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A few weeks ago I attended the Blackboard Teaching and Learning Conference, which took place at University College Dublin. Both David Hopkins ( day1 , day2 and day3 ) and Sheila MacNeill ( here and here ) have already blogged about the event. I know I'm quite late, but I thought I'd get a few thoughts down before I forget altogether. This was the first Blackboard Europe event that I have attended in some time. In general, I find the Durham Blackboard Users' Conference more useful and better value. This year I decided to go, for a couple of reasons: It took place in University College Dublin (where I studied Science as an undergrad many years ago), which made travelling so much easier. Also, I could stay with my Mum and have a little quality time with her. I had been encouraged to submit a proposal on our Explore project with Mosaic , which was accepted. So I was able to present with my two (undergraduate student) co-presenters, Fionn Delahunty and Darren Kelly. More on t...

CELT is delighted to invite you to participant in the NUI Galway Blackboard Collaborate April Showcase presentation series. About the April Showcase Series The series will feature live online presentations from NUI Galway colleagues who have utilised Blackboard Collaborate live meeting rooms to engage with their students during this academic year. The presentations will address pedagogical, practical and logistical considerations when engaging in live synchronous teaching and learning sessions, and will offer useful advice and recommendations to colleagues interested in adopting this approach in their own practice. These presentations will be of interest to colleagues currently using, intending to use, or wish to have an awareness of the potential of the Blackboard Collaborate platform to support live online teaching and learning. About Blackboard Collaborate at NUI Galway Blackboard Collaborate provides a real-time bridge to geographically distributed students and staff through online...

Flowers for International Women's Day Yesterday was International Women's Day and there was a plethora of blog posts and twitter messages identifying various inspirational women. Twenty five years ago I would have found this unnecessary, demeaning even. But now, with a pre-teenage daughter about to enter secondary school, with her whole life ahead of her, I'm increasingly concerned about the world that she is about to encounter. I grew up with just one sister, no brothers. We were never told that there were career paths not open to us. We both ended up taking Computer Science degrees and both continue to work in technology. I went to an all-girls convent school. I took Honours Maths and Physics, because I liked them. Originally I wanted to be an accountant (like my dad) or an actuary. But then I got the CS bug, and decided that's what I wanted to do. I graduated in 1990, one of 8 girls in a class of 34 computer scientists - that's almost 25% female. I took a joint h...

Day two of BYOD4L mini course , and I'm still here, though a little late to blog about it. The theme was communicating and we had a very intense twitter chat on that topic. The first task, which I completed over lunchtime on my iPad, was to create a representation of yourself as a communicator in your private and professional life The directions suggested that I find a free app that would help me with this. Some mind-mapping apps were suggested, but eventually I decided that iBrainstorm looked fairly easy. This is what I came up with. Me, as a communicator Interestingly , in retrospect, I focused on me (as a communicator) rather than focusing on the tools that I use - though some are mentioned. I also chose to reveal an aspect of my personality, that I am an introvert. This was actually the first thing I pinned to the board, because I feel that it does define the way that I prefer and choose to communicate. The Videos I did look at both video scenarios . I reflected a little on t...

This week I am dipping into the open bite-size course BYOD4L: Bring Your Own Device for Learning . I can't promise that I'll keep up, especially since the History and Future of (Mostly) Higher Education MOOC also starts today. But since it's only over 5 days, I might just manage. The first topic is that of Connecting . There was quite a bit of connecting on the twitter chat this evening , under the hashtag #BYOD4Lchat. It was fast and furious. But, back to the task at hand. I watched both videos embedded on the Resources page and decided to reflect on the second one, from the point of view of the teacher. This is a scenario with which I am familiar, since I work in supporting teaching staff in their use of technology. A constant refrain is "I haven't got time", which, to be fair, is usually true. Academics are, increasingly, very busy with many demands on their time. To start using a new technology (device, app, system, tool) for teaching, they need to be c...

Calman Learning Centre, Durham Earlier this month I attended (and presented at) the Durham Blackboard Users' Conference. This was my fourth time to attend the conference, which is always a very valuable event, particularly at the start of the new year. This year's event was no exception. Quite apart from the excellent keynotes (Patrick Carmichael and Robin Goodfellow) and the varied programme , this also gives me a chance to catch up with a very open and sharing community of learning technologists, teachers and administrators with common issues and challenges. It's now about 2 weeks since the conference and I've had a chance to let some ideas and thoughts settle. Rather than being a conference report, I'd just like to write down some of my reflections arising from the event. Apologies for the long post, it has taken me a few days to bring the threads together. An archive of the tweets from the event is available on storify. Plumbing One of the first things that I n...

Shortly before Christmas, I followed a #edchatie twitter chat. This twitter chat, for Irish educators, takes place every Monday evening. While I am aware of it, I don't normally participate, because 1) the time doesn't suit me, 2) active participants are mostly from primary or secondary education, with minimal HE discussion, 3) although I have an interest in primary and secondary education as a parent, I haven't felt encouraged to engage from that perspective. However, I do like to drop in from time to time. On this occasion, I introduced myself as usual, and said that I would be mostly lurking. I got an immediate response from @fboss , the convenor, who suggested that I should try to participate, and I agreed that I would. The topic on the evening was #whatilearntin2013 . The stream was full of positive reflections on the year. Maybe it was the time of year, end of semester blues, a particularly challenging year, or maybe I was just a bit down, but I could not think of a s...