Author: Hamish Macleod

Digital Education Programme participants may be interested in a new series of courses that are being offered by the Technology and Innovation Studies Subject Group of School of Social and Political Sciences.  There is an opportunity on the 28th of May to find out more, and the invitation to their “virtual open day” is pasted in below.  Just to be clear, these are not part of the Programme in Digital Education.  But for any interested, it is possible to substitute up to one course (20 credits)  from the (Masters) programme with a course from another programme, with the permission of the Director of the student’s own programme, and of the Director of the “host” programme.

We are delighted to invite you to experience an exciting new online learning course: PGCert in Making Use of Digital Research.
An opportunity to develop the skills to succeed in the fast moving field of digital research.

The Virtual Open Day will take place on the 28th May 2014 12:00-13:30.

To register for the open day please use the Eventbrite page below:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/making-use-of-digital-research-virtual-open-day-tickets-11100795779

The Virtual Open Day is an opportunity to get to know the programme team, course convenor and technologists providing technical support. The programme team are keen to give detailed practical information about the programme structure and workload. You might like to get a sneak preview of this area of work by viewing recent materials from the Digital Day of Ideas on ‘Data’ and our Valuation as Practice symposium which included discussion relevant to the digital research agenda.

The event will make use of online ‘Collaborate’ technology which enable you to interactively engage with the programme team. You can get access using the link below:

https://ca-sas.bbcollab.com/m.jnlp?sid=2011426&username=&password=M.F49D5EEA91449DACBBB4B5504B24E6

Using the system should be straightforward, but do take a few moments to confirm you can access it correctly before the session. For further instructions or technical queries please contact Benjamin Koeck <b.koeck@ed.ac.uk> either before the event, or at any time on the day in real-time from 09:00.

Making Use of Digital Research:

This Postgraduate Certificate is aimed at commissioners, coordinators and users of digital research in business, policy-making and the third sector, including digital marketing and analytical services officers. The PGCert comprises a suite of courses that together provide the critical understanding and skills needed to make best use of digital research findings, with a particular focus on social media research, web 2.0 data and their synergies with publicly available ‘open’ administrative datasets. Based on the latest research into the social and economic influences on how digital research is being developed and used, this PGCert is designed both for novices and for more experienced professionals who need to maintain a critical appreciation of the fast moving field of digital research.

For further information contact: PGCertDigital@ed.ac.uk

We look forward to welcoming you to the Virtual Open Day,

The Making Use of Digital Research Team

All students on the Programme will be interested to hear that the University is about to appoint a new Chair in Digital Education – some of you may have seen this post advertised.  Indeed, for all I know, some of you may have applied.  But i digress.  This will be a new colleague who will join the School of Education,  the Digital Education Masters teaching team, and the Digital Cultures and Education research group.

On Monday 26th May – in the afternoon – candidates who have been invited to interview for the post will be in the School of Education at the Holyrood campus to give presentations on their work.  So those of you who actually live in, and around, Edinburgh are welcome to come along to those presentations.  The presentations will begin at 12.45pm, and there are four candidates.  Protocol dictates that we are not aware of the names of the candidates in advance.

Candidates have been asked to talk to the following brief :

Please give a presentation on your area of research, and how it would contribute to the wider scholarship of Digital Education within the Schools of Education and Informatics and Across the University of Edinburgh. Please also indicate your vision of what the next 5/10 years of research might include.

Presentations will take place in the Godfrey Thomson Hall in Thomson’s Land on the Holyrood campus.  We are asked to indicate if we want to attend, and this can be done by email to the PA to the Head of School, Colin Campbell (Colin.J.Campbell@ed.ac.uk).

The Programme will be joining in with one of the University-wide Open Day events on Wednesday the 26th March.  Details of what is planned are to be found on the Programme website.

Interested onlookers to this blog from outside the Programme student community should regard this as our invitation to you to join in on the day, if you have questions about studying with us.

We would ask all of you – student community and beyond – to help us publicise the day by Tweeting, or otherwise sharing, the URL of the announcement page.

http://online.education.ed.ac.uk/about/virtual-open-day-26-march-2014/

Many thanks.

Reports of the doings of one of our alumni Hugh O’Donnell.  Hugh’s blog tells of his recent meeting with electronic music pioneer, Gary Numan.  The focus of this link is the work that Hugh has been doing in promoting science fiction literature as a route to sparking the interest of his pupils in their English studies.