1. Headlines
4th Annual LIN Conference review
LIN Announces Postgraduate Diploma
NAIRTL Award for LIN Coordination Group Chair
IT Tallaght to run Certificate in Learning and Teaching early 2012
Feature article on Teaching and Learning developments in GMIT
In this issue:
LIN Conference Review
The 4th annual LIN confer- education providers. The experiences among higher Headlines 1
ence took place on Octo- event was very well at- education practitioners
ber 27th in the Ashling tended and feedback from was carried on throughout
Hotel in Dublin. 24 oral attendees was exception- the day. LIN Conference 1
presentations and a num- ally positive. For more information on Review
ber of poster presenta- The keynote address was the keynote speaker visit
tions were given on a given by Douglas Thomas, www.douglasthomas.com LIN PG Dip For- 1
range of subjects across professor at the Annen-
the themes of the first berg School for Communi- The papers presented at mally announced
year experience, diversity cation and Journalism at the LIN conference are
of the learner experience the University of Southern available on www.lin.ie NAIRTL Award for 2
and staff development. A California. The presenta- and further material from LIN Chair
workshop on each of the tion entitled Cultivating the conference will be
three themes was also the Imagination in a available there in the com- 2011/2012 LIN 2
run and these led to fur- World of Constant ing weeks.
ther discussion and de- Change: Learning Strate- modules
LIN would like to thank all
bate amongst attendees. gies for an Unknown Fu-
who attended, presented Eye on GMIT 3
The presenters came from ture invigorated the
and sponsored this event
the Institutes of Technol- crowd in the morning ses-
and for making the confer-
ogy, Irish universities and sion and this enthusiasm
from the private higher for sharing knowledge and
ence the success that it Events 7
turned out to be.
LIN Announces Postgraduate Diploma in Learning Teaching & Assessment
This year’s conference opened with the announcement of yet another milestone achievement for the LIN project.
Nuala Harding from AIT summarised the work carried out by LIN to date and the positive impact this has had on
staff. She then announced that the LIN Postgraduate Diploma in Learning, Teaching and Assessment has been vali-
dated and is ready to process its first graduates. This is a hugely significant achievement for the project and through
this measure the IoT sector is implementing some of the major recommendations outlined in the Hunt report. For
more information on the postgraduate diploma programme, contact lin@ioti.ie.

2. NAIRTL Award for LIN Coordination Group Chair
LIN is delighted that Dr Marion
Palmer Chair of the Coordination
Group was presented with a NAIRTL
Award of Teaching Excellence for
2011 on Monday 7 November by
the Minister of Education and Skills
Mr Ruairi Quinn TD. The National
Academy for the Integration of Re-
search, Teaching and Learning
made five awards at a ceremony in
the Clock Tower Marlborough
Street, Dublin.
Marion is chair of the Learning In-
novation Network Coordination
Group www.lin.ie as well as Head of
Department of Learning Sciences at at Queen’s University Belfast on tional Developers in Ireland Net-
IADT and chair of the Teaching and teaching in Institutes of Technol- work (EDIN) 2009-2011. Prior to
Learning Committee. Marion is a ogy. working in IADT Marion was a
member of the Council of the teacher at schools in Dublin and
Higher Education and Training Marion was a founder member of London and worked on curriculum
Awards Council (HETAC) and was WITS Women in Technology and development with the NCCA.
awarded a doctorate in education Science and was chair of the Educa-
LIN Accredited Professional Development 2011/2012
For the fourth year running LIN accredited professional Module Number of Credits
development modules are running in a number of insti-
tutes. The programmes currently running are:
Learning & Teaching 15
Technology Enhanced Learning 10
ITTD
Assessment & Evaluation 10
Certificate in Learning and Teaching **NEW**
Formative Assessment & Feedback 10
AIT
Mentoring 10
Certificate in Learning and Teaching
Enquiry Based Learning 10
Certificate in Assessment and Evaluation
Engaging in Educational Research Practice 10
Certificate in Technology Enhanced Learning
Practice & Reflection in Teaching & Learning 10
(commencing Dec 2011)
in Higher Education
IADT
PDP1 Personal Development Planning 5
Certificate in Learning and Teaching
PDP2 Reflection, Action & Evidence 5
GMIT
Certificate in Technology Enhanced Learning All of these modules are validated at level 9 and the
As other modules become available they will be an- credits achieved can be used on various progression
nounced on the LIN website, www.lin.ie, and through routes, including for the completion of the LIN Post-
the institutes. graduate Diploma in Learning, Teaching and Assess-
ment. Table 1 shows the full list of LIN modules. For
further information contact lin@ioti.ie.
Page 2 December 2011

