THE MOST POWERFUL community dynamic I have enjoyed in Ireland stemmed from monthly Open Coffee Meetups in Limerick. I want to rekindle that energy by layering the Open Coffee dynamic inside the Grow Remote movement and I think I will try to do this in Clonmel, County Tipperary, Ireland in 2019. Continue reading

A FEW WEEKS AGO, I saw Derek Baird happily announce the publication date of The Gen Z Frequency and today I got my copy! It's published by Kogan Page. Continue reading

DURING A BREAK from light rain showers, I launched my DJI Phantom 3 Pro drone for a series of camera moves next to part of the old town walls of Clonmel. During the third short flight, I got a "motor overload" message that caused the drone to automatically land. Continue reading

HERE IS A REVIEW of the Temple Bar Website from March 1997 by Webmaster Bernard Goldbach. Continue reading

BACK WHEN "HITS" were a thing, I ran around Temple Bar on the heels of a special letter of introductionn from the Temple Bar Properties Marketing Manager (see below). Continue reading

USING A LAZY RAINY DAY as an imperative to poke around in some boxes, I'm proud to say I discovered a five year old Logitech Keys-to-Go (for iPad) and it effortlessly connected to my Android phone. So I'm a happy bunny since I have nearly everything I need to cycle with work without a laptop burden. Continue reading

TEN AND A HALF YEARS AGO, Ewan McIntosh visited County Tipperary to share his perspective on education. As expected, we learned a lot. And as many thoughtful people know, breaking bread is one of the most effective ways of fostering a collaborative connection. R. Wolf Shipon makes this same point in an open letter he wrote to fellow psychologists immediately after the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre. I'm sharing Wolf's comments from his Facebook post. Continue reading

IT IS A QUIET (and frosty) October Bank Holiday in Ireland and we're getting ready for the Clonmel Zombie Walk by painting a few props, carving a few pumpkins, and double-checking the batteries in Mia's fat suit costume. Continue reading

EVERY TIME WE MEET the grandparents, the sniping starts against touchscreen devices. And even though I simply bite my tongue, I let the kids tap and explore during pre-defined periods of the day. Continue reading

I AM A BIG FAN of audio transcription services and the combination of machine learning and human curation inside Rev.com is so very helpful. Continue reading

WE HAVE STARTED collecting stories about family artefacts, listening to young students in the Clonmel Presentation School offer snippets of oral family history. The project will feature in an exhibition mounted by the Tipperary Museum in November 2018. Continue reading

A COMBINATION OF health issues along with stark warnings from scientists have encouraged me to eat less meat. The UN says switching to a meat-free diet makes an immediate reduction of 50% in one's carbon footprint so that's what I'm doing. This green issue was one of several items worth remembering in my six-minute review of Sunday news in Ireland. Continue reading

ONE OF THE MOST REWARDING things I do is help young people find their voices. I watch this happen when with Ireland's Youth Media Team, inside primary school classrooms, and with third level students during studio sessions. Continue reading

ALTHOUGH I READ the acclamation voiced on Twitter and Facebook, it took me a day to realise the impact of several very special moments I witnessed first hand while standing in a media scrum set up by Ireland's Youth Media Team when interviewing President Michael D. Higgins and his wife Sabina. It all happened within the space of 10 minutes at the start of Feilte 2018, the annual conference of the Teaching Council of Ireland. Continue reading

MIDWAY THROUGH the annual Teaching Council Conference (hashtagged #feilte2018), I started thinking more about sustainability, since that term was floating throughout several corners of the conference venue. More specifically, I started thinking about how to sustain the efforts of the Youth Media Team. And I formed the same conclusion that Pam O'Brien and Conor Galvin made years ago--it's a team effort. Continue reading

IT IS GOOD to take little steps to measure your progress and in the case of the Irish Youth Media Team, one of the next benchmarks is to record more than 2000 total plays via the Spreaker Content Management System. Continue reading

EVERY FALL, I mark the start of another academic year by listening to peers explain a wide range of topics I can immediately use as a creative media lecturer. The presentations, workshops, and networking happen in Feilte 2018, a major initiative of the Teaching Council of Ireland. Continue reading

PATRICK COLLISON ASKS, "Is Bloom's Two Sigma phenomenon real? If so, what do we do about it?" Continue reading

WE USE A Ricoh Theta S #ricoh360 camera in every academic course I teach on the Clonmel Digital Campus and I’m impressed at how its use improves the critical visual skills of students. There is so much more in an image when you can spin a photo up, down, and around. Continue reading

I RECEIVED A five-star addition to my professional library in the form of Timeless Learning by Ira Socol, Pam Moran, and Chad Ratliff. It's an essential text for the advocacy of makerspaces in education. Continue reading

WE'VE BEEN LOOKING at a half dozen locations and we hope to move into a different home before Christmas. The interesting thing for me is watching the spike in views on Flickr as we poke around different premises. Continue reading

WE'RE IN A STORM ALLEY on the Clonmel Digital Campus tracking the run of Storm Ali through County Tipperary. This means we're gathering imagery, video clips, and audio interviews throughout the day. Continue reading