Getting the most out of Linkedin

Today I attended a Lunchtime Seminar given by Declan Fitzgerald on "Getting the most out of Linkedin". I have been on Linkedin for some time now with 275 connections and 24,854 in my network since April 16th last. Click on the blue "in" button to the right to connect with me. Declan is CEO of Recruitovate, a new HR technology consultancy company, previous to this he worked for Linkedin. The well attended seminar got to learn about how Linkedin is used in the recruitment business, with some clever use of searches to find the people that you need. Declan also told us about the power of Groups on Linkedin, though he warns that managing groups takes up a lot of time. There was also some insight into how Linkedin makes money through advertising and charging for access. 

This seminar was a fascinating insight into how Linkedin works and how powerful it can be. Declan used the term "personas" to describe how people can be categorized - eg Eugene the Lecturer, Eugene the blogger, or Eugene the biker. Linkedin are looking at how best they can use this network of millions of professionals to both make more money and add new ways for people to connect.

Book review - "The Reluctant Taoiseach" by David McCullagh

I have to confess I knew very little about former Taoiseach John A. Costello before I read this new biography by David McCullagh (he of RTÉ fame). The book was a birthday present last October and it has taken me several months to read. Since starting it I interrupted it by reading three other books (including biographies of Steve Jobs and Galileo) - this will tell you a little bit about this book.

Image link to Gill & Macmillan.

"The Reluctant Taoiseach" is well written, but heavy going in places - it is a book that you can put down. It is perhaps aimed at more serious scholars of Irish history than me? It is meticulously researched - 84 pages of references, plus a detailed index (31 pages). However, it does give a detailed account of Costello's life - particularly his time as Taoiseach in two governments, 1948-1951 and 1954-1957. Costello appears to have been an honest man who was not only a "reluctant" Taoiseach, but an accidental one too. 

What strikes me most about the book is it also describes a time in Ireland in the 40s and 50s where real economic hardship dominated Irish life and politics. The country was being bled dry by emigration - indeed my own maternal grandparents and most of their family left Ireland for Canada while Costello served his second term as Taoiseach. The book also assumes that the reader already knows a lot about two of the central events during Costello's term in office - the Declaration of the Republic, and the Mother and Child scheme. Neither is described in detail and I had to look up these events on Wikipedia to understand what was going on. 

Costello was an unapologetic daily mass-going Catholic who bowed to the Church and Archbishop John Charles McQuaid. It's hard to imagine now a Taoiseach opposing a moderate social scheme like the Mother and Child one, that led to his own health Minister (Noël Browne) resigning. He also lived and worked in the shadow of Éamon de Valera - the dominant force in Irish politics during the 20th century, but not much is made of this in the book.

I'd recommend this book as a fair account of John A. Costello. Be prepared for a long read, but it is worth it in the end to find out more about an almost forgotten leader of Ireland.

Apology to Offthemark.com

Earlier today in my Lecture Capture Technology post I linked to a cartoon from Offthemark.com. I am careful to reference anything I post and when I want to use a graphic that already exists on the web I generally link to it (rather than make a copy and upload as my own). Hence my usual "Image link to..." reference. Most of the graphics I use are found through Google Image search and I figured it was OK to simply link to them. As you can see, Offthemark.com clearly do not agree with this.

Cartoon by Dave Walker.
Find more cartoons you can freely re-use
on your blog at We Blog Cartoons. 

The cartoon can be accessed here  - it is cartoon # 2008-02-01. This evening the message above showed up instead of the graphic which I used without permission. I have now removed the graphic from my previous post.

So - an unreserved apology to Offthemark.com (and to Mark Parisi, the author of the cartoon) for nicking their cartoon. I'll have to stick to WeBlogCartoons where Dave Walker does allow bloggers to use his cartoons for free - as long as you reference where you got them from.

All of this begs the question - is linking to something the same as stealing? If I stand in the street and point to a picture on a wall - have I stolen it? Is pointing to (not copying) a resource on the web through a hyperlink a breach of copyright and Intellectual Property? If I had taken the care to read the very simple message at the bottom of Mark Parisi's cartoon:

Permission required for use.

I would not be guilty of stealing his work. My learning from this is to first of all apologize when I get something wrong, and secondly to take any corrective action I can to minimize the damage. I'll be more careful in future.

Lecture Capture Technology

Steve Wheeler writing in his blog asks the question about the use of lecture capture technology: is it "opening up a Pandora's box of trouble?". He speaks as someone who is "very comfortable with being recorded, live streamed, tweeted and even live blogged if it will improve students' chances and enrich their learning". I don't have a problem with this either, though I have yet to find students tweeting about me or my class. This kind of "back chat" has great value in my opinion and should be encouraged. I still dislike seeing signs in lecture theatres telling students to turn off their mobile phones. Many of my students are using their laptops/smartphones in class - while I suspect YouTube and Facebook is being accessed, they could actually be on Twitter or email sharing and discussing class material or other College work.

“The average professor speaks at 120 words per minute, but students write around 20 words”, according to Isaac Segal, of Tegrity - a company which provides lecture capture technology. The message is to use technology to record/capture a lecture and let the students concentrate on what's being said rather than spending the time taking notes. To me this makes a lot of sense. In fact I'd go so far as to say that there is merit in recording a lecture before a class, and then using the class time for practical work, debate, and discussion. It might make sense to have a short quiz at the beginning of such classes to ensure that the students have watched/listened to the recorded lecture. If the quiz is marked - they will watch/listen.

