Inside View

Eating Less Meat #newsround

A COMBINATION OF health issues along with stark warnings from scientists have encouraged me to eat less meat. The UN says switching to a meat-free diet makes an immediate reduction of 50% in one's carbon footprint so that's what I'm doing. This green issue was one of several items worth remembering in my six-minute review of Sunday news in Ireland.

Helping Young People Find Their Voices

ONE OF THE MOST REWARDING things I do is help young people find their voices. I watch this happen when with Ireland's Youth Media Team, inside primary school classrooms, and with third level students during studio sessions.

Learning from President Higgins and @ymtfm

ALTHOUGH I READ the acclamation voiced on Twitter and Facebook, it took me a day to realise the impact of several very special moments I witnessed first hand while standing in a media scrum set up by Ireland's Youth Media Team when interviewing President Michael D. Higgins and his wife Sabina. It all happened within the space of 10 minutes at the start of Feilte 2018, the annual conference of the Teaching Council of Ireland.

Sustaining Our Youth Media Team through Teamwork

MIDWAY THROUGH the annual Teaching Council Conference (hashtagged #feilte2018), I started thinking more about sustainability, since that term was floating throughout several corners of the conference venue. More specifically, I started thinking about how to sustain the efforts of the Youth Media Team. And I formed the same conclusion that Pam O'Brien and Conor Galvin made years ago--it's a team effort.

Spending a weekend immersed in education #feilte

EVERY FALL, I mark the start of another academic year by listening to peers explain a wide range of topics I can immediately use as a creative media lecturer. The presentations, workshops, and networking happen in Feilte 2018, a major initiative of the Teaching Council of Ireland.

Listen to "We are at Feilte 2018" on Spreaker.

Personally Immersed in Two Sigma h/t @patrickc #edchatie

PATRICK COLLISON ASKS, "Is Bloom's Two Sigma phenomenon real? If so, what do we do about it?" [1]

One of Patrick's Questions pointed to educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom who found one-on-one tutoring using mastery learning led to a two sigma improvement in student performance. The results were replicated. [2] Bloom asks in his paper that identified the "2 Sigma Problem": how do we achieve these results in conditions more practical (i.e., more scalable) than one-to-one tutoring?

Volumetric Imagination

WE USE A Ricoh Theta S #ricoh360 camera in every academic course I teach on the Clonmel Digital Campus and I’m impressed at how its use improves the critical visual skills of students. There is so much more in an image when you can spin a photo up, down, and around.

Spiking Flickr While Househunting

WE'VE BEEN LOOKING at a half dozen locations and we hope to move into a different home before Christmas. The interesting thing for me is watching the spike in views on Flickr as we poke around different premises.

On one day, my Flickr view count exceeded 3700 with several hundred views recorded on quick snaps I made around a few homes for sale.

Five Star Timeless Learning h/t @irasocol #edchatie

I RECEIVED A five-star addition to my professional library in the form of Timeless Learning by Ira Socol, Pam Moran, and Chad Ratliff. It's an essential text for the advocacy of makerspaces in education.

Summarising Autumn Semester 2018 as Sways

I'M USING OFFICE SWAY to summarise every major teaching moment during the fall semester of 2018. That means I will cover Media Writing, Project Management, Critical and Creative Thinking, and Web Analytics through responsive Office Sways.