I’ve been brushing up on e-Learning tools as of late. I took a workshop on Wikis last Friday and another on Blackboard yesterday. At DIT, these workshops are provided through the Learning, Teaching and Technology Centre (LTTC), where I will be teaching a course in May. Yesterday I met with Orla Hanratty, who has graciously agreed to co-teach the module with me.
Workshop on how to use Wikis.
My former dissertation advisor, Dr. Pamela Eddy, is here visiting me in Dublin this week. She was a Fulbright to Ireland in 2009 and she helped me make valuable connections when I started applying for my own Fulbright experience here.
So far, we’ve spent a lot of time at our computers! Although it’s her Spring Break, she’s answering emails, reviewing dissertations, and grading papers. Oh, and advising me!
She helped me prepare for the meeting I had today with DIT’s president, Prof. Brian Norton. I’ve attached a photo of us working from my home yesterday. She was still sitting the same seat when I Skyped her from my office on Kevin Street just now to “debrief” on the meeting.
We do stop for exercise, food, and meeting… but little else!
The answer is YES! You just need teammates and awesome teachers to help you find your way. They’re building simple robots at DIT with sophomore engineering students… and sometimes even with school kids.
DIT President Brian Norton with Fulbright Scholar Shannon Chance.
DIT’s graduation ceremony is an event to behold!
Today’s occurred at St. Patrick’s Cathedral (which is the largest church building in Ireland). You may recall that Kitty Lee, Patty, and I visited it last week.
At DIT exams for the fall semester occur in January, and winter graduation falls shortly after.
During the ceremony, each graduate’s name, degree title, and thesis topic is announced. Today’s list of topics highlighted valuable contributions DIT is making to society in areas such as physics, health and nutrition, energy, and computing.
For me, a true highlight of the ceremony was a performance by two students: a signer and a harpist. The talented duo really brought this grand space to life. (Kitty, Patty, and I missed Evensong in this church last night — by just a few sad minutes — and so I tried to live today’s event vicariously on their behalf while they soared above the Atlantic on their journey home.)
Today also presented my first opportunity to meet DIT’s president, Prof. Brian Norton in person. When the opportunity appeared, I stepped forward without hesitation, extended my hand, and introduced myself. I was truly dumbfounded when Dr. Norton said he knew who I was and that he had read my blog. Wow! I look forward to meeting him again soon.
Fergus Wheelan’s insightful book on Irish/Dublin history of the 1600 and 1700s.
At the reception, I also met a few members the electrical engineering faculty I haven’t yet gotten to know. I hope to have more to tell about their work soon.
I’ve included some photos of the day, including a snapshot of the English and Protestant flags hanging in St. Patrick’s (Protestant) Cathedral.
Upon returning to my apartment, I curled up with Fergus Whelan‘s book Dissent into Treason. In the first chapter, Fergus does a remarkable job of explaining the formative roots of various Western denominations. I’ve learned so much in just 20 pages… including distinctions between Unitarians, Presbyterians and Congregationalists, Quakers, Levelers, Catholics, and the like. I believe Dissenters were people whose supported the creation the Irish nation despite pressure from their larger brethren and/or religious underpinnings to support the English crown. I’ll gain clarity on that soon, I’m sure.
Have you ver wondered why more Protestants read the Bible today than Catholics (in the US at least)? I certainly have.
Fergus’ book explains that in Ireland in the 1600s, Catholics were only permitted to read scriptures in Latin or Greek. Protestants were given freedom to read in English. Hummmm.
In Ireland there’s so very much to discover. I’m trying to make the most of every moment, but there’s not nearly enough of time to do, see, and learn all I’d like….
This is a picture of a flexible lab for learning engineering. It is a space for group-driven problem-based learning, or a “PBL classroom.” A colleague of mine back in Virginia who is an expert in engineering education said she wasn’t familiar with this type of space, so I though I’d post it for others to see.
The flexible learning lab in the DIT electrical engineering program.
