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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. ...

Last week, myself and my colleague, Margaret Forde, had the pleasure to help out in chairing at the 12th Annual Conference of IT in the Humanities- a conference is the product of module CT327: Humanities Applications in which the final year BA Information Technology class present on independently research topics of their own choosing. The conference was an uplifting and fascinating insight into the curiosity and rigorous research activity of undergraduate students at NUI Galway. Forty one diverse topics relating to Facebook, social media, Sci Fi  fiction, the perils of working conditions and electronic waste, innovations in IT applications for health, forensics, construction, natural disasters, online dating, activism, and digital identity were among some of the themes addressed.  Photo: Pat Byrne (Lecturer) with her class of Final year BA Information Technology Class, 2015 Several aspects struck me as interesting and innovative about the design of the module. Firstly, it too...

Yesterday, the Times Higher had an article called Wikipedia should be 'better integrated' into teaching , based largely on a study carried out in Australia, but largely ignoring a lot of the work being done by the Wikipedia Education community in the UK and, to a lesser extent, in Ireland. Last November I wrote about the EduWiki 2014 event which was exactly on this topic. While integrating Wikipedia into teaching isn't widespread, there are a number of people who are doing this, and have been for a number of years. Our first Wikimedia event at NUIG was in November 2014, when we organised an Editathon on Vicipéid (the Irish language wikipedia) and Wikipedia . This involved MA students taking Irish translation modules, with a view to providing authentic translation opportunities. The event was very successful, and you can see Oliver Moran from Wikimedia Community Ireland talking about it in the video below. video platform video management video solutions video player Follow...

Earlier this year I presented, with two student co-presenters, a session at the Blackboard Teaching and Learning Conference (BBTLC) , which took place in UCD in Dublin. The presentation was based on a project that I've been involved in, along with the students, to develop a campus mobile app for students, based on the Blackboard Mosaic platform. The interesting thing about the project was that the project was entirely initiated, driven and implemented by the students. My co-presenters, Fionn Delahunty and Darren Kelly, are both first year undergraduate students at NUI Galway. Fionn intends to major in Psychology, while Darren is a student of Biomedical Science. Neither would describe themselves as particularly technical. But they are now at the point of launching the first official mobile app for NUI Galway students. The film crew at BBTLC The students were excited to be going to BBTLC, which fell at an awkward time during their first year exams. Blackboard, the company, had shown ...