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Last year we spoke with Dr. Eilís Ní Dhúill about the Thesis Talk ( https://thesistalk.wordpress.com ) blog at NUI Galway . The blog is written by PhD candidates from the College of Arts, Social Sciences, and Celtic Studies. Chronicling the varying experiences of the College's research students, it provides a platform to describe and share PhD experiences, research, feedback from conferences attended, and to ask the community questions or give tips and advice.  Her account of Thesis Talk is well worth a listen. She outlines how openness and sharing of knowledge are manifested through scholarly blogging. The benefits include connecting with a community of peers, developing writing skills, and engaging in open knowledge production and sharing. Tweet

Date: 26 – 27 May 2016 Venue: Law Society of Ireland, Education Centre, Blackhall Place, Dublin, Ireland The events of Easter 1916 are of seminal importance in Irish history. What began as a small uprising in the centre of Dublin on Easter Monday set in motion a series of developments which ultimately led to Irish independence in 1922. The Government of Ireland has launched national and international program of events to reflect on the past 100 years, and to re-imagine our future under the following themes: remembering the past; reconciling and respecting all traditions; presenting Ireland to the world; imagining our future; and celebrating our achievements ( www.ireland.ie ). The EdTech2016 theme  ‘ReConstituting TEL: Rising to the Challenge’  affords us the opportunity to: reflect on the current state of TEL in Ireland in 2016; celebrate our achievements to this point; and consider the opportunities and challenges presented within an increasingly globalised, and uncertain w...

The annual CEL263 symposium for 2016 took place almost 2 weeks ago on Monday 29th February. This year, seven participants from the PG Dip Learning Technologies module gave short presentations on their project for the module. The project brief is: You are asked to identify and complete a project, based on the material covered in the module, to incorporate Learning Technologies in your teaching.You are given free scope in identifying a technology or technologies and what you want to achieve. The technology does not have to be something that we are covering during the module, and could be something specific to your discipline. The participants were asked to give a 10 minute presentation to the group (which included module participants and members of CELT) on their project, whether it's complete, in early stages, or halfway through. As in previous years, I took notes by tweeting. The following is a collection of tweets from the event, using Storify. [ View the story "CEL263 S...

I have attended the annual CESI conferenc e  for the past five years and it's now become an integral part of my personal CPD. As someone that spent ten years teaching at second level, the event helped me to build my personal learning network (PLN) at a level only matched by participating in CESI's #edchatie Twitter chat session on Monday evenings. Having moved on to NUI Galway, I did ponder how the event I had grown so accustomed to might feel different for me this year.  As more of an observer than a participant, I further shook things up by submitting a presentation. The conference theme was rooted upon the new "Digital Strategy for Schools 2015 - 2020" document released by the Department of Education.  The document aims to "embed ICT more deeply across the system to enhance the overall quality of Irish education".  This is essentially the same ethos that fuels CESI. Though I've only skimmed the document at this stage, but I can see parallels betwe...

Overview The first PebblePad Irish User Group meeting took place in the RCSI on Wednesday 10 February. It was hosted by John Couperthwaite and Debbie Holmes from PebblePad, and featured colleagues from TCD, DCU, UCC, GMIT, WIT, and NUIG; some of which are currently using PebblePad alongside others looking to keep a watching brief on ePortfolio developments and uses in higher education. NUI Galway Context Following the cessation of the Learning Objects suite of tools in NUIG, a number of professional-based functions (e.g. Nursing and Midwifery, Engineering, Adult Education) have spoken to me about their interest in pan-programme ePorfolio solutions; and specifically those with post-graduate access options. We do not have access to BB-native portfolios as this requires the Community System which comes with a considerable price tag. I attended this session to gauge the current state of play from PebblePad and the wider user group and found it extremely useful. Key Features of PebblePad Th...

Earlier this month I made my annual pilgrimmage to Durham to attend the 16th Durham Blackboard Users' Conference . I've been attending this event every January for the last number of years and can honestly say that it's a highlight in my calendar. Even better that it's at the very, very start of the year, meaning I'm not missing too much activity at work, and I can focus my mind completely on the theme of the conference. Moreover, the annual Durham event is one of the best organised, consistently enjoyable and useful, and the friendliest Ed Tech conference. If Carlsberg did conferences! This is mostly down to the amazing team behind it all, including Malcolm Murray, Julie Mulvey and the Learning Technologies Team at Durham University. If you are a Blackboard customer in the UK or Ireland (or considering becoming one), you should not miss this annual event. Because it's a Users' conference, it does not have the corporate feel of, say, the Blackboard Teaching ...

In December, a PhD student, Sally McHugh, called into my office to tell me that she had successfully received Explore funding for a project called Campus Create , with Dr. Tony Hall in Education. The idea was to promote and encourage creativity in all its forms, including within digital media. Sally and I had talked before about Digital Storytelling DS106 from the University of Mary Washington, and the work of Jim Groom , Alan Levine and colleagues. They had been working for many years, encouraging people to make art, to create, share and remix, in an open way, cognisant of copyright and domain ownership. Our heroes. http://campuscreate.eu / Before Christmas, Tony, Sally and I met to talk about how we might explore and enact these ideas at NUI Galway within the Campus Create project. We came up with the notion of having twelve weeks of themes, to correspond to the first twelve weeks of semester 2, and to post daily create challenges, similar to projects like the Daily Create , the Da...