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The NDLR (National Digital Learning Resources) is delighted to announce the call for applications to fund projects supporting the development of learning resources /materials for the NDLR Users over the next eight months (June – November 2010). Further details and the application form are available from the newly launched NDLR website . The deadline for applications is the Friday 28th May 2010. Funds will be available from 18th June to: (a) Support projects that will create learning resources and (b) Generate use and activity around these learning resources and the repository and portal. The outputs of these projects will be showcased at a major NDLR event at the end of 2010. Bids should focus on short, practical projects with clear identifiable outputs (i.e. resources and examples of use and reuse). The outputs of these projects should aim to actively progress and support the realisation of the new and dynamic streamlined SMART CoP model ( new CoPs and/or mergers between existing CoPs...

Just back from the Blackboard Teaching and Learning 2010 in Swansea , Wales held from 12-14 April. If your idea of fun is seeing: how a Saudi university was built in 1000 days; how Welsh bilingual medium provision is being supported through technology-enhanced learning; or just watching a video of Blackboard employees dressed up as ladybirds and bees to articulate their common goal of ensuring highest quality standards (getting rid of bugs!!!), this was the place to be. I presented a review of an NUIG 3-year project that aimed to embed Blackboard and other learning technologies as core mainstream technology-enhanced functions on behalf of our project team. Many international colleagues are in the same boat, so it was great chance for information and resource exchange after the presentation. Blackboard had their US product development team onsite to present Blackboard v9.1 , plus a number of new products such as Blackboard Connect (mass notification system), Blackboard Mobile , and Xyth...

On Wednesday the NDLR held their annual Fest in The Trinity Science Gallery. The day was a great success with many interesting presentations on the excellent projects that individuals and institutions have been working on over the past year. Many of the presenters showcased the RLOs they've been developing and there was a chance to speak with them and view the RLOs they have created. There was also a poster session held that gave everyone a chance to get up-to-date on what various NDLR CoPs are getting up to. The event was attended by individual academics, groups of academics who have been working collaboratively through various NDLR initiatives and key stakeholders in the Irish HE sector. Andrew Flaus and Oisín Keeley from the Dept. of Biochemistry at NUIG showcased the fantastic RLOs that they've created as part of a project to develop learning tools that would enable students to grasp conceptually difficult scientific topics and techniques and to create some new assets ...

For the fourth year in succession, the iHCI conference is inviting papers on a wide range of topics, including submissions exploring, discussing or challenging the many boundaries within our community today: the traditional boundaries between academia and industry; the physical boundaries which influence our work; the boundaries between creativity and code; the boundaries between research and real-world use; and the boundaries between 'traditional' desktop systems and mobile, tangible, or ambient interaction; and pushing boundaries into novel or challenging spaces. The event takes place at Dublin City University on September 2-3 2010. Contributions are also welcome that include, but are not limited to, any of the following topics of interest: - Accessibility & Universal Access - Case studies - Collaboration, groupware and social networks - Context-aware systems - Ethnographical and field studies - Evaluation methods and frameworks - Group interaction, collaboration and soci...

It's a bit off topic for us here on the CELT Learning Technologies blog, but we've all been taking part in a challenge with a technology of the non-networked kind... you know, that two wheeled thing stuck in the back of your shed at home? Yes, the bike- that (t)rusty steed. Thanks to Sinead Higgins, the environmental officer at NUI Galway, we've gotten involved with the 10 minute cycle challenge and have been peddling to work, come rain, hail or shine for the past two weeks. Why? Well, because it's huge fun, and just to see whether we could all do it. I'll admit, with the bad weather this week and the low traffic volumes on the roads with the schools on holidays, it's been very tempting to sit into the car and use my right foot to propel me in my metal tin container into work. But, it's too much to give up the happy feeling of whistling down the road with the wind at my ears, feeling that relaxed sense of calm of being on my bike. I can't describe the s...

I was lucky enough to attend the launch of the wiki Das Auslandsjahr in Deutschland yesterday evening, on a dark, cold March evening at NUI Galway. Despite the bleak weather beating against the windows, inside the classroom of AM205 a heart warming tale unfolded of collaboration and triumph for an engaged class of third level students. The evening was initiated by Doris Devilly, a lecturer in the German Department at NUI Galway, and her students in the B.Comm with German programme who showcased their own hard work on an carefully crafted wiki resource, packed with useful information to pass along to next year's students. It was a really fascinating to hear the stories behind their Erasmus experience. Each member of the class stood up in turn, to confidently speak about their overseas adventures, and show us their contributions to the wiki detailing their progress (and occasional misadventures) in a new land. Doris - all I can say is congratulations on a truly inspirational eveni...

Doris Devilly, a lecturer in the German Department at NUI Galway, and her students in the B.Comm with German programme, are launching a wiki aimed at second year students of German in preparing them for their year abroad. Doris says: As part of their final year project in "Creativity and New Technologies" BComm (Int.) with German students have set up, designed and created a wiki for second year German students Das Auslandsjahr in Deutschland (The Year Abroad in Germany). This wiki is entirely written in German and the rationale behind it was to assist second year students of German (from all faculties) to prepare for their year abroad and to familiarise themselves with German culture, academia and society. It also encouraged my students to work collaboratively on a class project and to publish their effort on the internet. As the final year students had only 10 class hours in the multimedia lab available, most of them worked from home or in the computer suites - all of them ...