M&M Podcast 2
M&M Podcast Episode #1

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 portable podcasting kit, we recorded our first podcast yesterday more or less off the cuff (ok, we had an outline) and we are sharing it on our respective blogs while we find a permanent home for it.

We wanted to use the podcast as a means of documenting our thinking on how we are approaching particular technologies, positioning these as expanding on the teacher function (or not, in which case we are largely ignoring them), and demystifying them, hopefully, in the process. The University of Edinburgh is doing some good work in this space, basing many of their technological decisions on outputs from systematic consultations with the larger community, students and staff included.

The topics themselves will vary but the immediate targets are an ongoing discussion around automation and teaching (lots of demystifying necessary there), learning analytics, and adaptive learning, all of which we are engaging with speculatively at the University.

What this podcast represents is a forthright, sincere and ultimately speculative journey through the contentious technologies most impacting higher education in our near futures. It represents our understanding of the issues as they stand at that moment, an understanding that will shift considerably over time (as it should). If you are interested in joining us for a chat, please do reach out.

Podcasting kit

By 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.

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