Seeing how it is Chuseok here in Korea and being aware of the fact that the majority of my audience (aside from the spammers I have been plagued with) might not be hip to the true nature of Chuseok and what it all really means. Therefore, I probably should use this fortunate medium of the blog to introduce the basic concepts of what Chuseok really is and the cultural underpinnings of this fine event. I should, but I am not going to. This is due to the fact that I chose not to interact with society this holiday (much like the past several holidays here). Instead I holed myself up and played video games, namely the one in the picture above. When not playing video games, sleeping, or eating, I took long walks with my lady.
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.