There are people who have difficulty with the use of technology in the classroom - as Steve Wheeler puts it "some lecturers are uneasy about exposing their ideas and content to an outside audience". But we must move with the times. It's not that long ago that VLEs like Moodle were introduced, and now it is standard practice to place notes on-line. I'm sure that there were objections to blackboard's being introduced into the classroom back in the 19th century. Take a look at the following comment which I have taken from an article available from the Freie Universitat Berlin website:

In 1855, the abolitionist Samuel Joseph May wrote about the introduction of the blackboard to classrooms, being at his time the most modern instruction technology:

...in the winter of 1813 & ’14, during my first College vacations, I attended a mathematical school kept in Boston by the Rev. Francis Xavier Brosius. On entering his room, we were struck at the appearance of an ample Black Board suspended on the wall, with lumps of chalk on a ledge below, and cloths hanging at either side. I had never heard of such a thing before. There it was forty-two years ago that I first saw what now I trust is considered indispensable in every school the Black Board and there that I first witnessed the process of analytical and inductive teaching.

Creativity and Ingenuity - Simple!

Somewhere in a little town in Belgium where nothing really happens, someone placed a big red button in the town square, with a message to "Push to add drama", and then waited for someone to push it. What follows is a very clever, hilarious, and dramatic sequence of events - which turns out to be... well I won't spoil it!

This video has attracted nearly 23,000,000 views and has gone viral on the web. According to Time News Feed, this version on YouTube "may end up more popular than any of the network’s actual TV shows". This video shows that there are a lot of creative geniuses out there who are coming up with brilliant and simple ideas all the time. Watch it and enjoy!

BloggerPlus iPad App

I have just purchased the BloggerPlus App for iPad from the Apple App Store for €2.79. This is my first effort at posting using this App. This blog is hosted by Blogger, but the original Blogger App is very poor, so I'm ready to try something different. I have taken a photo of the BloggerPlus iTunes page and hope that it will show up in the post.

I'm keen to be able to blog on-the-go, and not to have to be tied to a desktop. Some features may not be the same on the iPad compared to a PC, but most of the time I just need to be able to post text and photos. 

Setting up BloggerPlus to use both my Blogger and Tumblr blogs was easy, and so far so good with this App. I'll report at a later date how I'm doing with it.

New Videos on my YouTube Channel

This week I have released two new videos to my Learn with Dr Eugene O'Loughlin YouTube Channel:

• How To... Plot Multiple Data Sets on the Same Chart in Excel 2010
• How To...Create a Progress Gantt Chart in Excel 2010

The first is a variation on a previous video showing how to plot a bar-line on the same chart. In this one I show how to add five lines representing five different data sets on the same chart that have different scales. Though relatively straight-forward to do, it's easy to get this wrong - so I think the value in the video is going through the process step-by-step.

The second video is a follow on from my most popular videos which are about creating Gantt charts in Excel. In this on I show how to display progress (complete/incomplete) using Excel. If this is even half as successful at the other Gantt videos I'll be more than happy. This brings to 68 the number of videos on the channel.

My time at Scoil na nÓg, Trabolgan

My previous post about being "anti-Gaelic" reminded me about my time as a student in 6th class in Primary School. Up to 5th Class I had attended Carnew National School, but in an effort to improve my Irish I was sent to Scoil na nÓg in Trabolgan near Cloyne in Co Cork. I was 11 years old, and it was September 1971. I have visited Trabolgan only once since I left and it has long since been converted to the more well-known Trabolgan Holiday Village.

Image link to Houstorian.

Recently I came across the Housetorian blog, which has an article on Trabolgan Country Estate, written by Annemarie Foley. In the article she quotes one of my own posts Irish School in Trabolgan and Sleeping with a Tenor about my time there sharing a room with the singer Ronan Tynan. The article is an excellent history of the house and estate, and it features several photographs that brought back some memories. 

The house in the photo above was used for the school. The classroom that I sat in was in the room with the three windows on the extreme right of the photo. On the extreme left was the dining room for the about 60 boys that attended the school - I think that it was there that I tasted chips for the first time! In the middle, behind the pillars at the door (which thought were a lot bigger) was the entrance hall - we used to play bowling in this hall. If I remember correctly, there was a plaque on the front wall to the right of the main doorway commemorating Patrick Pearse. In the photo below you can see the woods behind the house which was a paradise for young boys - I have fond memories of my time there.

Image links to the Irish Historical Picture Company.

Did it improve my Irish? Yes it did! When I left in June 1972 I was presented with a Fáinne Nua as a fluent Irish speaker. However, once I went to secondary school it all went downhill - within five years I was barely able to converse in it (Grade C in Ordinary Level). My Fáinne Nua also disappeared as I rather stupidly lent it to a boy named Ruane from Mayo in secondary school who "lost it".

Apparently I am "anti-Gaelic"!

On 17th October 2010 last I wrote a piece Ed Walsh wants school budget for Irish to be halved - I agree. This post did attract some comment. Today, Colm Mac Fhionnghaile takes me to task about my comments on the Irish language. In the interest of fairness, here is his comment in full (which I have published on above link):

I find it confusing that you have called Irish both a 'dead language' and 'our first language' in as many sentences, cementing my first impressions of you as writing controversially for the sake of controversy here. This is a standard attack on 'our' language, an unrehearsed and ill-researched piece. As a man who's grown up in a bi-lingual family I believe the language is the standing-stone on which our heritage leans. I would hesitate to base opinions on that of Dr. Ed Walsh. 'But let those who are not enthusiastic about Irish drop out after primary school'. Would he also be comfortable letting those with no enthusiasm for math, or English, or History, Geography etc. abandon those subjects? 

Having said this much, this is a well written piece, and will have been read by plenty people, therefore I believe you should be more careful with anti-Gaelic posts in future in the interest of fairness, or 'cothrom na féinne' as Irish speakers would say. 

First - Colm is more than entitled to his opinion and I welcome his response to my post. Free speech and all that!

But I have responded as follows:

A Chara,

"for the sake of controversy" - gimme a break!

"anti-Gaelic posts" - gimme another break!

