Digital Learning – Page 74 – Digital Learning Dispatches

On Monday 29th January the Open Education team in the National Institute for Digital Learning (NIDL) was delighted to host our 10 “University of Sanctuary” scholarship recipients studying online through DCU Connected. The students who travelled from different locations around Ireland were invited to Dublin to participate in the University’s launch of “Refugee Week”.

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A range of activities taking place over the week will help raise awareness of the issues and challenges facing people who are currently living in Direct Provision centres in Ireland. The Student’s Union, for example, is leading the #€21.60 campaign with a number of students accepting the challenge of living on €21.60 per week and documenting their experiences on social media. The launch also coincided with the release of the DCU University of Sanctuary Annual Report which provides an update on a number of strategic initiatives DCU has adopted over the past 12 months, and beyond, to support asylum seekers and refugees.

During the launch our University of Sanctuary Online Scholars were pleased to meet Professor Brian MacCraith, DCU’s President, and share some of their personal stories of the joys and challenges of learning online with the wider DCU community.
The opportunity to come together as DCU’s inaugural group of University of Sanctuary Online Scholars also provided a good chance to reflect on their learning experiences, celebrate their individual and collective successes, and share ideas and suggestions for the next semester. By the end of the day our team was both humbled and inspired by the drive, passion and strong commitment shown by our Online Scholars as they strive to improve their lives and in their own words, “become valued citizens who make a significant contribution to Ireland”.

Finally, we would like to acknowledge the support our University of Sanctuary Scholars have received from eBay, Vodafone and the DCU Educational Trust which has contributed to their successful learning experiences over the first Semester. We look forward to hearing more success stories as the students continue their study and news of further scholarships for online study for asylum seekers and refugees.

Ireland’s first educational technology “unconference” took place at Dublin City University (DCU) on Friday January 26th. The unconference format is a high energy, flexible and even flipped approach for professional learning which features discussion and collaboration at its core. Last week’s event focused on eportfolio practice across Ireland and attracted a large gathering of attendees from nine Irish institutes of Higher Education, as well as participants from Enterprise Ireland and UK colleges and organisations.

Sam Taylor from Cranfield University was the featured keynote speaker who helped seed many rich conversations but notably participants set and drove the agenda from the outset of the day.

The dynamic and highly interactive nature of the event is best captured through online and visual media to fully illustrate the energy, relevancy and collaborative nature of discussions. To this end you can mine your way through an archive of rich Twitter conversations over the course of the event by clicking on the Storify link and/or watch the brief video below which gives you a taste of the flavour of the day.

Storify: https://storify.com/lisadonaldson/integrating-authentic-eportfolio-assessment-eportf

The eportfolio unconference was organised by Lisa Donaldson in the Teaching Enhancement Unit and supported by the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. Our next related event on the use of eportfolio is a formal launch on 14th February by the Minister for Higher Education of a report providing a critical synthesis of the literature. Please contact us if you would like to attend this event.