The group aims to enhance development of digital literacy skills in higher education for digital inclusion, collaboration, and innovation from a lifelong learning perspective
The School of Education and Lifelong Learning at South East Technological University (SETU) in Waterford recently hosted a three-day symposium from 14-16 March in the SETU Arena. The symposium marked the launch of the Community of Practice for teachers and professionals in education, which is one of the project results partners aim to achieve within the IGNITION Erasmus+ funded project.
A critical digital mindset and constant upskilling and reskilling of our digital literacy development is imperative for everyone involved in higher education including teachers, students, staff, and the external parties, professionals, and industry partners that universities collaborate with.
IGNITION
IGNITION is a group of international researchers who aim to enhance development of digital literacy skills in higher education for digital inclusion, collaboration, and innovation from a perspective of lifelong learning. The event featured in person presentations from IGNITION project partners: Hanze University of Applied Sciences (Hanze UAS), Bremen City University of Applied Sciences, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, SETU; and guest keynote speakers from University of Limerick and Delft University of Technology (TU Delft).
Thought provoking presentations, and a game-based workshop
The first day of the symposium, opened by Dr Helen Murphy, Head of School of Education and Lifelong Learning at SETU in Waterford, focused on sharing practice on digital transformation with presentations from Annalies Kootstra (Hanze UAS); Peter Windle, Ken McCarthy, Dr Fionnuala Brennan, Colm Dunphy, and Eamonn deLeastar from SETU; and concluded with a thought provoking presentation questioning our outlook towards Information Technology led by Prof Andreas Teufel and colleagues from Bremen City University of Applied Sciences.
Challenge based learning was the theme of the second day with engaging and interactive presentations sharing international perspectives from Dr Roisin Lyons (University of Limerick); Dr Renate G. Klaassen (TU Delft); Dr Madelon van Oostrom and Dr Nejla Karabulut (Hanze UAS); and Dr Inês Barbedo, Dr Cláudia S. Costa, and Bárbara Barroso (Instituto Politécnico de Bragança).
There was enthusiastic participation and engagement on day three in the game-based digital competencies workshop facilitated by Eugene Shenderov, Marjan De Jonge (Hanze UAS) and colleagues from IGNITION project partners. Neill Wylie and SETU colleagues working on the project – Laura Widger, Dr Valerie Brett, Dr Helen Murphy and Rebecca Sheridan – spoke of the development and next steps in the IGNITION transnational Community of Practice for teachers and professionals in education.
Opportunity to network, share and learn
Speaking after the event, IGNITION lead coordinator and senior researcher on Digital Literacy and Inclusion from the Digital Transformation Research Group at Hanze UAS, Dr Madelon van Oostrom commented, "The IGNITION partnership aims to raise awareness and increase the digital literacy skills for inclusion, collaboration and innovation in higher education and I cannot think of a more balanced and inspiring symposium as the one SETU organised last week to achieve this. The keynote presentations, and workshop with colleagues and students triggered meaningful conversations and relevant insights for our work as faculty staff in a changing educational landscape.”
Laura Widger, SETU academic lead on the IGNITION project and Assistant Head of Department (Education) in the School of Education and Lifelong Learning added, “Thanks to all our IGNITION Erasmus+ partners, SETU colleagues, and guest speakers for their excellent contribution and traveling to present in person at SETU; it was a great opportunity to network, share and learn from the practice of colleagues in higher education on a variety of topics.”
The next event in the IGNITION project calendar will be a multiplier event hosted by Bremen City University of Applied Sciences on 30 and 31 May 2023. This will be followed by an online IGNITION Teachers Community of Practice event in June 2023.
For further detail on the IGNITION project, visit the project website at https://www.ignition-erasmus.eu
To sign up and join the IGNITION Teachers Community of Practice, led by SETU, visit https://www.linkedin.com/company/ignition-erasmus/