According to Google Translate, "cothrom na féinne" means "fair play" - I had to look it up. I am 52 years old and I do not recall ever hearing this. I cannot hold a conversation in Irish - and do you know what? I do not feel less Irish, or "anti-Gaelic" for that matter.

"unrehearsed"? - FFS I have had 52 years of this.

"ill-researched" - FFS I do not claim to have researched this. This is a Blog, not a peer reviewed journal. This is an opinion piece in a personal blog - I'll say what I want. Last time I looked - we live in a democracy.

Is mise,

Eoin Ó Lochlainn

That last bit is my name in Irish - I have not used it since 1972 when I was in Scoil na nÓg in Trabolgan, Co Cork. I have just to walk from my office for 10 minutes to hear Polish and Chinese being spoken, I bet I would have to walk for hours before I would hear Irish being spoken on the street. 

Thank goodness we have Irish to help us get around!

View Larger Map

Is a person "anti-Gaelic" just because he cannot speak Irish? Or doesn't want it rammed down his throat?

Happy Birthday Dad!

On Easter Sunday some of the O'Loughlin clan gathered at my sister Kathleen's house in Kilkenny to mark my Dad Joe's 81st birthday. As always, he was in great form and enjoyed the day with family around him. My Mum Phil is visiting my brother Brian in England, so we missed them. Kayo had enough food to feed to feed a large army - delicious roast lamb and a selection of super vegetable dishes followed by a fantastic Toblerone cheesecake that was both sinful and holy!

L-to-R: Joe, Kayo, me.

For his birthday I gave Dad a copy of Anthony Kearns' new book "Ireland's Arctic Siege: The Big Freeze of 1947" - I'd like to read this after he is done with it! I asked him did he remember the 1947 winter - he did, though he was a boarder in Cistercian College Roscrea at the time when he recalls that a foot of snow fell and that he remembers throwing snowballs at the other lads. He also remembers the country almost coming to a halt, with very little happening for a long time. His Dad had to deliver milk to Carnew on a horse, with milk churns strapped to either side of the beast, as vehicles could not drive up the Soldier's Bench on the Coollattin Road. Amazon's "Product Description" of the book describes this vicious winter as follows: 

From shortly after Christmas to almost Easter, the country was gripped by snow and ice; transport ground to a halt. The normal supply of goods and services was suspended.... There was no central heating, and the distribution systems for coal and turf broke down. Even in relatively affluent middle class suburbs, people were reduced to breaking up furniture for kindling in an attempt to keep warm.

Sir Tom Finney at 90

Preston North End's most famous player ever is Sir Tom Finney - he turned 90 years of age on 5th April last. The was a big event in Preston as they celebrated one of the City's most well-known sons. A good on-line biography of him is available at Football-England.com.

Image link to The Daily Mail.

I of course never saw him play - he retired in 1960 when I was one, and he played before the television-age days. He was regarded as one of England's greatest ever players and has a special place in PNE as he played his entire career there. One of his most famous moments was when he was captured in the 1956 Photograph of the Year - known as "The Splash", in a game against Chelsea (which PNE lost 1-0) at Stamford Bridge. Above is a photo of me taken on 10th February 2007 when I went to see PNE play Wolves (lost 1-0 again) at the Tom Finney statue outside of PNE's ground which (when they turn the water on) replicates the famous photo.

Any time that I mention to anyone that I am a PNE fan, they always bring up the name of Sir Tom and sometimes ask if he is still alive. A pity that in the 52 years since he retired that no one else has reached the same heights for PNE - indeed, they were relegated from the old Division 1 the year after he retired, never since to get back to the top tier of English football. Bill Shankly one famously said of Finney that “he would have been great in any team, in any match and in any age… even if he had been wearing an overcoat”.

Dr Paul Mooney responds

Two weeks ago I responded to Paul Mooney's blast at third-level education and lecturers, in a post entitled "a philistine mind at work". I wasn't the only person by any means to take exception to his article in The Irish Times. He has responded to me via email as he had read my blog post - he also responded to others. His response is posted in full on Professor Brian Lucey's blog, so I'll not post it here. Dr Mooney and I have exchanged a couple of emails and we have "agreed to disagree". He wants to start a debate on reforming third-level education in Ireland - but he started at the wrong place by having a go at Lecturers.

So - in the interest of fairness, I would recommend people to read Dr Mooney's response on Prof Lucy's blog, and judge it for yourself.

Taste Lecture - MSc Business Analytics

Yesterday I attended a "Taste Lecture" in UCD from the Smurfit Business School from their MSc in Business Analytics. I was looking forward hearing about analytics and perhaps gain some insights as to how this subject is taught in a university like UCD. Alas - it was nothing more than just an information session about their MSc programme. There should be a law against this!

Image link to CRM Fanatic.

First - the "lecture" started 15 minutes late as the presenter forgot his laptop. It wasn't worth the wait as an old presentation with only minor modifications (available here and dated February 2010) was used. I didn't learn anything new. The small audience consisted mostly of engineering students - for them this is an ideal subject to pursue as they have the right mix of maths, quantitative methods, and programming. The UCD programme is definitely very technical. Analytics software tools like SAS are not used (except in dissertation) - programming is mostly through Java, R, and Rapid Miner. Perhaps there is an opportunity a more business type MSc?

Afterwards there was free pizza (which was good), and some chat with the programme leaders. I asked about the NDP funding which makes this a very attractively priced programme for students - they certainly have it for next year.

Overall - a bit of a waste of time.

