Sean Sherlock TD Minister of State, Department of Enterprise, Jobs & Innovation and Department of Education & Skills with responsibility for Research & Innovation has agreed to launch the NDLR Fest 2012 on the 2nd of May in Croke Park conference centre.

The main aim of the NDLR Fest 2012 is to showcase the wide array of free technology enhanced learning resources that have been generated across all subject disciplines in the Irish HE sector as well as celebrating the cooperative and collaborative process in which these resources have been developed, used and reused. This years programme will also introduce an NDLR Peoples choice award. This award will be in recognition of the contribution to shared digital resources for higher education in Ireland.

The annual NDLR Fest provides a platform to showcase the wide array of e-learning resources and associated Teaching and Learning activities and celebrate the collaborative process in which these resources have been developed.

Don't miss this free event register today!

Since 2009 the NDLR annual call for funding under the Learning Innovation Community Supported (LInCS) projects initiative has enabled and supported the development of innovative high quality teaching and learning digital resources. Over the last 12 months the number of users and downloads of resources from the repository has increased in line with the number of quality resources being deposited in the NDLR repository. However, more research needs to be done on how these resources are being used and reused; the impact they are having in the classroom and for the communities of Practitioners that build up around these collaborative activities.

The NDLR would like to invite the academic community in Ireland to submit papers and presentations on the following themes:

Faculty evaluation of digital resources in the classroom
- Innovative uses of digital resources in the classroom
- Institutional support of digital resource use
- Reuse or repurposing of resources

Student evaluation of digital resources
- Student attitudes and perceptions of digital resources
- How digital resources enhance the learning and research-led-teaching experience?

Proceedings from the Symposium will be published along with papers presented. We also intend to select some of the best papers for publication.

Key Dates:
Abstract (500 words) 30th March 2012 (extended date)
Full Paper (4,000-5,000 words) 31st May 2012

The NDLR service in association with the e-InfraNet (European network for co-ordination of policies and programmes on e-infrastructures) is jointly organising a European Workshop for Research-Led Teaching and Resource Sharing.

The workshop aims to bring together representatives from the European and wider Teaching and Research repository and data infrastructure communities for the purpose of demonstrating the feasibility and potential benefits of linking research and teaching repositories within Europe.

The information and data infrastructure in Europe and across the globe has developed to the point where the synergies between teaching and research can be exploited to deliver tangible benefits to both academic staff and students. This workshop will demonstrate to delegates that the infrastructure to support Trans-European integration of national learning resources and to leverage the research repository infrastructure to support research-led teaching across the community is already substantially in place.
Contact cbruen@tcd.ie for more information.

One of the components of ITT Dublin's Learning, Teaching, and Assessment Strategy is the development and delivery of a new 'Learning to Learn Module' commencing in September 2012. The aim of the module is to ease students' transition to higher education and enhance their learning skills. The module content will be closely aligned with Stella Cottrell's text Skills for Success and Palgrave's online resource Skills4StudyCampus will be used as
a key resource in the module. It is hoped that this online resource will be integrated with Moodle, the Institute's virtual learning environment (VLE).

A comprehensive staff development programme, which will be funded by the Learning Innovation Network (LIN), will be launched in May 2012 in preparation for the implementation of this module. The staff development programme has been designed to facilitate collaboration between institutes involved in implementing learning skills modules. Planned outputs from the staff development events include learning skills module implementation guidelines, teaching, learning and assessment resources, and podcasts and video recordings of the seminars. These outputs will be shared through the Education and Academic Support Community of Practice on the National Digital Learning Resources (NDLR) service.

Share.TEC portal is now harvesting resources from the NDLR repository. Share.TEC stands for "Sharing Digital Resources in the Teaching Education Community", a 3-year project (2008 to 2011) co-funded by the European Community's eContentPlus programme. Share.

TEC is a collection of teacher education resources and is devoted to fostering a stronger digital culture in the TE field and to supporting the development of a Europe-wide perspective among those working in and with the TE community.

The Centre for Teaching and Learning at the University of Limerick in association with the NDLR has launched an online application on their very successful First Seven Weeks (FSW) initiative. The application gathers all the resources that the FSW has acquired over the past two years and is something that the centre will continue to build on for the coming years. This project was headed up by NDLR's Yvonne Diggins along with the CTL team and was designed by Conor Higgins, University of Limerick.

This local project was funded through the NDLR local funds allocation. To view the First Seven Weeks application click here.

