 Okay, good afternoon to you all. My name is Dara from the Cork Institute of Technology and this is my colleague Roshin. So our project is TelTools, which is essentially a resource aimed at instructing instructors on how to use TEL tools in a pedagogically effective fashion. So we've been extremely lucky in the project partnership which we have. We are collaborating with UCC, DIT, ITTRILE and UCD to develop the project and all of whom have been fantastic to work with. So we previously, this partnership previously worked together on NDLR projects. We would have all been quite involved with existing technology and learning work and we would all kind of have a common kind of goal I guess in terms of staff development and empowerment and innovation and best practice and so forth. So in terms of the project, the kind of rationale I guess behind the project is that the advantage of technology and learning is that maybe it facilitates evolution of a lecturer's role beyond content delivery into areas to do with facilitating active learning. But obviously this isn't something which lecturers should or could be expected to handle by themselves, there has to be training, there has to be guidance. One difficulty which our research indicated with technology and also learning training is actually attempting also to future-proof TEL. So because technology is consistently changing, it's important to try and future-proof training. You provide two instructors so that what you teach them will still be useful even though the technology might evolve quite a bit. So as I'll come to in a minute, our project was very much focused on putting effective pedagogy first in order to attempt to address that issue. So if that was a rationale then the general project routine or plan is as follows. So to create learning content on technology and learning, to develop an online platform to facilitate delivery of this learning, to hold information sessions for teaching and for feedback and to pilot the content and the online platform and then that brings us back to the initial point. So the idea is that we would kind of try and iteratively develop and improve both the content, the online platform and the information sessions as the project progressed. So the main outcomes projected from this project are obviously an online platform in that facilitating continuous professional development for Irish instructors who might like to employ technology enhanced learning in their classroom. A set of modular kind of learning content within the platform and I'll deal with this slightly more complicated issue in a minute. We see the content as forming kind of short media rich units, which we're currently calling blocks, focused on a specific kind of practical aspect of implementing effective technology enhanced learning. So implementing a particular teaching or learning approach using a particular digital tool. These blocks are then organized into stacks which will kind of string together to form kind of units with larger learning objectives. I'm aware that it's extremely complicated and convoluted. I only have a slightly better understanding of it than anyone else here. So I'll maybe go into that in a little bit more detail in a minute. And in addition to this, as I mentioned, we hope to hold information sessions. So these will be accompanying synchronous training and they'd be aimed at individuals involved in Irish third level institutions and hopefully potentially beyond. And they would be scheduled to coincide with the piloting of the project and, excuse me, the people being able to access the platform and the training. So in terms of the project methodology, CIT, IT, TRELEE and DIT are currently the content development partners. UCD have taken on the role of quality assurance and to make sure that we don't go too far off the path. And UCC are kind of at the moment scope development. So they're looking at the amount of content that the platform should contain, the type of material that should be covered, what the blocks should be, how those should form the stacks, how those should form playlists, which are groups of stacks. At the moment, we're holding Skype calls or Adobe Connect sessions every two weeks to try and keep communication high and to make sure that nobody's lost at any stage during the project. We're also using Google Drive to host all our content for transparency and collaboration purposes. So today, luckily, we've kind of remained on track. The first end of content development sessions is due to end by the end of July. Piloting has been performed over the last month or two as well. And that is due to end in July after which a pilot report will be developed. So in terms of the project outcomes to date, initially we began by attempting to identify some of the opportunities or barriers to technology enhanced learning in higher education to inform some of the practice in the project. So UCC put together a document which contains surveys on TEL from UCC, ITT, and also from the 20 questions on technology enhanced learning put together by the National Forum. So the findings from that were particularly interesting. One kind of element, and I'll come back to it later on as well, is what that kind of research found was that very often third level instructors were quite interested in technology enhanced learning. What they didn't have, they weren't aware of the possibilities of us. They weren't aware of any training and they also weren't aware of where they could access this training. Learning content in the platform then, as I mentioned, is designed to be very granular and very flexible. And this is to suit learner needs appropriately, but it's also to allow for quick digestion of materials. So one of the other findings from the research which was conducted at the beginning of the project is that third level instructors are very busy people. They only have so much time to dedicate to training. So one of the, an important element which we kind of wanted to make sure remained in the project was that learning content was quite digestible, that people would be able to access and take the information there quickly and then put it to use quite quickly. So in terms of content in the platform, you may have to bear with me slightly here. The content in the platform is consistent with what we are referring to the moment as blocks. So blocks are essentially just providing practical information on how to facilitate a particular teaching learning approach using a digital TEL tool. And as I mentioned, the idea that bind these blocks is that they're quite short, they're hopefully quite practical, and the information within them is quite digestible. And they're also quite media rich, so we're using interactive video, animation, text and imagery. Within the platform then as well, a stack number two is a collection of blocks and that's designed to fulfill an even larger learning outcome. So the example which is there is that a stack dealing with say reflective practice would consist of maybe four blocks, some pedagogical information about reflective practice, which will be the first block, and then detailing how to use a particular digital tool in order to facilitate reflective practice and using blocks for reflective practice, e-portfolios and mind maps. Finally, then a third category, number three would be a playlist. So playlist then would be a collection of stacks and that will be designed to facilitate an even larger learning outcome. So for example, and again, this is obviously quite rough, but a playlist to do with assessment might include stacks from formative assessment, diagnostic assessment and group or peer based assessment. Within each block, there'd be a number of kind of content headings. So one