In this episode of the podcast, I speak with Dr Aleesha Rodriguez from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellent for the Digital Child. Dr Rodriguez is a social media researcher and a science and technology studies scholar who has a particular interest in how technology shapes society and how society shapes technology. Dr Rodriguez provides a detailed account of her current research project: Consulting children – speculating about my digital future. In this project, Dr Rodriquez and her team work with groups of children, asking them to imagine digital technologies of the future and how they should look. The team ask children, aged seven to eight years of age, to draw their visions of technology, focusing specifically on the features, values, and ethics of these technologies. Children are prompted to think about these technologies in terms of their look, functionality, and purpose. Children’s designs are then brought to life by media and design practitioners who use the children’s ideas to inspire blueprints, prototypes, and design specifications of these technologies. A public exhibition will be held to showcase the designs created by children and how these were translated by the digital media practitioners. Dr Rodriguez’s work has many parallels and connections to early childhood research and educational technology research, and she is keen to connect with researchers in these fields to discuss opportunities for collaboration.

To find out more about Dr Rodriguez and her work, you can view her academic profile here: https://research.qut.edu.au/dmrc/people/aleesha-rodriguez/

You can also find her on Twitter @_aleeshajoy

In this month's episode, Tara Concannon-Gibney discusses her recently completed SCoTENS project titled 'An Exploration of the Use of Children’s Literature in the Teaching of Early Reading (EuCLER).' The project was completed with Dr Geraldine Magennis from St Mary's University College Belfast.

This SCoTENS funded project focused on the presence of children’s literature within educational policy in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. In particular, it examined the place, profile and prevalence given to children’s literature as a key component in the teaching of reading in the early years (0-8 years). It also explored the potential of rich and varied children’s literature to promote deep and meaningful literacy learning.

The project began with some desk research that focused on curricular policy and recent research related to the use of children’s literature in the teaching of early reading in both the north and south of Ireland. The aim of this desk research was to identify gaps in current policy and practice with a view to developing a teacher education conference that might seek to address these concerns. The teacher education conference was held in September 2021 and was followed up with a survey that was completed by attendees that invited them to share their experiences using children’s literature in the teaching of early reading and also the new learnings that they may have gleaned from participation at the conference.

You can connect with Dr Concannon-Gibney on Twitter (@DrTaraConGibney), by email: [email protected], or through her profile: https://www.dcu.ie/languageliteracyandearlychildhoodeducation/people/tara-concannon-gibney

You can connect with Dr Magennis on Twitter (@GeraldineMagen2) or through her profile: https://www.stmarys-belfast.ac.uk/general/staff.asp?nq=1&mode=detail&StaffID=155

In this month's episode, Amalee Meehan discusses school ethos and how this influences the integration of newly arrived migrant students.

You can connect with Dr Meehan by email [email protected]

Dr Meehan's recent publication on this subject is available (open access) here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666374022000863

The DCU Anti-Bullying Centre website is here https://antibullyingcentre.ie/

In this month's episode, Geraldine French discusses Early Childhood and the importance of slow relational pedagogy. 

You can connect with Dr French on Twitter @GFrench_ECEC or on email [email protected].

Dr French's publication on slow relational pedagogy is available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1V6no4KmbEDvunEWM3f6R4ECEMRWlm428/view?usp=sharing

In this month's episode podcast, Audrey Bryan discusses a pedagogical framework – the Social Ecology of Responsibility Framework (SERF) -- which she developed as a tool for climate change educators to promote deeper understanding of the complex relationship between individual actions or “ordinary harms” and wider social forces which are responsible for the global climate crisis (Bryan 2021). With reference to her recently published article “Pedagogy of the Implicated”, she discusses the rationale for the SERF as well as the theories, thinkers and concepts that inspired it, as well as some of the ways that it might be applied in classroom contexts.

You can connect with Dr Bryan on Twitter @audreypoststruc or on email [email protected]

Pedagogy of the Implicated, published in Pedagogy, Culture & Society, is available here: https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2021.1977979

In this episode I speak with Professor Mathias Urban, Desmond Chair of Early Childhood Education and Director of the Early Childhood Research Centre at the Institute of Education, Dublin City University. Mathias provides a wonderful insight into Early Childhood Education and the role his centre is playing in shaping research, policy and practice in the field. 

You can find out more about Mathias here

You can find out more about the Early Childhood Research Centre here and follow the centre on Twitter @dcu_ecrc

In this episode, I speak with Professor Michael O'Leary about the Centre for Assessment Research, Policy and Practice in Education (CARPE). Michael speaks to me about the origins and development of the centre, highlights some recent research completed by the centre, and discusses what's next for CARPE. 

You can find out more about CARPE and what they do, on their website https://www.dcu.ie/carpe. You can also connect with CARPE on Twitter @carpe_dcu

In this episode, I speak with Dr Ger Scanlon about the PASTE project. This investigated supported transition for school leavers with intellectual disabilities.

The Progressing Accessible Supported Transitions to Employment (PASTE) project investigated the concept of supported transition for school leavers with intellectual disabilities, as a means of accessing mainstream opportunities in further / higher education, training, and employment (FETE). The study was undertaken by two researchers from Dublin City University, Ireland, across 2017 and 2018. This study investigated outcomes for school leavers with Intellectual Disabilities, who engaged with the WALK PEER supported transition model during their final two years in school. The research process focused on: a) capturing the viewpoints of students attending two special schools, their parents and carers, recent school leavers, and education professionals, and b) measuring employer viewpoints and engagement with the WALK PEER model between August 2015 and February 2018. This research project was funded by the Irish Research Council.

Link below to WALK PEER website

https://www.walk.ie/what-we-do/ability-funded-project-peer/

Link to the PASTE report  -Access here

You can connect with Dr Scanlon on Twitter @gerscanlon or by email [email protected]

In this episode, I speak with Dr Susan Pike about a recent SCoTENS project, titled 'ENABLE'. This project looks at inquiry in teacher education. 

The ENABLE project involved lecturers in Geography, History and Science Education across Ireland. Collaborators Dr Susan Pike (DCU), Dr Sandra Austin (MIE), Dr Karin Bacon (MIE) and Dr Richard Greenwood (Stranmillis University College) were all fascinated by inquiry and wanted to know more about how our students experience inquiry at different levels in their education programmes. All the students who took part were studying to be primary teachers, so were inquiring about aspects of their new profession as well as learning how to implement inquiry with children in schools. The project helped all involved to think about the multiplicities of inquiry we ask our students to engage with. 

Further information can be found in the collaborators' recent publication: Greenwood, R., Austin, S., Bacon, K. and Pike, S. (2021) 'Inquiry-Based Learning in the Primary Classroom: student teachers’ perceptions'. Education 3-13, 49 (1) and on the SCoTENS website

You can connect with Dr Pike on Twitter @SusanJPike