Welcome to first edition of the NDLR Newsletter for academic year 2011 – 2012. We are all looking forward to a bumper year of development, sharing and collaboration! The repository is growing in scale and quality each year and now hosts over 25,000 open educational resources across a variety of disciplines. The quality of the resources developed under the National call for funding last year are exceptional and are receiving very positive recognition both nationally and internationally. This years 2011 teams are already underway - to see the projects that have been funded visit the NDLR website under OER projects.

The NDLR has recently published two volumes of the Proceedings of the NDLR Fest 2011 celebrating and illustrating the scope of the teaching and learning material being developed, shared and used by the Irish academic community. Volume 1 is a collection of the 138 local innovation digital resource projects and the 12 national and collaborative projects presented on the day. Volume 2 comprises academic papers relating to the 12 national digital resource projects funded by the NDLR.

In his foreword of the publication, Mr. Pat O'Connor, Head of ICT and Einfranet Project in the Higher Education Authority reaffirms how the scope of cooperation within the NDLR is unique and that the operation of successful academic subject networks supported by a single dedicated shared repository provide a focus for the effort that is contributing to the development of new more effective approaches to pedagogy and e-learning.

ISBN: 978-1-905952-33-5

View a digital version of the publication.

Congratulations to all the contributors!

Keep an eye out in your institution for a local NDLR Call for Funding to support the development of learning resources for contribution to the NDLR repository. These are institutional projects, funded by the NDLR, to promote the development and sharing of digital learning resources and associated practices across the country and are now available to use and reuse.

The funded LIP projects will be showcased through a poster exhibition at the NDLR Fest in 2012 alongside contributions from all other institutions and universities. Last year, we displayed 138 impressive local projects. To find out what digital resources have already been developed in your institution visit the NDLR website under OER projects.

1. How to use Twitter in social learning
2. Ad-hoc Social Learning Environment - How a Blog Drives Learning
3. Google Buzz and Social Learning: Connect the Dots
4. Maximize Student Enrollment, Get Immediate Student Feedback, Help Students In University And College Selection Using Social Interaction Pods
5. How online collaboration in learning can help learners at each stage of learning
6. Social Media in eLearning, Business Branding, and Interpersonal Communication
7. Why Your Social Media Strategy Isn't Working
8. E-Learning with Social Media
9. Social Media for Knowledge Workers
10. 10 Social Media Tools For Learning

The Slide Library of UCD School of Art History & Cultural Policy is one of its core teaching and learning resources. The School is engaged in a programme of digitizing and cataloguing the Irish architecture collection and is currently working on a sub-section of this collection, specifically 420 images of Dublin's built environment. The project, with the help of local NDLR funding and concentrating on domestic, civic and ecclesiastical material, will augment a smaller project undertaken as part of the Irish Virtual Research Library and Archive, which resulted in two image databases of 200 slides of Dublin's Georgian architecture.

These digital resources will support teaching, learning and research activities, at a 'local' level within the School and more widely through the NDLR, in the areas architecture and the historic interior, as well as broader interdisciplinary studies related to political, economic and cultural geographies.

Technology in its many forms is showing how teaching and learning can paint with a much broader palette of colours, from images and music to games, simulations, wikis, and many others, any time, any place, on laptops, desktops, and smartphones. Milton Chen is an active blogger on the topic of elearning to read more click on this link

New research publications Calls are online

"Perspectives of Innovations, Economics and Business" (PIEB) / Vol.10
"Applied Innovations and Technologies" (ATI) / Vol.5
"Business and Economic Horizons" (BEH) / Vol.6
www.academicpublishingplatforms.com or www.pradec.eu

NDLR News & Events

National Events

IICE- 2011

The Ireland International Conference on Education (IICE) will be held from 3-5 of October, 2011 in Dublin. The IICE is an international refereed conference dedicated to the advancement of the theory and practices in education.

The IICE promotes collaborative excellence between academicians and professionals from Education.
The aim of IICE is to provide an opportunity for academicians and professionals from various educational fields with cross-disciplinary interests to bridge the knowledge gap, promote research esteem and the evolution of pedagogy. The IICE-2011 invites research papers that encompass conceptual analysis, design implementation and performance evaluation.

LIN Conference 2011

27 October 2011 Aisling Hotel, Dublin

The Learning Innovations 4th Annual Conference takes place in DIT Bolton St on 27 October 2011. The conference theme is Enhancing the Learning Experience: Learning for an Unknown Future (Barnett, 2004) and there are three sub themes:
• The first year experience
• Diversity of the learner experience
• Staff development for learning / Innovation in teaching and learning

International Events

ULearn 11

19 – 21 Oct 2011
Christchurch, Canterbury, New Zealand

A premier international event attracting delegates involved in all levels of education. Leading thinkers and practitioners will share the latest developments and trends in the fields of e-Learning and education. 400 workshops, over 3 days.

Eden Open Classroom 2011

27th to the 29th of October 2011, Greece

Ellinogermaniki Agogi School is pleased to invite you to the EDEN Open Classroom Conference 2011 titled "Never Waste a Crisis! –Inclusive Excellence, Innovative Technologies and Transformed Schools as Autonomous Learning Organisations". The conference will be held from the 27th to the 29th of October 2011 in the school's premises in Pallini, Attica.

The conference aims to bring together individuals and teams from a wide range of technology and education fields to look into the future of education and to share their visions as to what the learning experiences and educational technologies could be like and how could be implemented in the daily school practice.

e-InfraNet Open Workshop

27th and 28th of October 2011, The Netherlands

The e-InfraNET Project addresses the need for harmonising and co-ordinating the related national efforts and establishing a common European endeavour in order to serve successful integration of the diverse and parallel local and regional policies in the field of e-Infrastructures. As part of the e-InfraNet project's information exchange function workshops are organised to identify and capture good practice and to provide recommendations for further analysis and acitivities.

e-InfraNet is holding a workshop adressing the topic of Open on the 27th and 28th of October. The broad objective of this workshop is to stimulate a lively and engaging debate around the benefits and challenges that the concept of Open Research and higher educaiton in it's broadest sense (encompassing Open Access, data, source, borders) poses for the communities involved. NDLR and RIAN will be presenting at this event.

Learning Lab - Early Researcher Symposium

Wednesday, 2 Nov 2011, Telford campus, Wolverhampton, UK.

Learning Lab in association with ALT will be hosting an annual 'Early Researcher Symposium' in November 2011 at the University of Wolverhampton's Telford campus, in the heart of rural Shropshire. This event is aimed at early researchers in e-learning and learning technology and aims to raise the number and quality of submissions to the ALT-C (ALT's annual conference) and Research in Learning Technology (the ALT journal).

The event format aims to create an environment that brings together the early research e-learning and learning technologies community with methodological contributions from eminent academics in the field who will offer support to participants through structured opportunities to discuss their research.

Media & Learning 2011

24-25 November, Brussels

Media & Learning 2011 is the place to be if you are interested in the latest developments, services and uses of media in education and training. Aimed at both policy makers and practitioners, the purpose of this event is to identify policies and initiatives that promote digital and media competence at all levels of education and training as well as to promote best-practice in the take-up and application of media in education and training.