How To... Display Two Measures in a Bar-Line Chart in Excel 2010

To mark the occasion of reaching 1,000 subscribers I have created a new video on "How To... Display Two Measures in a Bar-Line Chart in Excel 2010". This one is inspired by the blog post Bar-Line Graph from Sanjay Matange on the Graphically Speaking Blog from SAS Software. Sanjay's post describes how to write the code using SAS Software to display "two measures by one classifier using a Bar-Line graph, where the scale of the two measures is vastly different". It seemed like a very complicated way to draw a Bar-Line chart, so I thought I'd give it a go in Excel 2010. It turns out to be very easy to do - here's my 4 minute 54 seconds video showing you how:

Some comments from my Subscribers and Viewers

Yesterday I posted about reaching the 1,000 subscriber milestone with my YouTube channel - Learn with Dr Eugene O'Loughlin. I've been taking a look back at some of the comments that I have received over the past couple of years. As I write there are 922 comments. Here's a selection of some of my favourites (my accent seems to attract a lot of comment!):

• If you were an attractive women, I would kiss you. Thanks
• This is awesome, thank you very much for uploading the video 
• VERY helpful!
• Your my fu*king hero boy,im off to shoot a goat in your honour
• This video is amazing....and so are you. marry me?
• Super helpful presentation with the accent as a bonus!
• Thanks...very easy to follow..helped me with my project proposal
• Thank you. Was easily to follow, and was exactly what I was looking for :)
• The accent makes it just so much more interesting xD
• Oh thank lord! Now I can put the (Ra-ra-)Rasputin song into my speech about him. Russian Class is saved! Thank you!
• is it just purely fortunate that the last number was 13 which sounds particularly attractive when said in an irish accent?
• Detailed, logistically presented, easy to comprehend, well done sir! And I love your accent :3
• NICE.lovely accent.and i like quick talking(dosent make me bored like many other slow talking videos here)thank you
• i watched this video just for the accent
• I really hate this guy's accent.
• This was an awesome video! I did it right along with the video and worked perfectly! Plus I love his accent! :)
• I am studying in Malaysia, so the local lecturers' accent is terrible and annoying. But your accent is clear, significantly its understandable. Thx for the video.
• Your voice is sexy can I have your number? and BTW Brazil LOVE the Irish baby ;)
• Thank you very much, 15minutes ago I had no idea, now I have a Gantt Chart for my project.
• fantastic explanation...brief and comprehensive...you really helped add something great to my research
• Thank you. You made a lot more sense than my professor.
• thank you very much for your work, our useless professor never taught us that shit he expected us to learn it by ourselves

My How To...Embed a YouTube Video into PowerPoint 2003 video has attracted the most comments (207) so far. YouTube Analytics provides detailed information on comments - here's the Word Cloud for the most used words in the lifetime of this video:

1,000 YouTube subscribers!

Over the past few weeks and months I have been watching out for two landmarks on my YouTube channel - Learn with Dr Eugene O'Loughlin. The landmarks are reaching 1,000 subscribers, and 1,000,000 views. I am so excited to report that @samehdi4000 became my 1,000th subscriber yesterday!

Image link to BigCartel.

This is excellent news for me and helps me to keep going with the channel. Everyday I get emails from YouTube letting me know that I have new subscribers. Sometimes I have fun looking up to see where the subscriber is from and what types of other videos they are viewing.

I can see from YouTube that my 1,000th subscriber, @samehdi4000, is aged 41 and from Pakistan.  He (she?) created a YouTube channel which you can view here.

The next landmark is 1,000,00 views. The count as I write this post is 920,576 views - I expect to reach the million in about a months time.

Learning Innovation Network (LIN) Webinar

Yesterday I was a guest speaker at the Learning Innovations Network (LIN) Webinar on the topic "Does your lecturer need to be qualified to teach?". This followed on from my post on 7th March last when I commented about an article in the Irish Times - How Qualified is your Lecturer?

Image link to LIN website.

This was the first time I had taken part as a speaker in a webinar. I must say I enjoyed the experience. I shared the "platform" with Shannon Chance who is Associate Professor of Architecture at Hampton University - the session was chaired by Kevin O'Rourke of DIT. There were about 25 people attending - I hope they found the webinar interesting. My piece starts about 20 minutes in.

Most discussion was about teaching qualifications for third-level lecturers. Many at the webinar did have teaching qualifications. I sat on the fence as far as the need for having a PhD is concerned - "Yes", I think lecturers should have PhDs, but it is also important to give access to the many excellent teachers out there who are educated to Masters level.

A recording of the Webinar is located here.

The Household Charge

This evening I paid the household charge - €100 that will go towards funding local services, so Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council (DLRCC) are €100 richer this evening thanks to me. I don't like paying this any more than anyone else, but it is the law and the money is needed.

Image link from Joe Higgins TD web site.

However, I would like that my €100, and the inevitable property tax that will follow next year be used appropriately. I hope that DLRCC spend it wisely - perhaps on the following:

• library services
• fixing potholes
• keeping the lights on
• clean water
• cut the grass in the parks
• more WiFi services 

I don't want my €100 spent on any of the following:

• expenses for councillors
• junkets for councillors
• wasted on useless bicycle counters (like this one I ranted about last week)
• parking warden wages in Dún Laoghaire
• subsidising people who have not paid the charge

There are many people who have decided not to pay, and there are many advocating that people should not pay. The timing could not be worse with the result of the Mahon Tribunal showing how several corrupt gaugers got away with thousands of euro with no apparent consequences for their shameful actions. Nevertheless, I have decided to obey the law and pay. Choosing not to pay because of corruption by politicians is a false argument - we can protest all we want, but we still have to pay.

I listened to the radio news yesterday where there was coverage of a protest in Dublin against the charge. People had travelled from all parts of the country to express their outrage - as they are entitled to do. But how much did it cost to travel to Dublin? Petrol? Bus/train fares? Meals? How many thousands of euro were spent to get to and from the demonstration by everyone present? I'm guessing that many people will have spent at least €30-€40 to protest at a €100 charge - that they will have to end up paying anyway.

