This blog post is an initial contribution to a workshop I’ll be co-presenting at OER22 (26-28 April): ‘Applying the Capability Approach to Open Educational Practice’ with Gabi Witthaus. The workshop arises from our recent discussions about overlaps in our work and our visions for open education. Next week, Gabi and I will publish a joint…
Throughout 2021, aware of – and experiencing – widespread anxiety and despair from our respective locations in higher education, we dared to imagine a global, collective, collaborative work that would point towards better futures, and thus inspire hope. In December 2021 we extended a global invitation to contribute chapter proposals for this work: ‘Higher Education…
In November 2019, I began a 3-year post as Strategic Education Developer at the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. My role has been to work as National Forum lead in the area of digital and open education, spanning policy and practice, working in collaboration with students and staff…
Respect. Justice. Equality. Most of us aim to embody and enact these values in the work we do, in all our interactions, in all the spaces we inhabit. In a world of increasing inequality, these values demand much of us — especially white people in relation to racism. The quote in the image above is…
As the COVID-19 virus crisis worsens, the local/global and personal/professional boundaries (already admittedly thin) have been obliterated almost entirely this week. Yesterday (March 12) Ireland’s Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, announced new measures to combat Covid-19 in Ireland. These include closing all schools, colleges, universities and childcare facilities until March 29, at least, as well as limiting…
I am starting 2020 quietly and reflectively, and as ever, hopeful for the year ahead. It has been a year of many changes. Impossible to capture it all, but as the year turns I want to mark some milestones of 2019. Working with the National Forum At the start of 2019, I’d been in my…
It has been a whirlwind, a unique learning experience, and a privilege to work these past 14 months with my OER19 co-chair Laura Czerniewicz, with ALT‘s star team of Maren Deepwell, Martin Hawksey and Jane Marsh, with a fabulous conference committee and Galway planning team and with a global network of open educators, researchers, and…
Just a quick post to confirm that I have landed in my new post at the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. The National Forum office is located upstairs in the Royal Irish Academy building in the centre of Dublin. I live near Galway in the west of Ireland,…
Very brief announcement: I’m delighted to say that at the end of October I will be joining Ireland’s National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (@ForumTL) as a Strategic Education Developer. The National Forum works across all higher education institutions in Ireland with the mission of enhancing teaching and learning for all students. As…
I initially qualified and worked as an engineer, but for the past 25+ years I have worked as an educator — mostly in higher education, but also in different community contexts and in the tech industry. At ALT’s 25th annual conference next month, Frances Bell and I will facilitate a workshop titled: A personal, feminist…