The SRHE (UK Society for Research into Higher Education) recently launched a new network called 'The Digital University'. The purpose of this network is to bring together researchers and practitioners who are leading the debates about the impact of technologies on academic work. The intention is not to focus on 'elearning' as such but to explore a range of issues (both theoretical and practical) that arise through the impact of technological processes on social networks, research methodologies, identity formations, publications and theoretical.

Capture your Lectures!

The NDLR/Lecture Capture pilot study has kicked off but is still open to anyone interested in getting more volunteers to get involved. Lecture Capture is a really easy way to make recordings of classes or to create short educational videos, and to publish these automatically to target groups. The emphasis in this type of system is simplicity. If you are interested in finding out more about it check here

Energy, Engineering Arts and Other Subjects: 2012 North/South Postgraduate Scholarships scheme opens

Universities Ireland, which promotes collaboration between universities in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and the Electricity Supply Board (ESB), the largest energy company on the island of Ireland, are offering five scholarships to students undertaking a recognised Master's or the first year of a PhD programme (taught or research) in the other Irish jurisdiction. Dublin Institute of Technology and the Open University in Ireland are also partners in this scheme, which has been running since 2005.

These scholarships are worth €15,000 each. This year three of the scholarships will be in the areas of energy and engineering, and will be co-sponsored by Universities Ireland and ESB. Two more will be in another area – arts, business, science and social science - and will be funded by Universities Ireland alone. These scholarships must be taken up for the academic year 2012-2013.
The closing date for applications for this scholarship scheme will be Friday 25th May 2012 (5 pm). For further information click here

The DHO is pleased to announce a new workshop providing digital humanities scholars with critical technical skills and hands-on experience. The Digital Humanities Tech Skills (http://dho.ie/digitalskills) combine short lectures offering subject matter overview with hands-on exercises. The half-day workshop provides an informal forum to rapidly gain knowledge and appreciate application of the skills to real-world research challenges.

The topic being offered:
Tuesday 20 March - Sharing Your Research: An Introduction to Data Visualisation for Presentation in the Digital Humanities

Prior registration is required and spaces are limited.
Registration for the first workshop is now open.

Writing a Teaching Portfolio

This talk, given by Jennifer Schweppe of the University of Limerick, is part of the 'Conversations in the Consortium' series. The aim of this series is to provide a supportive, collegial and informal space in which to discuss topics of interest in third level teaching and learning.

Evaluation of Teaching in HE - Peer Observation and Video Analysis

EdTech2012: Digital Literacies for Life Call for Papers deadline - Friday 30th March 2012

EdTech2012: Digital Literacies for Life - Call for Papers deadline - Friday 30th March 2012 - http://www.ilta.net/

Conference theme: Digital Literacies for Life
The EdTech 2012 conference will offer a dynamic programme of events, along with plenty of opportunity for informal networking and discussion. Built around the theme of Digital Literacies for Life, the programme will include practitioner and research papers, demonstration and workshop sessions, short presentations and practice exchange fora, as well as Technology in Action showcases illustrating industry and education teamwork, and interactive poster presentations. 


The Call for Papers is now open
All accepted abstracts will be included in a new ILTA online journal to be launched in October 2012. Authors whose abstracts have been accepted will be invited to also submit a full paper by the April 16 deadline for peer review. Accepted papers will be published in the ILTA online journal. More details on the ILTA online journal publication will follow. Abstracts for papers along the following topics will be welcomed:

• Teaching digital literacies
• The student experience
• Learning resources - collaborative and social
• Creativity and learning design
• Online practitioner competencies
• Assessing digital competencies
• Sustainable models of innovation
• Technology-supported assessment approaches

National Events

THE DIGITAL IRELAND FORUM 2012
Friday, 23 March 2012, The Convention Centre in Dublin.

Education Studies Association of Ireland Conference 2012
29th – 31st March, UCC, Cork
The conference theme is Educational Research in a time of transformation: insights , influences and impacts.

Ireland & UK Moodlemoot 2012
Ireland & UK Moodlemoot 2012 will be held in Dublin, Ireland. You are invited you to join members of the Ireland and UK Moodle community for 3 days in Dublin this April 2-4, at the Crown Plaza Hotel, Northwood. The conference will enable connecting and sharing between practitioners and administrators from across Ireland and the United Kingdom. The theme for the conference will be "Moving forward with Moodle". The organisers hope to showcase many fine Irish and UK initiatives and projects during the conference on a range of topics including:

- Learning with Moodle
- Academic take up of Moodle
- Student engagement
- Implementing Moodle

Ireland International Conference on Education
April 16-18, 2012, Dublin, Ireland

The Ireland International Conference on Education (IICE) will be held from 16th to 18th of April, 2012 in Dublin. The IICE is an international refereed conference dedicated to the advancement of the theory and practices in education. The IICE promotes collaborative excellence between academicians and professionals from Education.

