudos to the LTTC team for implementing it. The video on the site gives an overview of what is going to happen. Starting on Monday 1st December, and continuing for 12 working days until Tuesday 16th December, an app will be considered each day. According to the video, there will be a short demonstration of how the app might be used in a teaching and learning context, and there will be an optional exercise. Like an advent calendar, there is a sense of excitement about what might be behind the next door! Already there is an active twitter stream using the hashtag #12appsDIT, and numbers signed up for the event have reached 260. No doubt there'll be many more...

Blackboard Education on Tour comes to Dublin

This is a brief report from the Blackboard Education on Tour event which took place in Dublin last week, on Tuesday 4th November. First of all, I'd like to mention that the Irish user community really appreciated that Blackboard included Dublin in its tour, making it so much easier for us to attend. It was good to see such a great turnout from various Irish Institutions. The programme for the day included 2 tracks: Product Discussion and Professional Development. I'd have loved to get to some of the Professional Development sessions, but because I was the only one from NUIG, I decided to stay in the Product Discussion track. The event was opened by Demetra Katsifli who welcomed everybody to the event and spoke about Blackboard's development priorities for the EMEA region and some specific examples of where Irish/UK requests have influenced product design. The big one here is delegated and anonymous marking, which is starting to be addressed in the April 2014 release. She ...

Editathon on Vicipéid and Wikipedia

An Editathon on Vicipéid (the Irish-language wikipedia) and Wikipedia is being organised on Friday, November 7 from 09:00 to 13:00 in the computer lab in the S Block, NUI Galway. This collaboration was initally proposed by members of the Wikimedia Ireland Community and three of their members (Shannon Eichelberger, Eugene Eichelberger and Oliver Moran) have kindly offered to supervise the training and support of participants. The aim is to highlight the value of An Vicipéid/Wikipedia as a learning resource and to improve its quality by encouraging Irish traslation students to participate in the event. The event’s theme is The National Monuments of Ireland. This was chosen on account of the Wikimedia Ireland Community’s previous collaboration with the international photography competition Wiki Loves Monuments . Members of staff from Acadamh na hOllscolaíochta Gaeilge will also be present during the event both to support students and participate themselves. Training and support will be...

Wikipedia Belongs in Education

St Leonard's Hall The EduWiki 2014 event was held on Friday 31st October in the stunning St Leonard's Hall at the University of Edinburgh. Ever since I heard Toni Sant (Education Organiser with wikimedia UK) speak at the International Integrity and Plagiarism Conference ( see previous post ), which led me to join the Wikimedia Ireland Community working group, I have been fascinated at the potential of using Wikipedia (and other Wikimedia projects) to support student development in higher education. So, I was thrilled to be at the one day event in Edinburgh to find out more about the Wikimedia UK education projects. This was always going to be a different crowd from my usual conference network, and there wasn't much tweeting in advance of the event, so I was a little nervous when I turned up at the social event on the evening before the conference. I needn't have worried, the small group that had gathered were as welcoming as could be, including a nacho-eating dog, an...