- ICEP 2016
The Venue:
The venue was a familiar one to me, although in saying that it has been too long since I had an opportunity to explore the true allure of the South Campus. Usually I am based in the Computer Science building, located on the North Campus. One presenter at the conference compared it to Hogwarts. The pictures below really do not do the venue justice.
The conference was once again far above my expectations. It should be on any educators callander, anyone truly interested in advancing pedagogy. A encouraging note for me was the presence of colleagues from the further education sector. The opening address was delivered from the university president, Professor Philip Nolan.
The keynote titled "The changing political, economic and cultural context of higher education: care implications" - Bernie Grummell. This was very relevant and given the current climate really relates to our every day.
From the diverse presentations delivered throughout the day, a few really caught my attention:
The keynote titled "The changing political, economic and cultural context of higher education: care implications" - Bernie Grummell. This was very relevant and given the current climate really relates to our every day.
From the diverse presentations delivered throughout the day, a few really caught my attention:
"They won't talk" - Julie Butters, was very interesting as I have previous experience teaching Chinese exchange students, the research and experience discussed by Julie was very informative.
"Reflective Learning Journals" - Graham Glanville and Dr. Brett Becker, presented a study very close to home for me. The study has an aim to improve student engagement. With the current statistics on attrition in third level in Computer Science, all efforts to reduce it, are very welcomed.
The second keynote, Dr. Aidan Carthy discussed "Creating Emotionally Intelligent Colleges". Dr. Carthy was a fantastic speaker. His enthusiasm was consuming, and for anyone unfamiliar with emotional intelligence, please look up some of Dr. Carthy's work here, with the title paper here.
"Blended Collaborative Cloud Learning" - Christophe Meudec. For me one of the most interesting parts of his study, was the real time feedback/ comments. Its location was of interest. The feedback/ comments were located beside the content. This was in a forum format and allowed students to interact with the lecturer and other students, but indexed them essentially. Thus students when in a topic are not required to search for corresponding comments, questions or solutions.
"The Power Point Free Classroom" - Dr. Christina O'Connor. This paper won the overall paper award at ICEP 2016. You all know the phrase death by powerpoint! This presentation was exceptional. Dr. O'Connor, really showed the power of audience interaction with just filler pictures showing on the projector. She was engaging and informative. Unfortunatly I was to follow, with a powerpoint in hand!
"Does Scratch improve self-efficacy and performancewhen learning to program in C#?An empirical study." - My presentation. Scratch has fascinated me since I was introduced to it, several years ago. This was a study that I have at the back of my mind for years,since I started my post-grad, and to get it accepted at ICEP was really important to me. ICEP was the first conference that I ever presented at, and for that it holds a special place in my heart. I was also humbled that my current research is relevant to such an established community. The presentation went very well and the paper received a mention at the award, which made a great day even better! Thinking of my next paper for ICEP 2017 already!
