Visiting Speakers – Page 11 – Digital Learning Dispatches

We recently hosted Professor Martin Weller from the UK Open University. Martin holds a UNESCO Chair in Open Education and is Director of the Open Educational Resource Research Hub. He is author of a seminal open access book on the Digital Scholar and is well known for his EdTechie blog, which is one of the most widely read in the field. Martin is also a valued member of the NIDL International Advisory Board.

After spending time talking about areas of mutual interest with members of our Digital Learning Research Network, Martin gave a Visiting Scholar Presentation, which was open to DCU and Linked College staff, and anyone else in the Education sector who wished to attend. Martin drew on the content of his recent book on the Battle for Open and discussed how Open approaches in education have started to move into the mainstream. However, he demonstrated how the term has strong commercial interests and went on to explore some of the issues Openness now faces.

In October the National Institute for Digital Learning launched our Visiting Scholar Series and since then we have hosted three excellent presentations. Professor Grainne Conole started the series and then in December we hosted Dr Bart Rienties from the UK Open University and last week Associate Professor Steve Wheeler from Plymouth University. All three presentations make excellent viewing and if you have a spare hour or so over the next few weeks, then we highly recommend you take time to watch the three videos embedded below.

We are looking forward to hosting further visiting scholars over 2015 and information about future speakers will be posted via Twitter (@NIDL_DCU) and on our forthcoming events website. The Visiting Speaker Series is open to all comers and next year we plan to ensure some of our speakers are able to get around other parts of Ireland.