Education Commons^™

Serious Gordon Using Serious Games To Teach Food Safety In The Kitchen, Brian Mac Namee, Pauline Rooney, Patrick Lindstrom, Andrew Ritchie, Frances Boylan, Greg Burke

Conference papers

This paper will describe the development of Serious Gordon, an interactive digital game developed to tech the basics of kitchen food safety to workers in industries dealing with food. The motivations driving the development of the game will be described as will the development process itself. An initial evaluation of the game, from both a technical and pedagogical point of view, will be presented as will conclusions on the viability of using a commercial game engine for the purpose of developing educational games.

The Application Of Learning Skills In An Engineering Programme, Leslie Shoemaker

Conference papers

At the Dublin Institute of Technology, an engineering programme in the School of Control Systems and Electrical Engineering has successfully incorporated a study skills module into the core curriculum. The module, titled Academic Development and Key Skills, is part of the first year of the programme and has a two-fold purpose. Primarily the goal is to assist the students with the transition from second level education to third level by teaching them a more competent learning style. This, in turn, helps to create a positive impact with respect to the retention of this student group within the programme. The second …

Expanding Diversity For Mature Part-Time Craftspersons, Kevin Kelly

Conference papers

This paper, originally presented at the World Conference for Continuing Engineering Education (WCCEE) in Vienna in April 20006, examines how the Engineering Faculty in the Dublin Institute of Technology is coping with change on its part-time accredited engineering programmes as it widens access and moves to constructivist learning approaches on one new degree programme. A comparison is made between this programme and a more traditional academic programme. This move though largely successful, has led to some unexpected results.

International Collaboration In Blended Problem-Based Learning, Roisin Donnelly

Conference papers

European education today is characterized by two dominant trends. First, e-learning has made impressive advances in the past five years. Second, European higher education has become increasingly internationalized. Within this, there has been an obvious shift towards more social, collaborative and communal perspectives of learning reported in recent educational research. Various forms of collaborative and inquiry-based learning include the idea that learning should be understood as a combination of participation, knowledge creation and internal processes. This paper discusses the blending of e-learning and problem-based learning (PBL), based on these observations and as a comprehensive approach encompassing the learning environment, curriculum, …

Problem Based Learning In Spatial Information Sciences: A Case Study, Audrey Martin, Eugene Mcgovern, Kevin Mooney

Conference papers

This paper describes the introduction, implementation and evaluation of a Problem Based Learning component in the Geodetic Surveying syllabus of the fourth / final year of the honours degree programme in Geomatics at the Department of Spatial Information Sciences, Technological University of Dublin,Ireland. The reasons behind adopting this constructivist educational approach as opposed to traditional instructivist methods more commonly employed are addressed, together with an evaluation of the process from both the educator (academic) and student (learners) perspective. The results of this case study are considered in the context of a number of interconnected pedagogical issues including (a) enhancement of …

The Experience Of E-Learning: Progress Towards A New Learning Paradigm, Audrey Martin, Eugene Mcgovern, Kevin Mooney

Conference papers

This paper reviews the use of E-Learning in the spatial information science programmes of the Technological University of Dublin (DIT).

The spatial information science programmes are placed within the context of the use of E-Learning across the Institute and this paper draws on the experiences of the DIT Learning Technology Team (LTT). The LTT has just completed the initial brief given to it by the DIT strategic planning group charged with ensuring the implementation of E-Learning as a resource in support of the change from a teacher-centred to a learner-centred paradigm.

E-Learning was first introduced in the Department of Spatial …

Towards Non-Prescriptive Issues: A Teaching Framework For Selecting Marketing Dissertation Topics, Conor Horan

Conference papers

There is a significant absence in academic literature, textbooks and practical teaching tools for advising or guiding student learning, in a practical non-prescriptive manner, toward topic selection and development. Prescriptive or rational approaches, taken by many research methods textbooks, are not adequate or sufficient when teaching this important first stage in the research process. Non-prescriptive approaches describing manageable steps should be researched more to fill this pedagogic gap. This paper attempts to promote academic discussion on a pedagogic gap that is broadly overlooked, and to examine how marketing and business academics can better instruct dissertation students in the area of …

Preaching To The Converted?:Knowledge-Based Management Of Higher Education Institutes., Deirdre Lillis

Conference papers

Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble. Samuel Johnson. The organisational culture of higher education institutes has been described in the literature as a professional bureaucracy where change creeps in not sweeps in (Mintzberg 1996). Operating within the constraints of public sector leglislation higher education institutes typically have a largely autonomous workforce with a highly compartmentalised organizational structure. The difficulties involved in providing a central steering core present some unique challenges to its management (Clark 1996). When faced with mounting external pressures for accountability, quality assurance, flexible delivery and others the unique …

Steering By Engagement:Towards An Integrated Planning And Evaluation Framework In Higher Education Institutes, Deirdre Lillis

Conference papers

Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) worldwide are investing significant resources in strategic planning and self study programs to improve institutional performance. Both are expensive undertakings in terms of the time invested by participants and it is not unusual to see both programs underway in a HEI at the same time. The underlying knowledge produced about the challenges facing the Institution and the necessary responses can be broadly similar although their methodologies and presentation may differ. This paper reports on the comparative effectiveness of three strategic planning and three self study programs undertaken in one HEI over an 8 year timeframe under …

Bar Raising Or Navel-Gazing?:The Effectiveness Of Self-Study Programmes In Eading To Improvements In Institutional Performance, Deirdre Lillis

Conference papers

Higher Education Institutes worldwide are investing significant resources in self study programmes to improve institutional performance, to enhance quality and to meet external stakeholder demands. The institutional impacts of both internally and externally mandated self study programmes is an area where little empirical research exists. A key question is whether self study programmes are effective (or otherwise) in leading to improvements in institutional performance and the reasons why. Covering an eight year period, from 1997–2006, this paper reports on the use of systematic evaluation methodology (Rossi et al., 2003) to evaluate the effectiveness of three self study programmes in leading …