3. ON
Online Learning in the Department of Life & Physical Sciences
The 1 year add-on Honours BSc in dates. Such a delivery mechanism
Applied Biopharmaceutical & better suits the students of this
Healthcare Science has been of- course who are based at various
fered on a blended learning basis locations around Ireland and in
for several years. This year, the Europe.
delivery of this degree has moved
to a fully online delivery mecha-
nism. Students log in for weekly A Level 6 Higher Certificate in Sci-
lectures using the Adobe Connect ence, which will also be delivered
virtual classroom facility. This facil- online, is due to start soon. At that
ity allows for interaction between stage the online learning student
the lecturer and students during cohort will represent approximately
Claire McCrudden, taking the online
the lecture and is also archived and 10% of the students in the Depart-
class as part of the Biopharmaceutical
thus accessible to students at later ment of Life & Physical Sciences. Degree from her home in Belgium.
Scale of PAL Programme in GMIT/AIT
Peer Assisted Learning, PAL, is a joint programme between GMIT and AIT. Originally
funded by SIF 2, it is designed to improve the 1st year experience through structured expo-
sure and interaction with more senior students from the same discipline. It started in Janu-
ary 2009 with 6 programmes, 15 leaders and 143 1st year students. It is now in its 4th
phase with 48 programmes, 105 PAL leaders, available to 1,800+ 1st years and across 7
disciplines. In GMIT alone, it is run on 31 programmes, with 65 PAL leaders, available to
1078 1st years and run across all disciplines.
2nd National PAL Leader Conference
Four GMIT PAL leaders, Agnese Petersone - School of Science, Sinead Kelly, Catherine Rus-
sell - both from the Castlebar campus and Jamie Mullen - Hotel School (Photo 2), attended
the 2nd National PAL Leader Conference at the University of Brighton from 11th - 12th
November. The conference enabled PAL leaders from Third Level institutions across the
UK and Ireland to network with other PAL leaders, learn about the PAL schemes in other
institutions, learn new skills and give feedback into how the PAL scheme can be improved
in GMIT.
To bring the conference to a fantastic
end the GMIT PAL leaders won the poster
competition explaining the PAL scheme in
GMIT, beating 15 other Universities.
Page 3 December 2011

4. New Civic Engagement module
Twenty-six students from the GMIT
Hotel, Business and Engineering
Schools completed a new Civic En-
gagement module (worth five cred-
its) this year and presented their
learning experiences at a special
seminar in June.
The module was developed as part
of the Strategic Innovation Fund
(SIFII) project (Carina Ginty) in part-
nership with the Hotel School (Ann
Flanagan Kelly) and the School of
Business (Evelyn Moylan). It en-
gages academic programmes in re-
sponsible and challenging actions
with a range of non-profit commu-
nity organisations. Students ran
Pictured are GMIT Computing & Electronic Engineering students who
cookery classes for the Brothers of
worked as volunteers for the Camara charity with their lecturer and
Charity Services Holy Family School
Camara project co-ordinator Natasha Rohan and Head of Dept Des
in Renmore, provided marketing
O’Reilly.
and public relations support for
COPE and refurbished old com-
puters for the Camara charity group LIN Technology Enhanced Learning
(for third world schools).
Race in Galway 16 staff members of GMIT regis-
tered in LIT on the LIN module
Prof. Phil Race, well known author
authored by Dr. Liam Boyle in
of ‘Making Learning Happen’ (Sage,
March 2011. They all found the
2010) was back in GMIT this term to
module extremely informative
deliver two workshops; Making
and developed multimedia ma-
Learning Happen and Learning
terial for their teaching.
Methodologies. His ‘passion is
about making learning happen in an The response to the module
approachable way, without re- was so successful that it is being
course to jargon, acronyms or elit- offered again, this time in
ism’ and GMIT staff can vouch for GMIT, commencing in Decem-
that. ber. It will be delivered by Dr.
Mark Glynn and our thanks to
him for his encouragement and
enabling this positive contribu-
tion to upskilling our staff.
GMIT plans to offer various LIN
modules in the future to further
staff development.
Volume 2 Issue 2 Page 4

