The Ideas Lab – Page 2 – Digital Learning Dispatches

On Tuesday a large group of friends, colleagues and invited guests, including the Lord Mayor of Dublin and senior government officials, gathered at O’Connell House on Merrion Square in Dublin to celebrate the formal launch of “Irish 101“, Dublin City University’s (DCU) free online course on Irish language and culture. The event also formally launched the wider Fáilte ar Líne (Welcome online) project co-funded by the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht under the 20-Year Strategy for the Irish Language 2010-2030.

Speaking at the launch, Minister of State for the Irish Language, Gaeltacht and the Islands, and the Government’s Chief Whip, Joe McHugh TD, congratulated DCU on this important online lifelong learning initiative. He reported that “As Minister of State with responsibility for the Irish language, and in my previous role as Minister of State for the Diaspora, I have witnessed at first hand the incredible interest and passion that there is for our language and culture worldwide.”

Professor Mairead Nic Giolla Mhichíl, project lead, Head of the NIDL Ideas Lab, and a member of DCU’s Irish Language School, Fiontar agus Scoil na Gaeilge, noted in her speech that we want to give first, second and third generations of the Irish diaspora an opportunity to learn more about Irish language and culture. Mairead went on to say the initiative is:

An important step in enhancing the global, online presence of the Irish language; connecting with the Irish diaspora; and promoting opportunities to study in and to visit Ireland.

The “Irish 101” MOOC, which will start on the 29th of January, is being delivered in conjunction with FutureLearn. DCU will also offer a MOOC on “High Performance Computing in the Cloud” starting on the same day. The two MOOCs, which may appear at very different ends of the knowledge continuum, reflects both the diversity of courses and degree programmes available through DCU, and metaphorically speaking the contemporary face of Ireland where traditional culture and today’s modern hi-tech digital society co-exist.

Professor Mark Brown, Director of the National Institute for Digital Learning (NIDL), talked about the significance of DCU’s partnership with FutureLearn in the context of the new Higher Education System Performance Framework and the Government’s goal to lift Ireland’s current low level of participation in life-long learning. Ireland is currently well below the EU average. Mark also noted DCU’s strong commitment over many years to opening up access to higher education through DCU Connected, and the opportunity for Ireland to be a global leader in meeting growing demand worldwide for university-level education through new pathways and online learning solutions.

There have already been thousands of enrolments in “Irish 101” with so far people registering from over 110 countries. Irish 101.jpg A programme of research is also associated with this initiative which builds on the NIDL’s growing reputation in this burgeoning area, as evidenced by DCU being selected to host the 2019 ICDE World Conference on Online Learning. Further free short online courses are planned in the future along with a number of other exciting digital learning developments as DCU builds on its strategic partnership with FutureLearn.

Finally, we would like to acknowledge the University of Notre Dame for making O’Connell House available for this important event. We would also like to thank Mark Lecester, FutureLearn’s Director of Partnerships and DCU’s President, Professor Brian MacCraith for their support and contribution to the launch. And importantly we need to acknowledge the Ideas Lab and NIDL team centrally involved in the project, as this week’s launch would not have been possible without the many creative hours they have devoted to “Irish 101” and the wider mission of promoting Irish language and culture.

Read more about this initiative in the Irish language in DCU’s press release relating to this project.

Last Friday, staff in the National Institute for Digital Learning (NIDL) at Dublin City University (DCU) joined together for a whole of team collaborative professional development activity. Notably, this experience was purposefully different with a creative twist. In two teams, combining over 20 people across all three NIDL units, the challenge for the morning was to produce a large piece of urban art (i.e., graffiti) based on two randomly assigned themes.

NIDL 2017a.jpg
As hopefully you can tell from the selected images the two themes were Pirates and Western. At first this was a rather daunting task for people in the face of two large blank canvasses (walls). However, after a brief 101 tutorial on the basics of drawing and painting graffiti from our two expert mentors, each team set about their task by brainstorming possible concepts, sketching out initial designs and learning how to hold and spray a paint can.

Some people took to this task naturally whereas others slowly warmed to the experience, especially given the doors were left open most of the time to avoid paint fumes.

It’s also fair to say that dividing up tasks, learning new artistic skills and working in a team to produce the intended design was not easy. Notably, the two groups responded quite differently to the challenge under the guidance of their respective team leaders.

There was a lot of good banter and healthy competition, nevertheless, between the two teams as the large walls gradually filled and increasingly became alive with colourful imagery.

Over the course of the morning a number of hidden talents emerged and by the end of the experience both teams were rather pleased with their efforts. We believe the final results depicted in the photos immediately above and below illustrate the creative flair, collective problem-solving abilities and collaborative across unit potential of the NIDL team–that is, irrespective of whether you seek treasure or just prefer to have a quiet drink in the saloon.

Of course, the challenge for us in the New Year is to build on this innovative professional development experience to more fully harness our combined talents. We hope through this non digital experience (apart from the photos) that we have set a new benchmark for discovering more creative, distinctive and transformative ways of realising our vision of designing, implementing and researching new Blended, Online and Digitally-enhanced (BOLD) models of education.

In the meantime, the words of Einstein spring to mind and go some way to encapsulating the real spirit and essence of last week’s purposefully different professional development challenge, as we strive in the NIDL to promote talent, creativity, and consistent excellence:

“Creativity is intelligence having fun”

(Albert Einstein)