THE CONCEPT OF IDENTITY enjoys deep coverage in several creative media programmes I teach. During the 2020-21 time frame, I hope to connect several facets of identity to both the academic programme on the Clonmel Digital Campus and to the 2021 Clonmel Junction Arts Festival. Continue reading

LIKE MANY AMERICANS, I struggle to pull away from the dumpster fire that is the Trump Presidency. But I can't because Donald's sociopathy is a matter of American national security. To get an evidence-based insight to the one particular psyche that threatens the American way of life, I joined a million others and bought Too Much and Never Enough. RECOMMENDED. Continue reading

IF YOU HAVE a worthwhile message, you need develop a rigorous process for sharing your messages across different social networks. We bring this principle into sharp focus as part of the rigor of media writing with my college students. I have an example from yesterday that shows how written ideas can percolate across several social networks. I believe the process, workflow, and transmedia elements of this concept are essential elements of digital literacy. Continue reading

I GET MORE from the books I read or the subscriptions I fund when I can explore segments of them in different formats. So when I glance back at highlighted passages through the use of apps, I often recall important points I forgot on my first pass through the material. Nothing helps me through this revision process better than Instapaper and Readwise. Continue reading

After running two months worth of online meetings, I've concluded that I need to double-down on my moderation duties. Continue reading

I HAVE A 12 YR OLD daughter who reads 300 pages a day because she loves the written word. I plan to pay her a tenner whenever she ploughs through a recommended text that we can use as a springboard for a recorded discussion. We have a big collection of Young Adult titles. I also want to introduce Mia to some selections that show her more about the life I had in the States. Continue reading

I AM TRYING to validate a long-standing relationship I've had with Google Keep because I want to be able to dictate notes and have them appear on my calendars. This has become more important now that my calendar rotates into view on our Amazon Echo Show. Continue reading

I GET MANY of my best ideas from creative thinkers such as Gillian Barry who works in the Hartnett Acceleration Centre. Today, I thought it would be worthwhile to quickly blog three thoughts arising from our short phone after asking my hosted graph of Roam Research about topics we discussed. Continue reading

I START MY DAY by opening a browser tab to Portland News and by listening to information from Oregon through my Alexa Flash Briefing. My daughter posted a snippet of information I would like to share. Continue reading

IXTY DAYS INTO working from home, I've changed some routines and become more aware of collaborative calendaring. Continue reading

AFTER A SHORT PERIOD teaching remotely, I can feel seismic shifts under the foundation of third level teaching in Ireland. I believe it's only a matter of time that lecturers will be timetabled to deliver their core teaching hours electronically as well as in a classroom. Continue reading

I'M TRYING TO IMPROVE my productivity by automating a series of important reminders, some stemming from a daily task list and others related to a lifelong goal of finishing critical tasks on time. As the above image shows, I've been checklisting from before touchscreens. It often helps me to talk to myself about my progress, as I did during Topgold Audio Clip 531. Continue reading

I KNOW IT'S important to offer more than one way of consuming educational material and that's why I'm trying to perfect a workflow that ensures I've a quick-hitting text version of my course materials. Continue reading

ON HER FINAL DAY of primary school, Mia (12) joined with 30 other classmates in a surreal setting that typifies the way her life has been for the previous 15 weeks. She stayed two metres apart from friends she has known throughout primary school. I watched the setting and wondered what lies ahead in what may be a hybrid form of education for our two school children. Continue reading

FACE MASKS HAVE become a badge of honor for some people and are marks of political allegiance for some of my Facebook friends. I believe they are essential clothing items nowadays in our battle to combat a deadly airborne virus. I've used an illustration from the Voice of America to show the right way and the wrong way to wear your face mask. Continue reading

ONE OF THE BIGGEST revelations of this era of social isolation is that when people follow rules of social distancing they often rediscover vitality close at hand. In my case, social isolation has encouraged me to read more. Continue reading

I USED A TIMER to allow myself two hours for my first hands-on routine with Roam Research, a note-taking and personal knowledge management service that I used to produce this InsideView.ie blog post. I'm confident that if I could save at least 15 euro a month by focusing my note-taking inside Roam because I could reduce my annual consumption of Moleskine journals. Continue reading

I AM A BELIEVER in the value of social capital. I wish I was better at cultivating it, especially during the post-COVID era when face to face meet-ups have become preciously rare. It's a thought shared by Bill Thompson during the 2020 running of #audiomo and one I talked about in my own podcast below the fold. Continue reading

SPRING SEMESTER 2020 enjoys historic standing as the time traditional academics pivoted dramatically into an emergency remote mode. Fortunately for me, I had 20 students near the finish line of the "Emerging Trends and Technologies" module who could produce a set piece that will enjoy critical appraisal whenever anybody looks back at what might be possible through a distance education collaboration of students. Continue reading

I STARTED THIS run of text while deeply involved in back-to-back emergency remote teaching. I needed a place to keep text separate from Zoom-equipped laptop while connecting to students outside. This is what I wrote for a rundown with Tadhg Briody. Continue reading

THESE DAYS OF SOCIAL DISTANCING have made me more eager for real connections so the arrival of the TapeReal App on our well-used iPad piqued my interest. Continue reading

ONE OF THE BIGGEST concerns I have about being locked out of work is losing any sort of internal communications. Since we cannot meet casually around a coffee dock or chat at a table in the canteen, I'm trying to use apps (in the screenshot) that give me meaningful online pulse points. Continue reading

DOCTOR HANDSOME aka James Hamblin (above) and Nervous Nelly aka Katherine Wells join me many mornings as I walk our Bedlington Terrier on a tightly constrained two km radius of our home in Ireland. I listen to their prescriptions for Social Distance, because their podcast from The Atlantic seems to drop into my podcatcher around sunrise many mornings just as our dog announces it's time. Continue reading