Belated "Happy Birthday" Twitter from @eoloughlin

On 2st March 2006, Jack Dorsey wrote the first tweet ever. It is now fair to say that Twitter has revolutionized the way people communicate. I have been a Twitter user since 1st May 2009 when my @eoloughlin account was set up - that's 1,058 days ago according to Twopcharts.

The first tweet.
Image link to Mashable.

When I am having my breakfast I now always check personal email (never work email) and Twitter on my iPad. It's great to see news items and what people are up to. I follow a lot of academic folks who are brilliant at sharing ideas and providing links to articles that I might otherwise not discover.

However, there's a lot of trivia and junk on Twitter, and  we need to choose carefully who and what we follow. Otherwise we'll be snowed under with tweets. I am following 493 people - sometime the flow of tweets on Tweetdeck is hard to keep up with. I often wonder what people who follow thousands of people do - speed read?

As mentioned in a previous blog post, my practice is not to have Twitter on during work. It is incredibly distracting and I am also concious that anything that I tweet is highly visible - eg to a student waiting for results of a test or an answer to a question. Also - colleagues (though very few are on Twitter) and managers can also see me tweeting when the expectation might be that I should be doing some "real work". I envy some academic colleagues from other institutions who seem to be able to tweet at will.

So - a belated "Happy Birthday" to Twitter. Long may it, and all who sail in her, live.

A Busy Week, but...

This week has been the busiest so far this Semester - and it was Reading Week in NCI! Reading Week is a peculiar time for me. Formally it means no classes, but in my case the College took the opportunity to get me to deliver an extra two day course for a Government Department (which was incidentally a very enjoyable experience - the reason why I am in this job).

Image link to redengine.ie.

Yet - I spent quite a bit of time this week checking the social media for reaction to Dr Paul Mooney's provocative article Inside third level from last Tuesday's Irish Times. Needless to say - this article provoked much conversation and anger at NCI's former President. His attack on the profession of Lecturers was felt personally by my colleagues and I, as his only time (that we are aware of) spent working at third level was as President of NCI. His article was a major talking point in the corridors of NCI all this week. As Professor Brian Lucey of UCD tweeted today "Haven't yet seen a single person come out saying they think Paul Mooneys allegations on universities is correct" - yet as I write this Dr Mooney's article has received 783 Facebook likes, 98 tweets, 18 Google+, and 278 shares. Clearly some people like his vitriol against us?

While thinking about Social Media, I am more concious than ever that people are watching. For example - I rarely have Twitter or Facebook on during working hours. I also am careful to post only education related blog posts during these hours. I have chosen to do this after a student complained that I had posted a "detailed blog post" while she was waiting for a response to an email. I fear being accused again of dossing.

Anyway - enough of this, I will write no more about what a bitter ex-president thinks of my profession. It's time for the weekend and some welcome rest after what I consider a busy week (even if PM accuses that this is a light workload).

A lecturer rejects the idea that his is a cushy job

Continuing on the theme of repudiating the bullshit emanating from Dr Paul Mooney, I read recently an item in The Irish Times "TO BE HONEST: An unheard voice in education" column where an unnamed lecturer writes A lecturer rejects the idea that his is a cushy job. This is apparently in response to a parent who complained about her son's lecturers. This lecturer felt "both angry and embarrassed" at our profession being "impugned as a cushy number". The author goes on to tell the uninformed mother that her son and other students should "be able to learn for themselves" and that "students to work without being spoon-fed". He/she also describes the hours that go into preparing and delivering lectures, and also grading assignments and marking exams.

Image link to University of Queensland.

In my own case this semester my largest class is just short of 200 students, while my smallest is just 19. This week (a four day week) I have marked over 200 continuous assessment tests/labs, prepared for next week's classes, answered several student queries, worked on a plan for a new programme, advised a student on his project for next year, and delivered 14 hours of teaching. This is what Paul Mooney calls a "light workload".

Professor Karl Whelan, a Lecturer in Economics in UCD, also responded to Paul Mooney this week in a blog post Paul Mooney: “Inside” Third Level? - he finds it "odd that an article with such a title can provide a description that is grossly at odds with even basic facts about how universities work". He could have been reading my mind as we have both posted similar articles on this subject. He also asks the question "How can someone claiming to be an insider produce such a misleading and distorted view of what happens in universities?". Unfortunately Prof Whelan describes NCI as "somewhat grandiously-named National College of Ireland" - however, he has made amends on Twitter when I challenged him on this:

Strong feelings all around - Paul Mooney wrote that it was his hope to be "controversial". He has certainly achieved that.

Dr Michael McMahon on third-level Teaching/Admin/Research workload

Following on from my previous post in response to Dr Paul Mooney's bitter attack on third-level lecturers in Tuesday's Irish Times, I'd like to draw attention to a TEDx talk by Dr Michael McMahon who is Irish, and is a Lecturer at the University of Warwick. This 18 minute talk focuses on "how modern day lecturers try to find a healthy balance between good quality teaching and academic research". He discusses how academics juggle the three main aspects of their jobs - teaching, research, and administration (and actually juggles three balls to prove his point).

Dr McMahon is worth listening to as he describes how institutions and he himself struggles with the demands of students, institutions, and academia. Each pulls the lecturer in different directions, and he is also keen to point out that students have a key role to play in how learning and teaching works.

Again - judge for yourself and listen to what Dr McMahon has to say:

"a philistine mind at work"*

Former NCI President Dr Paul Mooney has a provocative and pretty vicious go at third level lecturers in an article "Inside third level" in today's Irish Times. In the article he says that "lecturers have light workloads, research pet projects that have no benefit for Ireland Inc, and management is poor". Of course he is entitled to his opinion, but I as a lecturer take grave exception to his unjust statements**.

Image link to Tandem Consulting.

