Business Global Media Pedia

On Saturday 31st July, encouraged by reports from @vonprond, @klillington, @catherinecronin and @jamesclay, I went out and bought myself an iPad. I knew more about it than the sales guy in Curry's, Galway. I took it home and from the first moment I held it in my arms and connected it to iTunes, it was love. I should explain that I never, ever, have done anything like this before. I don't buy expensive gadgets for myself. This was a completely irrational move for me. Even my trusty iPod, now 4 years old, was bought as a present by my husband, after much hinting. For the next week, I proudly showed off my new purchase to family, friends and colleagues. I spent time considering apps, reading reviews, thinking about how I could use it for teaching and work, as well as having a bit of fun. I installed not one but four twitter apps: twitterific (good), tweetdeck (not great), osfoora (very nice) and flipboard (fantastic). I started to use it for reading (iBooks and Kindle) and was loo...

Fiona Concannon and I were delighted to participate in the Rahoon Youth Project Multimedia Camp which was held in NUIG Galway from July 19 - 23. Coordinator Kerry E'lyn Larkin kindly asked if we could facilitate a Web 2.0 session as part of an action-packed schedule incorporating audio, video, digital literacy and safety, as well as working with NUIG's Flirt FM. The 13-15 year-old students were amazingly talented and motivated (thanks to the programme and support offered by Kerry and her team), and we were delighted provide the students with a chance to use clickers, flip cameras and post to a private blog online. We also gave them a whistle-stop tour of the CELT recording and production facilities to add a bit of 'wow' factor to the proceedings. Well done to one and all involved. We are looking forward to next year's Multimedia Camp already!

Back in June I gave a presentation at the 4th International Plagiarism Conference on using Turnitin with large classes to support student writing. The full paper and the powerpoint presentation are now available on the conference website . The paper describes a pilot study in 2008-2009 involving 3 case studies with large undergraduate student groups, from 120 to 600 students, and addresses the use of Turnitin to support student writing and offer formative feedback, rather than focus purely on plagiarism detection. Using Turnitin with such large student groups (in 2009-2010 we successfully used it with a class of 950 students) really requires that Turnitin be integrated into the VLE, allowing the students self-submit their work. At NUI Galway, we are using Blackboard, which in turn is integrated with our student records system, thus reducing the administrative overload for staff. We found that Turnitin can be used to support academic staff in their teaching and assessment. Some of th...

Call for Papers: NAIRTL / LIN Annual Conference: Flexible Learning Deadline: 18th June 2010 Information: www.nairtl.ie/conference The NAIRTL / LIN Annual Conference will be held on the 6th and 7th of October 2010 in the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin. The title of this year’s conference is Flexible Learning and we aim to encourage and support HEI staff to undertake innovative approaches to their curriculum design and course implementation to meet the challenges of flexible learning. Interested participants should submit a 300 word abstract for a paper, workshop or poster (including interactive poster), webinar and other suitable formats based on one of the following themes: • Technology Enhanced Teaching • Integrative Learning • Innovation in Integrating Research, Teaching and Learning Event: Free Mahara Webinar - How ePortfolios represent a new wave of technology in Education Deadline: 29th June 2010 Registration: www.enovation.ie/index.php/component/seminar/ and c...

The ICEP 2010 ( The 2010 International Conference on Engaging Pedagogy - http://www.icep.ie/ ) abstract submission is closing soon (see below). We would be delighted to have you participate in this year's conference by submitting a paper describing your pedagogical research and practices. This year's conference is to be held in the National University of Ireland, Maynooth on Thursday December 2nd 2010 . The theme of the conference is Engaging Pedagogy: research and practices for a new decade. Relevant topics include but are not limited to: Novel teaching methods Educational technology as a means of engaging students Cultural diversity in the classroom Module and curriculum design for a new decade Assessment techniques Promoting student interest and participation Case studies Submission information: Abstracts should be no more than 200 words in length in Microsoft Word or PDF format and should be submitted at info@icep.ie by Tuesday 8th June, 2010 Intermediate feedback will be...

I was delighted to be invited to the Educational Developers in Ireland Network (EDIN) AGM at Tipperary Institute in Thurles last week as one of four presenter to discuss the topic 'eLearning: A Marraige of Convenience or Made in Heaven?' . My fellow presenters were Dr Kevin O'Rourke of the LTTC DIT, Catherine Bruen NDLR Project Manager and Morag Munro Acting Head of the Learning Innovation Unit at DCU. The summary themes that I took from the discourse were: (1) 'eLearning developers' are also 'educational developers' by default - these are not mutually exclusive roles and it adds little to the debate by imposing artificial demarcation lines; (2) technology-enhaced learning tools must be driven by the value-added they bring to the teaching and learning experience e.g. facilitating geographically distributed students working on a group project. Pedagogy first - technology second! (3) Ireland's competitive advantage is that we have a relativeley small e...

The EdTech 2010 conference is being held on May 20-21 in Athlone Insitiute of Technology . This event is the main annual technology-enhanced learning conference for the Irish user community and once again a wide diversity of NUI Galway initiatives will be showcased at the event. NUIG has seven papers/presentations across practitioner , research, Pecha Kucha and Technology in Action strands - the largest representation from any Irish university or IoT . So congratulations to: Peter Cantillon ; Mary Flemming; Fiona Masterson ; Mark Campbell; Niall McSweeney ; Oisin Keelen ; Andrew Flaus ; Mary Dempsey; Paul Gormley ; Liam McDwyer ; Tony Hall; Bonnie Long, and Sharon Flynn. We look forward to seeing innovative uses: of Turnitin to support student writing and feedback ; the uses of wikis with Irish and German operational engineering students ; m molecules and movies in biochemistry ; and the use of online meeting rooms to facilitate primary care clinicians' teaching an...