Ireland’s First Google Education Summit

In March DCU supported by the NIDL hosted Ireland’s first Google Education Summit. This two day event (19th & 20 March) attracted close to 100 participants from across Education sectors and although dedicated to the use of Google apps in education, the focus was very much on teaching and learning. The President of DCU, Professor Brian MacCraith, opened the Summit followed by a brief overview by  of some of the opportunities available to digital age teachers and learners Professor Mark Brown. After the success of this year’s Summit we are already discussing with Google how we can support an even better and bigger event in 2016. Special thanks to Dr Mark Glynn, Alan Crean and our Information Systems Services (IIS) team for their leadership leading up to and over the two days of the Summit.

Google Summit

EDEN Research Award

We are pleased to announce that Elaine Walsh and Dr James Brunton received the Best Poster Award at the prestigious EDEN Research Workshop at Oxford for their work entitled “Assessment Strategy – Designing and Developing Assessment for Online Distance Education”. Their poster was a clear winner and validates the leading-edge work they are doing in the area of online Assessment. The Award was jointly presented at the end of Day One by Professor Antonio Moreira Teixeria, President of EDEN, and Professor Belinda Tynan, Pro Vice-Chanchellor (Learning & Teaching), The UK Open University, with official Rapporteur, Professor Tony Bates, closely watching proceedings. Congratulations to Elaine and James!

Poster

EDEN Poster Award

Earlier in the day, Colum Foley, also from the NIDL, gave an excellent report back to conference delegates after the first keynote address by Dr Cristobal Cobo from Oxford University.

Colum Later in the day Dr James Brunton, Lorraine Delaney, and Dr Eamon Costello assisted Professor Mark Brown in chairing the highly successful Oxford Debate. In arguing the motion “That Open Educational Resources (OERs) have fundamentally transformed Higher Education”, Professor Rory McGreal from Athabasca University, Canada and UNESCO/COL/ICDE Chair in Open Educational Resources (OER) came up against Professor María Soledad Ramírez Montoya from Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico, who holds both an ICDE Chair in OER and UNESCO Chair in Open Educational Practice (OEP). After the cut and thrust of a lively debate the motion was eventually won by Professor Ramírez Montoya in favour of the motion.

Debate

NIDL staff will be presenting two papers on Day Two of the Research Workshop, which is being attended by many leading scholars in the field from around the world.

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