Dr Mooney does accept that some lecturers are "brilliant teachers", however he does state that "lecturers are lazy and don’t update their material" (I understand that he has used the word "lazy" before in relation to lecturers). Dr Mooney has form in this - today's Irish Times is not the first time he has had a go at lecturers. Two years ago I reviewed his book "Accidental Leadership". In this review I wrote:

"I didn't know either what to make of the description of Academics as being either Minimalists or Status-Ticians (pp 74-75). As I was first reading this I turned the page to read what the next/third description was as I (honestly) didn't recognise myself as either of the above two - to my surprise there was no other type!".

Academic research comes in for particular attack. Dr Mooney claims that a "percentage of university lecturers are actually completing their own research for a PhD during work hours" - he forgets that a big majority of university lecturers already have PhDs. I suspect he is targeting Institutes of Technology and other Colleges where the percentage of PhDs is a lot lower. The funny thing is that I distinctly recall a staff meeting when he praised a certain NCI academic staff member who had just started a part-time PhD. Dr Mooney even supported the introduction of a "research day" for academic staff as part of an NCI submission to HETAC for a new PhD programme (which was approved). You can't have it both ways! He rubbishes research in Ireland as "not even close to reality".

Dr Mooney was President of NCI for three years - in the article he had a go at management in third-level. I do partially agree with his stance on performance management at third level (I have written about this before on this blog), however - I do not recall any attempt by him to initiate reform in this in NCI. He wants to increase the amount of teaching from 24 to 36 weeks - forgetting that students will also be opposed to this.

I am wondering about the motive for this diatribe against lecturers two years after he left NCI - read the full article and judge for yourself. I am a Lecturer, so naturally I will not like what he has written. Clearly, this has been a bug-bear of his both during and after his time as President of NCI. I feel personally insulted by the article, in my opinion it also insults NCI, and finally it insults the hundreds of Lecturers in Ireland who do a good job.

* this post title is a direct quote from Dr Mooney's article in today's Irish Times
** all opinions expressed in this post are my own, and are not intended to represent the opinion of anyone in NCI

Obama nails Irish vote on St Patrick's Day

I like US President Barack Obama - if I was American I would definitely vote for him in this year's presidential election (no rich b*st*r*ds or right wing religious nuts for me). St Patrick's Day presents itself as the ideal opportunity for candidates to be "Irish" for the day.

Image link from Irish Independent.
17th March, 2012.

President Obama is part Irish - a very small part. But he wasted no time in grabbing some photo opportunities as he and his cousin Henry from Moneygall in Obama's "Local" in Washington DC sipped a pint. I'm sure there are many Americans who are seething with anger at the photo to the left - but politics is politics, and Obama will need every vote he can get. A "pint of plain" will no doubt go down well among the Irish in America.

There is also another side to this photo - this will be seen all over the world and people will see alcohol and Irishness mixed together. Not for the first time. For the first time (probably since I was a teenager) I did not go to the pub for a Guinness or two on St Patrick's Day - instead I visited my Mum and Dad and had a very nice glass of (Middleton) Irish whiskey.

A very grumpy Kevin Myers, writing in the Irish Independent last Friday, paints a very unflattering picture of the Irish on St Patrick's Day: "For upon March 17th each year, thousands of Irish people will live up to the caricature of the Thick Mick, the drunken halfwit who cannot be relied on to have one drink without having a dozen, and who feels it is his patriotic duty to finish the day by donning a Glasgow Celtic shirt, smashing windows, and stoning any police he can find". And he makes no apology for stereotyping us this way. 

We are not all like this: Ireland is the land of Saints and Scholars, James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, Boyzone, Roy Keane, WB Yeats, Jedward, Tayto, Guinness, cute hoors, red hair, freckles, Barry's Tea, red lemonade (with no lemon), Rory McIlroy, the GAA, Obama, accents, U2, being "grand", black pudding, the colour green, Riverdance, spuds, craic, turf, slagging, feck, and not forgetting St Patrick's Day!

100% Irish!

A Waste of Money by Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council?

A new bicycle counter has recently been installed by Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council (DLRCC) on the Rock Road in Booterstown. This morning I was the 206th cyclist to pass by this gadget (and the 5,650th this year!). So I naturally I stopped to take a photo and ponder the value of this gadget to me, to DLRCC, and to Society as a whole.

I'm #206!

The country is nearly broke, but yet there's money for cycle counters? What do the rate payers, and the soon to be household-charge payers of Dún Laoghaire, think of this use of their money? Would this money not be better spent on something more urgent (eg - everything else in the Council's budget)? DLRCC's website states that the council seeks to: 

"cultivate a cycling culture, through the implementation of appropriate infrastructure and promotional measures, that positively encourages all members of the community to cycle at all life stages and abilities as a mode of sustainable transport that delivers environmental, health and economic benefits to both the individual and the community"

So that's what it's for! There's another one outside UCD - perhaps a competition between the Stillorgan Road and the Rock Rock will promote cycling even further. But this could lead to cheating - I bet those folks up in Stillorgan would cycle around the counter a few times to get the numbers up!

Seriously - while this might in some way promote cycling, I think the money could be better spent elsewhere. For example, just past this counter the lead up to the Merrion gates is very dangerous for cyclists who want to turn right (as I do) over the railway. Perhaps a painted cycle track would be useful? This morning, despite me signalling with an out-stretched arm in plenty of time to turn right, a woman in a big BMW refused to let me cross to the right lane and kept on driving. The inevitable happened as seconds later I passed her out (resisting the temptation to give a 2-fingered salute) as she had to queue for the Gates while I cycled up to the top of the traffic.

The most valuable information to me from this gadget is that it was a balmy 14C and 8.45am - meaning that it was warm and that I was running late for work!

