2013 Press Releases
EdTech brings NASA and Google to UCC
‘EdTech’ comes to UCC on 30-31 May, shedding light on online digital literacies, the role of social media and apps in education as well as the explosive growth of MOOCs.
MOOCs or ‘Massive Open Online Courses’, until relatively recently a US-based phenomenon, will be addressed at the conference in a keynote speech by Sian Bayne, Asssociate Dean of Digital Scholarship at University of Edinburgh, one of the first European universities to launch a MOOC. Academics from a range of Irish and international universities, including the US, will speak on panels alongside researchers from NASA and companies including Google.
NASA’s Kyle L. Peck, Professor of Education at Penn State University and Principal Investigator for the NASA Aerospace Education Services Project will contribute, as will Ross Mahon, Global Awareness Manager at Google, amongst others. UCC successfully bid to host the prestigious annual Irish Learning Technologists Association’s ‘EdTech ’ conference, themed this year as Opening Up Education – Content, Learning and Collaboration’, in a tightly contested competition.
The conference has captured the attention of the European Commission’s Deputy Director for Education, Xavier Prats-Monné, who has sent a congratulatory message to the organisers:
“The European Commission is determined to support the fundamental educational shift needed in Europe to provide students and teachers with the right skills for the 21st century. We plan to do so with a new initiative entitled precisely “Opening up Education”, aiming to enhance the development of Open Education Resources and ICTs, to encourage innovative ways of teaching and learning, and to support the modernisation of education systems in Europe. We hope that EdTech 2013 will contribute to the debate around the opportunities and challenges of technology-enhanced learning in order to respond to the changes needed in the Irish education context, and beyond.”
The conference will also include the launch of the ‘2013 Technology Enhanced Learning (Ireland)’ report and the announcement of the ‘Jennifer Burke Award for Innovation in Teaching and Learning’ award.
Ticket information and full details of the programme can be found at: http://ilta.ie/edtech/edtech-2013/conference-programme-schedule/