It was designed to promote team learning and provide access to materials and tools for building engineering projects. Above, Gavin’s Instrumentation class had just wrapped up for the morning.
Just down the street from Notre Dame’s O’Connell House, the DIT has its Learning, Teaching and Technology Centre (LTTC). The LTTC is housed in a building to the left in the photo below:
Upper Mount Street, home of DIT’s Leaning, Teaching and Technology Centre (LTTC).
The DIT has a fabulous and unique policy that every newly hired faculty member must complete a certificate program in Learning and Teaching in the first two years of employment at DIT. Their teachers actually study how to teach. Part of what I’ve been doing here is researching outcomes of this policy and of the LTTC’s work.
The LTTC has contributed in incredibly valuable ways to the learning that goes on at DIT as well as in Institutes of Technology all across Ireland (there are 14 in all, and DIT is the flagship among them). You can read about professional development programs in these Institutes in a (free) book by Fitzpatrick and Harvey called Designing Together.
In fact, I’ll be teaching a course in May at the LTTC. It’s about using PBL (as in hands-on, group-based, project-driven approaches to teaching) and it’s for people who teach at the college level. I’ll post more information about the course content soon.
I’ve included some photos from my recent visit to the LTTC to work on planning the class.
The president of Dublin City University (DCU), Prof. Brian MacCraith, delivered a lively and informative lecture Monday night at St. Patrick’s College. His topic was Envisioning the Future of Education. And what a visionary President MacCriath is — I learned so much from his talk! I’ve not got time enough to explain all I learned; I’ll include snapshots of some interesting slides at the end of this post. I’ll explain a little in each caption.
I did look up one of the sources he used, as it ties to my map-tracking.
Internet usage by continent (downloaded from Internet World Statistics).
One chart he showed (above) helped explain why my blog gets fewer visitors from Africa than Europe and North America. In Africa, just 15.6% of people have Internet access. In Asia, though, there are more people with Internet than on any other continent, so why is my Asia map so blank? Still no one from China…. and of the world population of Internet users, most are in Asia.
Internet distribution
The population of North America (shown in blue on the pie chart) is tiny. As you can see above, not that many people live in North America, even though 78.6% of them use the Internet.
Dave Dorran working with students at the mid-semester trials for RoboSumo, March 2012. (Photo by Shannon Chance.)
Regarding my prior RoboSumo blog, Ted did read it and he wrote back:
Hi Shannon,
Thanks for writing about RoboSumo on your blog – that was a very pleasant surprise!!
As you anticipated, I do have an updated list of people currently tutoring on RoboSumo:
Although Damon Berry isn’t currently tutoring on the module, he remains closely involved in the broader DIT RoboSumo enterprise. For example, he and I travelled to Galway with the DIT student team on Saturday 19th January to take part in the National Intervarsity RoboSumo competition. And of course, Damon and I are still developing our “RoboSlam” begginers’ workshop for promoting engineering/programming/robotics, which we will hopefully be running again soon within DIT with an assorted cohort of guinea pigs (engineers, teachers, non-engineers, regular people, etc). Expect a call.
Ted
Richard Hayes leading the 2012 RoboSumo trials. (Photo by Shannon Chance, March 2012.)
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Damon Berry advising a student at RoboSumo. (Photo by Shannon Chance, March 2012.)
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Fulbright Alexander MacDonald, his friend Nora Rodriguez, Fulbright Amanda Bernhard, and her husband Jonathan Kennedy at Hughes Pub last night.
Several of this year’s Fulbright Students to Ireland were invited to Dublin to be interviewed for a Fulbright video. They shared advice for others who want yo apply for student programs to Ireland. Fulbright was reimbursing their travel expenses but we were able to save them some money on housing; Amanda and her husband Jonathan stayed with me instead of a hotel.
After the interviews, two of the students, their significant others, and I went out to chat about our Fulbright experiences.
