Sinéad Mooney – ALT Conference and DCU Contributions
DCU Intern Sinéad Mooney has been hard at work over the last few months. She recently attended and spoke at her first conference on behalf of DCU. Sinéad wrote the following article outlining her contributions both at the ALT Conference and at DCU.
Sinéad Mooney has been an EDTL Intern since September 2021. Having recently completed her final year in Communication Studies in DCU, she continued to contribute to the EDTL project over the summer months. Completing her internship this month, Sinéad will end on a busy note, having carried out her first guest speaker spot on behalf of DCU at the Association of Learning Technology Conference in University of Manchester. Sinéad will be returning to DCU this year to begin her MSc in Emerging Media.
“Early in September, thanks to my work as part of the EDTL project, I had the absolute pleasure of attending the Association of Learning Technology (ALT) Annual Conference 2022 in the University of Manchester, not only as one of the DCU Teaching Enhancement Unit’s four delegates, but also as a speaker at the conference. As well as contributing to a pre-recorded session discussing student-staff partnership (one of ALTC’s most important recurring themes), I got the incredible opportunity to present live on digi-skills.ie, the digital skills repository hub website I curated and developed as one of DCU’s integral EDTL project initiatives. As this was my first time speaking professionally in a conference setting, I was quite nervous at the idea of presenting to a room full of university staff members from all over Europe, but I was lucky to feel incredibly welcomed and encouraged by the DCU TEU and other conference delegates and was delighted at how well received our presentation was.
As well as presenting myself, I also had the chance to attend other presentations, keynotes, and workshop sessions. It was such a valuable and interesting experience hearing about educational technology, digital skills development, and partnership with students from the staff side of things, and I feel like I gained a great sense of knowledge and perspective from attending these talks. As my time with the EDTL project draws to a close, I feel that I’ve really gained from being able to work alongside staff on various projects, and it’s truly taught me the value of consistent and continuous digital learning and upskilling. As someone a good few years into university, it’s easy to feel as if you’ve already learned everything you need to know in the world of digital skills for college, but I was really struck by how much new information and resources I learned about while contributing to initiatives like DCU Digi-Town and digi-skills.ie. The EDTL project has made me become more curious and inquisitive and eager to grow as a learner, and I hope future projects in higher education follow its lead in valuing the student voice and encouraging further student-staff partnerships across the board.“
– Sinéad Mooney
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