"Chatterbox" by The Irish Times

I discovered yesterday that I got a mention on the Irish Times' Chatterbox feature in Tuesday's paper (13th March)! Chatterbox is a "What’s the talk of education" series, and on Tuesday it quoted from one of my recent posts: How Qualified is your Lecturer. It's nice to think that someone in the Irish Times office read my post and found it suitable for publication (or maybe it was a bot doing a Google search?). Small little things like this keep me going!

As a result of this I have been invited to debate this topic in an upcoming Seminar in DIT - more about this when it happens.

Corn Flakes and Commerce with Damien Mulley at NCI

This morning I attended a very interesting breakfast event at NCI which featured Damien Mulley - Ireland's best known social media expert. 

Damien Mulley.
Image link to Mulley.net.

He talked to us mostly about digital media in relation to advertising. I have attended a few talks by him and he always strikes me as a person who is bursting to tell you stuff about what he does.

The main theme was that current advertising on the likes of Facebook and Google is "cold" and very "numbers driven". It lakes the creativity that TV and radio advertising has - being mostly text based advertising. He showed us some neat tools such as the Google Keyword Search tool to find out what is being searched for, and more importantly - what you would use this information for. He also showed how Google Analytics can show us lists of keywords that can be beneficial to a business. Overall his message was that there is a lot more room for creativity in advertising.

This was also a significant event for me in that it was the first time I took notes with my iPad using Note Taker HD. Earlier this week I bought an iPad compatible stylus and I used it to write notes rather than using my finger. It's a little awkward at first, but I found it useful and will continue to develop my skills in writing with a stylus. No more paper?

The "Candy Woman" at Junk Kouture

Junk Kouture is an all-ireland competition for second level students, where they are challenged to create High Fashion Couture outfits from old every day junk. My daughter Vicki has created an outfit called "Candy Woman" which is modelled by her friend Maria below:

Screen grab from Junk Kouture.

This is a fantastic idea that is sponsored by ERP (European Recycling Platform) this year. I understand that there are 80 finalists in Leinster alone - the East Regional Final takes place at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Blanchardstown on 18th March next.

You can vote for Vicki here - I have already voted (twice!). All support for her efforts is gratefully appreciated - every vote counts!

Cycling in Dublin on my "Motherfucking Bike"

I usually alternate between taking my bicycle or my motorbike to work. The distance is 10km and it usually takes about 25 minutes on the bicycle, or 20 minutes on the motorbike. As either a cyclist and/or a motorcyclist, I get a great view of the road behaviour of my fellow two-wheelers - this is because I get right to the top of the traffic lights every time. I rarely see motorcyclists breaking red lights (I never do this), but I see cyclists doing it all the time (I sometimes do - especially pedestrian-only lights). According to a survey of cyclists conducted by Semperit Tyres, and reported on in The Journal, "21 per cent were using footpaths, 19 per cent broke red lights and 14 per cent went against the flow of traffic". I laugh at that "19 per cent" figure for breaking red lights - clearly a high percentage of cyclists lie as well! I'd say it is closer to 19% who DON'T break the lights. Dublin cyclists are very good at wearing high-viz jackets, and most are also using flickering front and rear lights - but there are still many who do neither.

Attitude among cyclists is clearly different from everybody else - as far as many are concerned, the rules of the road do not apply to them, and they won't be caught anyway doing wrong. No wonder it seems like a war between car drivers and cyclists, every morning and evening. I see parents taking great care with their young children who are on bikes going to school - wearing helmets, waiting for traffic lights, etc. But this does not translate into good behaviour when the kids grow up, or for the parents after they have dropped off the kids to school.

Here's a YouTube video called "Motherfucking Bike" by the Sons of Science - it's funny, but clever. See if this reminds you of any cyclist on Dublin's roads...

New YouTube videos this week

Earlier this week I posted four new videos to my YouTube Channel - all are related to Time Series Analysis, and the use of Moving Averages to "smoothen" data and to predict future behaviour. This is the first time I have posted four videos together - two are in my Problem-Solving Techniques playlist, and two are in my How To... playlist.

Apart from sometimes teaching it in class, I have only ever used Time Series Analysis once - it was for my final year project as an undergraduate student in Trinity in 1983 when I studied tidal rhythms in the shore crab Carcinus maenas (L.) - I self-published a paper on this in 2008 (see here for details). My supervisor, Dr John Alrich, suggested using time series analysis on data I had collected for Oxygen consumption rhythms  in the shore crab, and he also pointed out that my charts would look "smoother" - here's an example of the results of one of my experiments using a three point moving average:

Percentage oxygen decrease over time

I don't expect these videos to attract as much attention as some of my others (they have 90 views so far between them in a week), but hopefully some people will find then useful.

Playing Cricket

Yesterday I played cricket for the first time ever. Currently there are many Indian students in NCI and they, along with some others, have set up NCI's first ever cricket club. They challenged staff to a cricket match which took place today at Pembroke CC in Sandymount. Having not ever played cricket before, but having played rounders, softball, golf, and hurling - how tough could hitting a cricket ball be? After all - I have seen it on TV! Ian "Beefy" Botham makes it look easy, so I fancied myself to have a go.

Not Eugene O'Loughlin,
but Ian "Beefy" Botham.
Image link to the Daily Mail.

The students batted first, and I was sent out to the boundary to field. The match was a 10-over each game, and while I was fielding the ball came to me twice. The students ran up a score of 68 for their 10 overs and I was bored. However, I did get to bowl for our last over. Following a quick lesson from the wicket keeper, I was Shane Warne for a few minutes. I bowled "two wides" and two "no balls" for four runs, but I was pleased that I only had three runs scored off the other six balls. So I was "7 for 0" - as we cricketers say!

