Launch of 'Carraiglea - Witness To History' blog!

Yesterday, on April 25th, to coincide with the national 1916 commemorations, David Doyle launched his historical blog 'Carraiglea - Witness To History' in IADT. David and I have been collaborating on the project for the past 4 months and I've been working hard on the production of 7 animated collages, featuring stopmotion, CGI, documents and interviews.

In 1916, detachments of Sherwood Foresters and artillery transited through the grounds of Carraiglea, which was then a relatively new Christian Brothers Industrial school. Whilst referring to the Christian Brothers account from 1916, my collages concentrate more on the life of one young Carraiglea resident, Master George Jennett and on the pre-revolutionary climate in Ireland, in the runup to the Easter Rising.

Check David's blog out at this address...

http://carraiglea-witness.blogspot.ie/

April 2016 Update

I've been very remiss over the past few month, failing to update this blog through a very busy time. So a couple of April 2016 catchups...

First, we had a very successful Tempus ALIGN planning meeting in Poznan on the 18th and 19th of February, hosted by Zbigniew Palka and his AMU team. Thanks to all for the generous AMU hospitality. Lots of Tempus ALIGN work done, with solid plans for the progression of WP4. Next - site visits to Ukraina, Russia and Armenia in June and September!

Olexandr, DQ and Palka - Poznan

The Tempus ALIGN Poznan planning team

Second, a small IADT team has been working hard over the past few months on a Digital Skills in Action (DSA) case study. Our DSA project is a National Forum-sponsored initiative, involving all of our Leinster Pillar One cluster partners (IADT, NCAD, TCD, UCD and Marino). The IADT case study centres around an analysis of the digital aspects of our 'Intro2FACT' first year module. I presented our case study on the 11th March, at our IADT TEL (Technology Enhanced Learning) Day.

Below is my interpretation of the 'All Aboard' digital skills metro map - my view of the digital skills required by (or used by) first year students in our Faculty.

my adaptation of the All Aboard digital skills metro map

The 'real' All Aboard metro map can be accessed through the link below...

http://allaboardhe.org/digital-skills-framework/

Tara Moves Onwards and Upwards!

Thursday the 19th of November 2015 saw Dr. Tara Ryan moving on from IADT (after 4 years) to become Registrar at Hibernia College. Whilst delighted for Tara in her new job, we're naturally sad to be losing such a valuable human being in IADT. We relied on Tara as an energetic and inventive, student-centred resource. My partnership with Tara began when we started working together (from October 2013) on the Tempus ALIGN project - Tara singlehandedly steered the project's Work Package 1 through with enormous effort and rigour. We all learned from her.

Tara is not gone far away and my two promises to her were that I'd visit her in her new Hibernia office as soon as she was settled in AND that I was determined to work with her again very soon! The best of luck to you Madame!

Thanks to David Doyle for the photographs of the going away party!

Miss Ryan in full flight - picture by David Doyle

Tara, Andrew, looking mischievous with a knife, Laura and Annie - picture by David Doyle

 Barry Dig and Tara - picture by David Doyle

IADT Graduation 2015 - RDS!

The afternoon of Wednesday 18th of November 2015 saw the graduation of IADT's Faculty of Film Art and Creative Technology programmes, including our gang from DL832 Animation! A lot of the celebrations slightly cramped by the fact that many graduates had to return to work the next day (a good complaint in some ways)... For all, it's the start of dazzling careers - it shall happen! A career is a marathon, not a sprint! The best of luck to ALL!

RDS - the assembled crowd

RDS - The Robing Room

RDS - the gang in their seats!

RDS - in the line, ready to go!

RDS - Marty with her parchment!

RDS - Marty and DQ

RDS - Marty Sherra Aidan

NCPA and Tempus ALIGN Dissemination Conference - Moskva

Arrived back on Sunday from the First Dissemination Tempus Conference in Moscow, November 13-14, organised by Anna Tarasova's NCPA team. The conference 'gathered the widest possible expert, academic, professional and student communities from Russia, Armenia, Ukraine and EU countries: Belgium, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Poland. There were over 160 participants (64 of them were ALIGN project partners).

The conference lasted for two days and was hosted in Moscow State Pedagogical University. The first day presentations dealt with issues around the main conference theme ‘Enhancing the quality and relevance of students’ learning experience’. Tempus ALIGN held a 'coordination' meeting in the afternoon.

On the second day, participants split into three working sessions:

1.      Writing and Using Good Learning Outcomes for Quality Progression of Students
2.      Tools and Mechanisms for Assessing Students’ Leaning Outcomes
3.      Achieving Excellence in Higher Education through Quality Assurance

Bath Spa's Paul Hyland and Inna Pomorina gave an excellent and inspirational closing workshop on 'Student Centred Learning'. Thanks to all!

Conference Opening Address

Conference Room

ALIGN coordination meeting

ALIGN coordination meeting room

NCPA conference - DQ with Ukrainian students and Liza Sozinova

Moskva - metro map

Moskva - traffic

Moskva - climb to Red Square

Moskva - Lenin Mausoleum

Moskva - Gum Department Store

Moskva - Red Square

Moskva Conference NCPA webpage

http://ncpa.ru/index.php?lang=en

Moskva - Shermetyovo - ice on wing

Wednesday - Yerevan, and Ararat appears!

Lunchtime, in between site visits to Brusov and YSAFA. The programme teams on the ground are fully engaged and making great progress towards the development of new programme documents. Very impressive! And this morning, the skies clear and Mount Ararat appears! A BIG mountain, aptly termed as 'Biblical'! Incredible!

Rainy Monday - Brusov

Monday face to face workshop - Brusov

YSAFA workshop - Tuesday

Mount Ararat appears! Biblical! Wednesday.

Library stacks - Brusov

Timetable - Brusov

Yerevan!

Back in Yerevan! Today settling in before starting work in Brusov and YSAFA Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Hovannes Toumanian and Sergei Parajanov Museums!

Hovannes Toumanian Museum

Toumanian at Lake Parvana

Games for children, compiled by Toumanian

Parajanov - 1981 'rudd'

I don't look anything like him actually...

flats at sunset