I flew out to the University of Indiana the other day to visit my dear friend Byron, whom I had not seen in over nine years. We talked and walked around the campus and discussed and engaged on matters trivial and profound. Not to be too flighty, but my mind is really free in places like that. I could easily see myself spending a lifetime on leafy greens underneath stone towers discussing and discussing and coming together closer and closer with understanding. I have come to realize that the discourse is often the end in itself. Regardless, he ran a 5k race, his first, and we were all so proud of him. It was wonderfully framed by the first touches of fall chilling the early morning hours. I lead a very charmed life to have known so many and seen so much goodness.
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.
