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As our own CELT Symposium looms at the end of the week , it seems fitting that I finally reflect on the last conference I attended.   This year's EdTech theme allowed us to pause and reflect about TEL in a complex age. Throughout the two day event, it was evident that we are indeed facing challenges, but also using those challenges to create strategies and opportunities.   The first keynote of day one was from Gráinne Conole , who is currently a visiting professor at DCU. She focused on the future of learning and harnessing technologies.  Her presentation encompassed so much of the landscape and set the scene well for what was to come.  In discussing the characteristics of the 21st century learner, necessary digital literacies, the integration of OERs, structures of MOOCS, and the benefits for students; she arrived at a heutagogical approach that allows students more affordances in the Web 2.0 landscape.  @gconole links heutagogical approach & autonomous le...

I've been using twitter for more than seven years, as many of my readers will already know. One of the most useful aspects of twitter, for me, involves tweeting at conferences - whether I am at the conference, or following a conference hashtag. As well as being part of the general conference discussion and backchannel, it also offers insight to an event beyond the traditional boundaries of location. How I use twitter at conferences If I am (physically) attending a conference, my usual style is to tweet key ideas, references, links, and photos of the speaker and his/her slides. More recently, since I'm trying to make written notes (yes - on paper) I will also tweet an image of my notes. I converse with other twitter users, who may be co-located at the conference, or not. I use my own twitter feed as a record of event, along with my notes. I often use storify to collate and share a record of all the event tweets. In particular, I use the photographs to remember useful information...

I've been very remiss in my reports from #BbTLC16 , which happened at the beginning of April. But I still have my notes from the sessions, intending to write them up. On Tuesday I sat in on the Blackboard International Product Update Webinar - which covered similar ground to the product update sessions at #BbTLC16 - so I thought I'd take the opportunity to put a few sentences together. The webinar covered three main products: Blackboard Learn , Collaborate Ultra , and mobile solutions Bb Student and Bb Instructor . Blackboard Learn Wade Weichel gave a presentation (at both #BbTLC16 and on the webinar) about the roadmap for the classic VLE. Apparently the focus is to make the learner's experience "more delightful". flickr photo by Pleuntje https://flickr.com/photos/pleuntje/3456892561 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-SA) license Blackboard are moving to a regular update schedule, with two major releases each year, and cumulative updates in-between. Q2 2016 was...

On Saturday the 23rd of April I attended the #ictedu conference at Limerick Institute of Technology, Tipperary for the first time.  I had booked the conference before, but it had always fallen at such a stressful time in the secondary school year that by the time that Saturday rolled around, I didn't have enough steam left in me.  This year left me with a bit more freedom to attend, so naturally I signed up. A sunny April morning in Thurles The conference theme hinged upon the student as co-creator and attendees stemmed from across the sectors.  I knew many faces on a professional basis and from CESI events, so it was useful to be at a more intimate conference where there was time to catch up properly.  The event began with a keynote by Steve Wheeler  from Plymouth University.  I've seen Steve give a keynote before and followed him for a long time online , so I was excited to hear him again as I've found his work to be both insightful and practical. ...

Earlier this month I was at #BbTLC16 - the annual Blackboard Teaching & Learning conference, which took place in Groningen this year. I've been meaning to write a couple of blog posts about it, and what I learned there, but have been so busy since I got back! That's the downside of being at a conference, work just piles up and waits for you to return. One of the interesting features of the conference this year was the use of the mobile app, which we were encouraged to download prior to the event. As well as easy access to the programme, and the ability to build up a personal agenda, there were a couple of other features that added to conference experience (positive and negative) and ultimately had an affect on my behaviour as part of the backchannel, as well as others. Mobile Agenda There was (initially) no printed programme available at the conference. The online programme was a little tricky to navigate, with up to 6 parallel sessions each day, and I certainly didn't...

Tomorrow I am heading over to Groningen, in The Netherlands, for the annual Blackboard Teaching and Learning Conference . I was last at this conference in Dublin in 2014 , when I presented with two students who were developing the NUIG campus app. We won best paper at the event, and went on to present at the Blackboard World Conference in Las Vegas . I have no such ambitions this year - one visit to Las Vegas is more than enough for me! This year I am travelling a day early, so that I can go along to the Academic Adoption Day on Tuesday, led by Alan Masson. I'm not really sure what to expect, but will blog my experiences. At the main conference, I'll be presenting, along with Caroline Horan (IT Services at NUIG) about our current Online Results Entry (ORE) project using the Blackboard Grades Journey Tool. For a sneak preview, our prezi is available , though still in development.  The conference programme is big, with many parallel sessions. I haven't decided which ones to ...

I have attended the annual CESI conferenc e  for the past five years and it's now become an integral part of my personal CPD. As someone that spent ten years teaching at second level, the event helped me to build my personal learning network (PLN) at a level only matched by participating in CESI's #edchatie Twitter chat session on Monday evenings. Having moved on to NUI Galway, I did ponder how the event I had grown so accustomed to might feel different for me this year.  As more of an observer than a participant, I further shook things up by submitting a presentation. The conference theme was rooted upon the new "Digital Strategy for Schools 2015 - 2020" document released by the Department of Education.  The document aims to "embed ICT more deeply across the system to enhance the overall quality of Irish education".  This is essentially the same ethos that fuels CESI. Though I've only skimmed the document at this stage, but I can see parallels betwe...

Earlier this month I made my annual pilgrimmage to Durham to attend the 16th Durham Blackboard Users' Conference . I've been attending this event every January for the last number of years and can honestly say that it's a highlight in my calendar. Even better that it's at the very, very start of the year, meaning I'm not missing too much activity at work, and I can focus my mind completely on the theme of the conference. Moreover, the annual Durham event is one of the best organised, consistently enjoyable and useful, and the friendliest Ed Tech conference. If Carlsberg did conferences! This is mostly down to the amazing team behind it all, including Malcolm Murray, Julie Mulvey and the Learning Technologies Team at Durham University. If you are a Blackboard customer in the UK or Ireland (or considering becoming one), you should not miss this annual event. Because it's a Users' conference, it does not have the corporate feel of, say, the Blackboard Teaching ...

The Kaltura Connect Education Virtual Summit took place last week. All the sessions are now available to view on demand, so it you have a little bit of time, head on over to the VOD site to watch. My own talk User Engagement and Learning Outcomes: How NUI Galway is Changing the way Students Learn Inside and Outside the Classroom is available, though I have brought myself to watch it yet. Hopefully the technical guys worked their magic and I don't look as completely nervous as I actually felt at the time. The powerpoint slides from the talk are available on Slideshare and embedded here: User Engagement and Learning Outcomes: How NUI Galway is Changing the way Students Learn Inside and Outside the Classroom from Sharon Flynn Tweet

I wasn't sure which identity to bring with me to #cesicon , the annual conference of CESI (Computers in Education Society of Ireland). Billed as an event for those who are interested in integrating technology into their teaching and learning , it seems aimed mostly at first and second level education. Since my professional experience is embedded firmly in higher education, I wasn't sure what benefit the event would be for me. The free stickers went down well In my new found interest in all things Wikimedia, however, I wanted to support the Wikimedia Community Ireland group who were presenting in a session called Wikipedia for Education . And so, I signed up as part of An Lucht Vicí. With my new (purple) avatar on twitter, I can no longer hide easily at events, and so I brought along my "me" identity as well. The one identity that I tried to leave behind was the parent of two children in secondary school. My experience is that parents and teachers don't mix, unles...

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...