The Volvo Ocean Race is in town! As I write this, the boats are due into Galway (the finishing point of the race) after midnight tonight. The last time “the Volvo” was in Galway in 2009, an estimated 10,000 people crowded into Galway city to greet the boats arriving — at 3:00 in the morning…
Open online education is changing rapidly. The first few weeks of 2012 has seen the launch of Udacity, Stanford’s Coursera and the first course offering by MIT’s MITx. In trying to put these developments into context, I’ve drafted a table illustrating key aspects of this evolution in online education, focusing particularly on open online courseware…
Learning Management Systems… I have had the pleasure of using 4 (yes, 4!) different LMS’s in the past few years: WebCT, Angel, Blackboard and Moodle. I currently use two, primarily — Angel and Blackboard — as the two programmes on which I teach use different systems. In each case, the LMS offers real advantages in…
Last week, 15 new MScSED graduates were conferred with their degrees at NUI Galway (fortunately, before the wicked winter weather arrived). At the programme reception afterwards, graduates and their families mixed with faculty and staff in a happy, celebratory atmosphere. It’s always a joy to attend a conferring ceremony, but for the MScSED programme the…