element which UCC quite graciously provided for us was in a kind of an instructor point of view. So initially when we began the project, we were quite focused on technology kind of point of view. UCC were actually useful in kind of, I suppose, trying to put instructors first. So to try and ensure that the information that was contained in these learning units was focused on what would be practical to instructors. So to that and content headings within a block would be what is the software, where can they get it, how can they use it for a particular teaching approach. So for example, how should I use blogs for continuous assessment, and then how to use this effectively, how to get started, and then what else should they know which is additional resources and how to use particular technologies or more information or case studies about that particular teaching and learning approach. So content development to date has been 20 scripts developed so far, and we initially developed a template for the material to be developed in a block. We have a project content scope plan developed by UCC, which provides a map of the content. So this is essentially a breakdown of the content in the platform, how the blocks should form stacks, how the stacks should form playlists. It's very much a work in progress, but we're hoping it's something that we'll continue with developing until the end of the project. UCD have put together a quality insurance plan to ensure that all of the developed material is cohesive, consistent, so on and so forth. Platform development is currently ongoing, it's currently in early prototyping, work has been done on the structure and the processes and so forth, and we've been working on this over the last while and intend to continue working on it for the near future. One useful element which we've developed as well as part of our discussions and research was this idea of personas. Sorry, you might just bear with me two seconds. So personas are essentially kind of, I suppose, keeping in mind the point of view of individuals who might come to the platform looking for content. These personas were maybe just kind of caricatures of particular individuals who might be, for example, who might be quite up to date with technology enhanced learning. So coming to the platform, what would the benefits for them be? What would their pain points be in terms of learning about technology enhanced learning or applying technology enhanced learning down to individuals who would be quite inexperienced with technology enhanced learning and who might benefit from a different perspective or a different approach. So that's been useful, I guess, in trying to maintain, trying to ensure that we kind of keep the individual in mind. We have a very, I apologize for this, but we have an extremely rough prototype of the platform. This is even rougher than I would like it to be even at this early stage, which is to very quickly show you this just as a very kind of quick breakdown of, at a very general level, how the online platform might work. Now I would say again, this is extremely rough, so it's barely indicative of what the final product would be. So I just encourage you to bear that in mind. So within the platform, it's possible to access the different stacks. Within the individual stacks, then, it's possible to access certain blocks. Within the blocks, then, is content on how to, in this case, on how to use a blog for continuous assessment. So going back to the headers, which I mentioned for content earlier, they would deal with introducing the individual to the software and trying to present them with some ways in which to use the software and then trying to get them started, so giving them a practical task to go off and do to begin their process of using that particular piece of software for a teaching and learning approach as well as resources on technical information on how to use a piece of software. We've also developed a number of case studies and that's something which we look to continue during the lifetime of the project which is going out and speaking to individuals involved in technology enhanced learning. So people who have kind of effectively utilised pedagogy technology enhanced learning within their own institution. And we also have a development blog which is up at teltowardsproject.tumblr. So we're going to upload the case studies to that as well as any ongoing kind of information about the development of the platform. So I'm going to hand you over to my colleague Rossino who's going to talk about national impact. Thanks Dara. I'll just kind of quite briefly go through this. In terms of national impact I suppose this is a way of summarising some of what Dara was talking about. So essentially the project is looking to equip instructors with the tools and knowledge to actually use technology enhanced learning within the classroom. So through that then we'll have training that's structured for custom learning so that the user can actually get at the content depending on whatever path that they want to, whatever experience level that they're at as well. So what we were looking at as well is that the content will be beneficial for staff from industry that may not have any pedagogical training. So this to us is kind of key as well because you would often find that in IOTs that someone would come in with the wealth of experience and maybe not have the actual pedagogical training. That content will also be beneficial for staff who are familiar with teaching learning approaches but maybe lack technical ability. So this is what Dara was talking about in terms of the personas that we were looking at. Ultimately then what we see is a trickle down effect benefiting the students that the development of the skills and knowledge and the confidence that the lecturers will have will actually benefit the students in terms of sort of creative classrooms and then enhance digital literacy as well on the part of the instructors as well as the students. So just quite quickly there. I mean as Dara mentioned as well the development is quite iterative and this kind of carries over in terms of the dissemination as well. So initially we have things like the information sessions and case studies which are part of the actual content of the project. So using these to disseminate the materials networking you know the project partners have quite an extensive network themselves. The typical online dissemination methods through the blog through the website through the platform itself and social media things like that. The existing tell units and work that the partners are doing particularly any workshops that partners are doing. We're trying to kind of leverage off that and work with that when disseminating the products. The distribution of outputs these will be all the outputs will be distributed with Creative Commons licenses. So this is what we expect would help the products to actually get out there and then looking at the options of papers and different conferences. So in terms of the three benefits I'm going to one up the lads and have five benefits but they are quite linked really. We're ultimately looking at engaging and empowering staff and through that then will help to improve the student experience. Again with the personas we're looking at offering sort of flexible programs. Not only having things that are chunked like the information be nice and bite sized but also that a lecture or maybe support staff can come in at it wherever they feel comfortable in terms of their own experience. And things then about creating like your platform being an online community that through case studies and things like that that lectures are helping each other so it's a bit of peer learning as well.