5. Teaching Excellence Award
The 2011 GMIT President’s Award
for Teaching Excellence was pre-
sented to Barry McMillan at the
School of Humanities graduation
ceremony.
This award was inaugurated in 2007
to recognise and honour teaching
of the highest standard which en-
gages students and enables them to
reach their potential.
Barry is a teacher who believes that
every student can achieve very high
standards of work once appropri-
ately challenged and supported. His
belief in a student’s innate ability is
reflected in the personal testimoni-
als of some of his students. I quote been a member of the teaching
“he is so supportive of students,
“He was never less than passionate, staff of GMIT since September 2008
believing in them even in times and currently teaches in the Schools
inspiring, supportive and encourag-
when they didn’t believe in them-
ing” (Trish Thompson BA) of Humanities, Business and Hotel.
selves” (Edel Mulvihill BA) He is a widely-published author, an
“his open and honest approach
acclaimed conference speaker, and
brought all subjects to life and
Barry has been working, nationally an experienced broadcaster. His
stimulated and fuelled broader in-
and internationally, in the fields of academic specialities are Ethics,
dependent learning and re-
education and community develop- Religious Studies, English, Commu-
search” (Aoife Ralph BA)
ment since the early 1990s. He has nications and Research Supervision.
LIN 2011 Conference Sponsors
Page 5 December 2011

6. Innovative Online Vocational Training of Renewable Energy
Technologies (INNOVRET)
GMIT has recently been successful
in attracting €246,000 from the
Leonardo Da Vinci program in
Europe for the development of
novel online training on renewable
energy systems using a state of the
art energy laboratory that has been
developed in the college over the
last five years. Uniquely the stu-
dents in this laboratory learn about
the installation, analysis and per-
formance of integrated, real work-
ing renewable energy systems using
a sophisticated web enabled inter-
face which allows them to under-
stand and analyse the construction,
live operation and performance of
these systems. nological and application-oriented the area of technology enhanced
The consortium consists of experts perspectives, including cognitive learning and online program devel-
on renewable energy systems, in and social science aspects with a opment and delivery.
the academic field (GMIT), the special focus is on contextualising
Staff recruited on the project in
world of work (Daikin B.V. and and personalizing learning events in
GMIT will be Dr. Attracta Brennan
Unitherm Ltd), industrial organiza- the professional workplace and
(formally of LIN) whose expertise is
tions as well as expertise in online other learning environments.
on online program design and de-
learning (Knowledge Management Tangible outcomes from the project velopment for engineering. Dr.
Institute in the Technical University will comprise certified online train- Aurora Dimache is a mechanical
of Graz Austria). The Knowledge ing content on renewable energy engineer with experience in online
Management Institute undertakes systems deployed using state of the content development and delivery
interdisciplinary research on know- art online infrastructure. In addi- for engineering over many years.
ledge management and technology tion there will be transfer of know- The team will be lead by Dr. Tho-
enhanced learning in a broad spec- ledge and expertise from the Tech- mas Roche from the Mechanical
trum of domains, integrating tech- nical University of Graz to GMIT in Engineering department.
LIN 2011 Conference Sponsors
Volume 2 Issue 2 Page 6

7. EVENTS
The EAIE conference brings together more than 4000 higher education professionals eager to share knowledge and
best practices, and take part in topical discussions within the dynamic field of international higher education.
The 24th Annual EAIE Conference, based on the theme Rethinking education, reshaping economies, will take place
from 11 to 14 September 2012. For details visit http://www.eaie.org/dublin/
INTED2012 will be an International Forum for those who wish to discuss the main aspects and the latest results in
the field of Education and Research.
The general aim of the conference is to promote international collaboration in Education and Research in all educa-
tional fields and disciplines. Attendance of more than 700 delegates from 70 different countries is expected. For
details visit http://www.iated.org/inted2012/announcement
INNOVATION 12 Conference IADT February 1st - 4th 2012. Visit http://interaction12.ixda.org/home/ for
more details.
Learning by Developing - New Ways to Learn
Conference on Creativity in Higher Education
www.lin.ie
May 8th – 11th 2012 in Finland
Tracks
a) How to learn creativity
b) How to teach creativity
c) Creative management in a Higher Education Institution
d) Developing a creative region
http://lbdconference.laurea.fi
Page 7 December 2011