It did not take long for the students to demolish our batting. I was eight in the order and at last my moment came. I picked up a cricket bat for the first time ever and went into the nets to practice. I did OK, hit most balls that were bowled at me, and I thought - here comes my "Beefy" moment. I walked up to the crease hoping to give a good account of myself. The first ball that was bowled at me I missed by the width of the Indian sub-continent. Luckily it missed the wicket and I had another go. I missed the second ball by the width of the Indian Ocean, but was still "not out". But the third ball hit the stumps smack in the middle, and I had missed by a margin only just wider than the bowler's smile as he dismissed me for a "duck". My 15 minutes of cricket fame lasted about two minutes! I was so disappointed to be out without even hitting the ball.

The Indian students were great sports and helped us a lot. In the end we were all out for 40 runs, but I can safely say that all had a good time - for most of us it was our first time playing cricket. The students sportingly gave us some practice with the bat after the game and this time I managed to hit a few balls. And it felt good.

How qualified is your lecturer?

This is not just a question for NCI students, but for all third-level students in Ireland. Gráinne Faller writes in yesterday's Irish Times and asks the question: How qualified is your lecturer? In the article, she summarises some of the statistics for the percentage of Masters and Doctorates among the Universities, and Institutes of Technology (IoTs) in Ireland. 

Image link to Management Scholars Academy.

It turns out that the Universities have a high percentage of Academic staff who have PhDs, ranging from 92% in NUI Maynooth, to 61% in UL. In IoTs the figures are much lower - eg, 30% in DIT and 14% in Limerick IT.  Are you shocked by these figures (read more in Faller's article)? In NCI there are 13 full-time academic staff with PhDs (that I am aware of) - this is over a third of total full-time Faculty. As far as I know nearly all the rest have Masters.

My PhD was awarded by The University of Dublin (Trinity College) for my research into the biology of molluscs - not ideal preparation for teaching Project Management and Business Analysis you might say. So is a PhD necessary to teach at third level?

My answer to this is "Yes, but...". There are a lot of postgraduate students coming out of the Colleges - they have spent many years preparing for a career in Academia. People teaching on honours degree programmes should have at least a Masters, preferably a PhD. Anyone teaching at postgraduate level should have a PhD. But... there are not enough to go around - Ireland needs to educate more students to PhD level. A PhD does not make you a good teacher, but I believe it is a good starting qualification to work in this sector. There are also excellent teachers who do not have a PhD and are doing a great job - many have a lot of experience outside of Academia that will add greatly to a learning experience for students. The trick is to get the mix right.

So it is not an easy question to answer, but if "Ireland Inc" is to have a better education sector, then the percentages will have to go up - and by a lot.

At the Dentist

There's always a nervousness when going to the dentist. I had a slight dart of pain in one tooth and decided to check it out. I have been attending the wandering Frank Dillon for several years now - first in Monkstown, then Henry Street, and now in Clonskeagh. Frank has just set up at 105 Clonskeagh Road (beside Bombay Pantry), and is open for business. 

Image link to fddental.net.

Frank is an Apple Mac mad dentist - he loves the shiny white computers, they match the shiny white walls, and shiny white furniture. Everything is really white. Thankfully he did not get a chance to use his shiny white drill on me!

Frank also loves to talk computers and technology, and I finally felt that I was on a par with him by owning an iPhone and an iPad. He did show me a new application for dentists called Tooth Suite - this is based in the cloud and is designed to save dentists a lot of money. I never would have thought it - Cloud Computing comes to the dental surgery!

Davy Jones, The Monkees, and Nostalgia

Sad news this week of the death of Davy Jones of The Monkees. I can't say I was a fan of his after his Monkees days, but he, Mike, Mickey, and Peter were very much part of my growing up in the late 1960s. The Monkees TV show (1965-1968) was a must for the O'Loughlins to watch every week - we never missed an episode and laughed at every corny joke and stupid play-acting that the boys got up to. Because of their TV show, I was more aware of The Monkees than The Beatles. I didn't have a favourite (only girls did that!), but Davy was often the funniest. At that time I didn't know the difference between Americans, English, and Irish - so I didn't notice that he was the "English guy". I searched YouTube for a good quality video of The Monkees TV Show theme, but this was the best I could get:

At only 66 years of age, he died before his time. I watched a biography about him on the Biography Channel (made in 2008) last evening. At the end of the programme he says "You're going to have to give me a shot to put me away, I'm going to be bothering you all for a long time yet" Sadly, this is not to be.

Ten seconds into the above video is the scene where The Monkees run towards the sea, but turn around when they reach the water. I, and am sure millions of other kids at the time, used to do this at the beach just like The Monkees. Great fun!

Davy Jones RIP.

How would you like to go to MIT – for free?

Well - you will be able to later this year, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will be offering free on-line courses to anyone, anywhere in the world, through its new digital arm, MITx. Margaret Wente writes in Canada's Globe and Mail - We’re ripe for a great disruption in higher education. MIT expects that MITx will eventually host a virtual community of millions of learners around the world (see press release from MIT about this here). MIT leading the way again!

Image link to Wikipedia.

Wente writes about the "disruption" that what MITx is doing will cause in a time of reduced resources at higher levels of education. She asks: 

"...do we really need 10,000 professors in 10,000 classrooms lecturing on the same subject? Why not let students watch the best explainer in the world explain calculus or physics – online, on their own time – and use local professors to work in smaller groups with students?".

In other words, choose your courses from different locations in your own time, and get the best learning experience possible. I'd certainly be all for this as a student, but perhaps not as an educator - mostly because it could cost me my job. However, Wente proposes that we have reached the "end of the line" with the old model of third-level education as funding cuts everywhere bite harder. She finishes her article by stating that Colleges "need to disrupt themselves, or be disrupted, to survive". I couldn't agree more - I do believe that there will soon be a class of qualification that is separate from our regular degrees, perhaps an "International Degree" that might ultimately be more useful to employers than a locally sourced full-time degree.