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Tweet   As part of our Learning Technologies module here at NUIG aimed at academic staff, this year I incorporated a session on QR codes, involving a QR code scavenger hunt. I intend to blog about how I did this very soon. Let's just say that we all had fun and came away with a better understanding of QR codes and what they can and  can't do. My challenge to the group was to think about how they could meaningfully use QR codes with their students to support a learning activity. I was delighted with this response from Anne Wiseman ( @annewiseman ), lecturer in Construction at GMIT. Reflections on Workshop 6 I have been thinking about QR codes and how to incorporate them into my teaching  since the workshop on 2nd December. While I can see their use while on the move or out in the field I'm not so sure of their application in the classroom. The main concern I have is that I'm not sure how many students have a smart phone and how fair it is to the students who don...

As I mentioned in my last blog post, I've been attending the iClicker Pedagogy Webinar series over the last few weeks, and find them very interesting. On 25th January, Roger Freedman ( @RogerFreedman ) spoke about Pedagogical Best Practices. On 15th February, Angel Hoekstra spoke about Pedagogical Strategies for Teaching with Clickers in the Social Sciences. This week, on 22nd February, Jennifer Kaplan spoke about her use of clickers in large Statistics classes. It's interesting to hear about the different approaches, and also to see the common themes. In my post last week, I gave an account of the student feedback on the use of clickers in the College of Science initiative at NUIG. On the whole it was very positive, and it encouraged the College to expand the use of clickers to include 1st and 2nd year undergraduates. But, what about the staff issues? Three group meetings were arranged during the academic year, when all staff involved in the clicker project were invited to c...

I've been "attending" some of the webinars in the iClicker Pedagogy Webinar series over the last few weeks. They are organised for 1:00 EST, which translates to 6pm Irish time. If I race home from work, I can just about catch them while watching over the kids. On 25th January, Roger Freedman ( @RogerFreedman ), Physics lecturer and clicker enthusiast, talked on the topic of Clickers in the Classroom: Pedagogical Best Practices. Roger gave a lovely presentation, making a compelling case for using clickers and demonstrating that there can be a significant learning gain from integrating them into teaching. The webinar was probably more suited to people getting started with clickers, but it was very interesting to see some of our experience here in NUIG being mirrored in what Roger was saying. In September 2010, 762 clicker devices were distributed to incoming first year undergraduate Science students and Foundation Medicine students at NUIG. In addition, 40 RF receiver dev...

A couple of weeks ago, I had a coffee with Michael Coyne ( @MichealCoyne on twitter) of the NUI Galway School of Law. I was interested in finding out a little bit more about the School's presence on Facebook . The site currently has more than 400 fans and is a very nice example of using facebook to enhance the student experience. Michael made some interesting points. The site is mainly aimed at final year undergraduate students, but also targets recent graduates and prospective students. It offers some useful course-related information such as timetables and announcements, more general information about upcoming seminars and career advice and whatever is considered newsworthy or of interest to law students, past and present. It’s also a good platform for current PhD students who actively blog on human rights and disability issues to highlight their work and perhaps make contact with like-minded people. This is seen as a good way to reach students. Michael's perception is that...