The aim of IICE is to provide an opportunity for academicians and professionals from various educational fields with cross-disciplinary interests to bridge the knowledge gap, promote research esteem and the evolution of pedagogy. The IICE-2012 invites research papers that encompass conceptual analysis, design implementation and performance evaluation.

8th Irish Variety in Chemistry Teaching Meeting
DIT on Thursday 10th May

The keynote is Dr David McGarvey, University of Keele, who is the 2011 RSC Higher Education Teaching Award Winner. The aim of the conference is to share "what works" – good practice in chemistry teaching. Please register your interest to talk about something you have been trying out or just come along to listen to what others have being doing. There is also an option of attending a series of short workshops in the morning around the theme of "technology in chemistry teaching".

Deadline for registration is April 5th.

International Events

9th ALDinHE annual Conference
Learning Development in a Digital Age: emerging literacies and learning spaces
2-4 April, University of Leeds, UK.
Across the Learning Development community there is significant interest in the implications of an increasingly digital learning environment and its impact on the learning experience. Our 2012 conference is an exciting opportunity to consider how we operate in a digital age.

Cambridge 2012: Innovation and Impact - Openly Collaborating to Enhance Education
Queens College, Cambridge, April 16, 2012 – April 18, 2012
Cambridge 2012 will combine OER12 and the OCW Consortium's Global Conference. The conference theme, Innovation and Impact: Openly collaborating to enhance education, will bring together academics, professionals, students and policy makers interested in advancing the impact of OpenCourseWare and Open Educational Resources on education globally

The Fourth European Articulate Conference 2012
24 May, 2012, 10am - 4.30pm@ Weetwood Hall, Leeds, UK
Tom Kuhlmann: e-learning guru, inspirational instructional designer, will be sharing with the rest of us his findings in his colourful journey through the world of interactive and engaging e-learning.

ICWSM-12
THE 6TH INTERNATIONAL AAAI CONFERENCE ON WEBLOGS AND SOCIAL MEDIA
4-8 JUNE 2012: TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN, IRELAND

Conference Calls

Blended Learning Conference 2012
Wednesday 13th and Thursday 14th June 2012
The Fielder Centre, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, Herts., UK.

The University of Hertfordshire's Learning and Teaching Institute in partnership with JISC are delighted to announce: The Seventh International Blended Learning Conference "Reflecting on our achievements - What's next for technology-enhanced learning and teaching?"
You are invited to submit proposals/abstracts relating to innovation and institutional enhancement. Suggested themes include:
• Changing and enhancing practices with digital literacies;
• Technology-enhanced assessment and feedback;
• Curriculum design;
• Open educational resources.

IADIS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE E-LEARNING 2012 Call for Papers
Lisbon, Portugal, 17 - 20 July 2012
Conference background and goals
The IADIS e-Learning 2012 conference aims to address the main issues of concern within e-Learning. This conference covers both technical as well as the non-technical aspects of e-Learning.

The conference accepts submissions in the following seven main areas: Organisational Strategy and Management Issues; Technological Issues; e-Learning Curriculum Development Issues; Instructional Design Issues; e-Learning Delivery Issues; e-Learning Research Methods and Approaches; e-Skills and Information Literacy for Learning.

Call for Papers - 3th International Workshop on Interactive Environments and Emergent Technologies for eLearning (IEETeL 2012) that will be held in conjunction with The 11th IEEE International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing and Communications (IUCC-2012), Liverpool, UK, 25-27 June 2012. Topics of interest

- Web 2.0 Applications for Learning
- 3D Virtual Environments
- Semantic Web
- Educational MashUps
- Immersive technologies in ADL
- Networks/Grids for learning
- Adaptive and intuitive environments
- Personal Learning Environments
- Mobile learning environments and applications
- Augmented Reality Implementation

2012 Emerging Technologies Conference - Call for Proposals
A conference devoted to the emerging and innovative uses of technology designed to improve teaching and learning online. MERLOT and the Sloan Consortium will partner again for the 5th Annual Emerging Technologies for Online Learning International Symposium – The Call for Papers is now open!

July 25-27, 2012 at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, NV.

ISSTC 2012 Call for submissions
August 1-2, 2012 at the Cork School of Music and St. John's College in Cork
Submissions are due 30 March 2012. Details of materials needed and submission instructions are provided at the bottom of each call.