Author: Michael Gallagher

My name is Michael Sean Gallagher. I am a Lecturer in Digital Education at the Centre for Research in Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh. I am Co-Founder and Director of Panoply Digital, a consultancy dedicated to ICT and mobile for development (M4D); we have worked with USAID, GSMA, UN Habitat, Cambridge University and more on education and development projects. I was a researcher on the Near Futures Teaching project, a project that explores how teaching at The University of Edinburgh unfold over the coming decades, as technology, social trends, patterns of mobility, new methods and new media continue to shift what it means to be at university. Previously, I was the Research Associate on the NERC, ESRC, and AHRC Global Challenges Research Fund sponsored GCRF Research for Emergency Aftershock Forecasting (REAR) project. I was an Assistant Professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (한국외국어대학교) in Seoul, Korea. I have also completed a doctorate at University College London (formerly the independent Institute of Education, University of London) on mobile learning in the humanities in Korea.

M&M Podcast Episode 4: AI utopia, dystopia and data

In the fourth episode of the M&M (Michael and Myles) podcast we imagine utopian and dystopian narratives of adoption of AI within education, exploring how AI could be used and its impact upon our community at the University of Edinburgh.

M&M Podcast #3: Definitions and Imaginaries of AI

In the third episode of the M&M (Michael and Myles) podcast, we try to define the different types of artificial intelligence (AI), and discuss the narratives and overall presentation of AI in the collective imagination of education (and why all of this is important). This episode was recorded on location in Simon Laurie House at […]

Expanding the Teacher Function: Call for Edinburgh community both online and off

We are looking for participants from the University of Edinburgh community (students and staff) to help us chart a values-based future amidst all the technological change impacting what we do as a university. We need your help to ensure that what we create as a university is from and for the University of Edinburgh and […]

M&M Podcast #2: Bots and the Teacher Function

‘‘What would it look like if we imagine the teacher working in partnership with the code, and / or with artificial intelligence, to offer a new kind of teaching? I think we need to move away from understanding automated teaching as a response to some kind of deficit in teachers. Rather, we need to think about automation […]

M&M Podcast: Setting the Scene, Terms, Topics

Based on ongoing discussions and projects I have been having in my role from the Centre for Research in Digital Education with my colleagues at Learning, Technology, and the Web, Myles Blaney and I decided that all the exploratory conversations we were having naturally as part of that work might be shared. So with nifty […]

New Project: Exploring the Teacher Function: Continuing Speculative Interventions in Automated Teaching

I just kicked off a new project at the Centre for Research in Digital Education building on Sian Bayne’s work on Teacherbot. I am joined by Markus Breines, Myles Blaney, and Marcello Crolla, all of the University of Edinburgh, on this one. Project page is here. This project builds on the work of Teacherbot (Bayne 2015) and its model […]

Digital Education Workshop in Dar es Salaam: Team and Themes

I am posting this as well to the Centre for Research in Digital Education site as well as the cluster’s website once that site is complete. Having just returned from Tanzania and an intensive round of workshops as part of a Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) small grant for theme development, I wanted to take […]