Critical digital literacies, agency and hope

At the start of this summer, I gave a keynote at the annual AMICAL Conference titled ‘Critical digital literacies: Developing agency and sustaining hope in troubled times’. Yesterday, AMICAL kindly posted the videos from the conference, so I am sharing links to the keynote and to the conference here. Beyond the keynote itself, the list…

Graffiti on wall: These are some serious times

Proceed with care

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…

Conversations about Teaching & Learning

I’m a lover of a variety of podcasts — education, science, politics, arts & culture. I listen to learn, to laugh, to be moved (and, honestly, often to be transported elsewhere as I inch through another of Galway’s traffic jams). A wonderful find of the past year has been Teaching in Higher Ed by Bonni Stachowiak. A recent episode with…

#OER17: personal and political

So many important conversations, so much valuable work, so many new connections made and friendships celebrated. Thanks OER17. Over the past 11 days or so since OER17 ‘The Politics of Open’ ended, I’ve read as many conference blog posts as possible. There are a remarkable number of interweaving stories and interpretations of the conference, all…

Digital Identity redux

In the course of my work over the past few years I have circled back, again and again, to digital identity. In my research and teaching, when invited to speak with or facilitate workshops for staff and students (on open educational practices, social media & academia, digital literacies, etc.), and when working with young people…

Navigating the Marvellous: Openness in Education #altc

For three days last week I participated in #altc (the Association for Learning Technology Conference) at the University of Warwick — attending in person for the first time after participating virtually for several years. It was a joy to meet so many online friends and colleagues for the first time and to take part in such…

Enacting digital identity

When we ask our students to share online — in a discussion forum within an LMS; in a wiki, course blog, Google Doc or Facebook group; on Twitter or anywhere on the open web — we are inviting not just online interaction but an enactment of each student’s digital identity. Involvement in or resistance to…

Exploring digital identities

In previous posts, I have shared some of the resources I use for exploring digital identity and digital literacies with students (e.g. Resources for exploring digital identity, privacy and authenticity and Learning and teaching digital literacies). All of these resources and approaches have been developed through my work with 2nd year Computer Science and IT…

Connecting & learning in schools: students, teachers and parents

On a sunny, blustery afternoon here in Kinvara, I’ve just returned from an uplifting meeting with teachers at our local primary school. Nearly every year for the past 8  years, I’ve participated in information evenings for parents, speaking about internet safety issues related to social networks popular at the time (e.g. Bebo, Club Penguin, YouTube…

Resources for exploring digital identity, privacy and authenticity

At the CESI (Computers in Education Society of Ireland) conference last weekend (#cesi12), I presented ‘Social networking with our students: digital identity, privacy and authenticity’. A number of people have asked for details of the articles and resources I referenced, so here are both the presentation and a summary of resources. Digital identity, privacy &…