We found Jack Nealons pub too loud for easy conversation last night, so we skipped down the way to M. Hughes Pub. (Their names don’t have apostrophes in them. I’ve aimed for accuracy here….)
Hughes pub has the added benefit of being a late night venue. Last call is 2 AM at least on weekends, I do believe, while many other pubs stop serving hours earlier.
Hughes pub was perfect for the talking we wanted to do — the regular Friday night musicians were playing in the snug. Last night we sat outside the snug but we could still hear the music in the background. The level was very comfortable for talking and laughing. And that we did!
So what’s a snug? It’s an enclosed room, where in the distant past women were allowed to gather and drink. Back then, they weren’t allowed to be in the main (men’s) part of the pub. You’ve seen pictured of the snug before (It’s where brothers Gavin and Aidan Duffy play on Monday nights — I’ve attached a photo here in case you didn’t see that post).
The Duffy brothers (to the left) playing in the snug at Hughes Pub last fall.
I learned all this from Saul Golden who teaches at the University of Ulster and whom I met at the All Ireland Architecture Research (AIARG) last weekend. You didn’t get to her Saul’s description, so I searched on line for a defnintion.
snug 2 (sn
g)
n. Chiefly British
We asked the bar man about the snug (to confirm my suspicions that that little room actually was one). We talked theory. We joked around. And, we had some fun with the camera. A little about the characters of the night:
Alexander MacDonald is a highly accomplished tap dancer who hails from New York City. He is currently working on a Master’s degree at the University of Limerick. He is studying enthochoreology (which is the history of choreography in various cultures). He’s got two tapping videos on line, one improv and one from a party.
His friend Nora Rodriguez is from Mexico. She is working on a Master’s degree in contemporary dance performance. It was the first time Amanda, Jonathan, and I got to meet Nora, and we enjoyed out time with her immensely.
If you’ve followed this blog, you already know that Amanda Bernhard is a Fulbright who is working on a Master’s degree in Irish at the University of Galway. Her husband Jonathan is enrolled int the same degree program. They are very excited about the dialectology (theory and study of dialects) course they are taking this semester.
Immersion experiences like the one we’re in prompt reflection. We’ve all be soul-searching. Our evening at Hughes’ gave us an opportunity to share our thoughts and experiences — and to consider them in new ways.
I wanted to get in the photo, too, so we all had to be very still while I took a panorama. In this photo Shannon Chance, Alexander MacDonald, Nora Rodriguez, Amanda Bernhard, and Jonathan Kennedy contemplate the photographic procedure.
Nora was fascinated by the story Amanda, Jonathan, and I told of the car fire we’d just witnessed beside my apartment building. She was captivated by the story but, just having seen Quentin Terintino’s newest flick, though the photo didn’t live up to the image our story had painted in her head. Nevertheless, I assure you the events were dramatic. Jonathan had insisted on taking a closer look, and as a result, we witnessed a lorry (i.e., truck) driver speed up to help. He jumped from his truck cab, extinguisher in hand, ran to the car and valiantly fought the blaze. The driver and her son had fled the vehicle after it burst into flames.
Amanda and I each recalled that time went into slow motion as we watched these event. We noticed many interesting details. We found the event to be quite dramatic!
As per my prior post, Iroda Karimova said in earnest (while I was visiting the Hampton University Department of Architecture two weeks ago) that she misses my crits! (!?!!??)
Because I’m an active blogger I’m forever getting the question, “Do you ever work?”
The answer is yes; here’s a quick example.
My former student int he Department of Architecture at Hampton University, Iroda Karimova, emailed this to me from her smart phone today:
It was also nice to talk to you too. We haven’t see you for a while. I hope you are enjoying your oversea experience. I sometimes read your blogs, to see how you we doing.
CHANCE, S.M. (2010).Writing architecture: The role of process journals in architectural education. MADE: Design education and the art of making (160‐170). Charlotte, NC: College of Arts + Architecture. Presented at the 26th National Conference on the Beginning Design Student in Charlotte, NC.
Ireland by Chance 