Internet Safety mentoring: From Bebo to TikTok.

In these early months of the current school year I have already provided, as part of my work at the Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics of the University of Galway, Internet Safety sessions to parents, teachers and the young people of both primary and secondary schools in counties Galway, Clare and Dublin.

I have been undertaking Cyberbullying Awareness presentations since 2005 and was probably one of the first people in Ireland to do so.
(photo is of a leaflet from 2008 prepared by the primary school in Newport co. Mayo for a talk to parents on my birthday! The content reflects the era).

Since my student college days, I have been a strong advocate of the benefits that digital technologies can bring to people from all walks of life, having spent much of my working life teaching coding and upskilling people in the use of digital technologies. I started doing so in late 1981 soon after leaving university thanks to great inspirational visionary people such as Dr Jimmy Browne.

Immersing myself in web technologies really took off for me in mid 2004 when I became employed as the Outreach Officer of the Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI) at what was then NUI Galway. It was when the World Wide Web was for the first time becoming populated with user-generated content. It was exciting to be part of this!

In the early 2000s ‘blogging’ (personal websites) was the new craze; ‘online social media’ in the form of Bebo(2005), MySpace(2003) and Orkut(2004) was starting to appear for the first time; YouTube had just been invented (April 2005); online messaging and video telephony in the form of Skype (2003-4) was capturing people’s imagination; broadband was only being rolled out nationwide; the big bulky desktop computer was the main technology device in business, school and at home; and the smart touch phone in the form of the iPhone had yet to be invented(2007). ‘Email’ was king with many people of all ages acquiring their very first email addresses around this time.

Yet as a parent of both pre-teen and young teenage boys, I could see the dangers that computer gaming and web-based social interaction sites could and were bringing into our young people’s lives. Violence-based gaming, online aggressive pornography, misogyny, racism, cyberbullying, online stalking, and subsequent addiction and mental health issues for many users were a feature of the web even in those early days. People of all ages were suffering and yet there were few rules or guidelines available and nobody was talking about these new but growing problems.

So as a concerned parent and as someone working in a university web scientific institute (DERI), I decided, after securing the very supportive permission of my manager/directors, to put together my own content for delivering pioneering Internet Safety sessions to schools, universities, communities (neighbourhoods, asylum seekers, disability groups). But I always included in these talks (and still do) the benefits of new web technologies, giving a series of examples of exciting new developments especially those invented by young people, the need for stronger government legislation to protect those online including in punishing the very wealthy service providers, and highlighting the importance of good old fashioned benign parenting with the proviso that they make the effort to become aware and knowledgeable of their children’s activities on the web.

Eighteen years later, I am still providing such talks and workshops across Ireland. But sadly I have lost one important resource along the way. Over the years after having ‘the big chat’ with my sons when they were in their pre-teens or early teens and keeping lines of communications open, I learnt more from them that they ever did from me on the strengths, weaknesses, stories, pitfalls and issues associated with the latest social media and gaming sites popular for young people. I used the knowledge gained from them to make my own Internet Safety sessions more powerful, more meaningful, more current. Now that my sons are in their 20s and 30s I no longer have that family resource to call upon. 

So I have to make extra effort to see the Web through the eyes of a child. For in the world of technology, change is constant and one has to keep one’s finger on what is popular today as it becomes history tomorrow.

Graduation Day- The End of an Era for our son, for his university and for his parents

Cepta and myself were very proud parents when we stood beside our youngest son Dáire a few days ago as he graduated from his university.

 

He was one of the final class of students to graduate from the National University of Ireland Galway (NUI Galway). From yesterday it will be known as the University of Galway/Ollscoil na Gaillimhe.

 

His graduation represents the end of an era for Dáire as he leaves Ireland in a few weeks to commence a postgraduate degree in bio medicine (human biology) in Barcelona. Like his older brother, he has been a gift from heaven to Cepta and myself over the last twenty two years. A cycling, field sports and travel enthusiast; a keep-fit advocate; a lover of aquatic life (thanks to Galway Atlantaquaria); a conscientious student; a kind person who surrounded himself at university by a group of very loyal good friends whom he has known from his early days in Coláiste Iognáid. We earnestly hope and pray that he will soon enter a new and exciting phase of his life by starting a long and successful career in hands-on bio science, a sector that will allow him to work with others to use new technologies to improve the health of people everywhere. 

 

It seems like only yesterday that Dáire was starting his first day in primary school (Scoil San Phroinsias). It was the same month that our oldest son Shane finished up in the same school to start his secondary education at St. Mary’s College. But it was 2004. How time flies!

 

For Cepta and myself his graduation brings to an end our involvement as parents in Irish education which began 26 years ago. 

 

So the day was one of great happiness but also tinged with a little sadness and a few tears.

 

I could not let the day pass though without taking a photo of Dáire sitting one last time in a Galway university lecture hall (and one in which I also sat as a student fadó fadó!); a photo of him using his student card to enter the campus library one final time and a photo of him joyously throwing into the air his graduation hat in the oldest part of our esteemed campus which dates back to the 1840s. Appropriately it was in the same decade that our university first opened as Queens Collage Galway that my maternal great grandfather Thomas Agnew became the only member of his family to survive the Irish Famine (An Gorta Mór). The rest of his brothers, sisters and parents it seems died from starvation and execution. He alone survived. As with many other Irish families, hunger, eviction and imprisonment at the hands of absentee landlords, the British judiciary and military is part of our history. But that is a tale for another day. Suffice to say that Dáire’s graduation is in my mind a thank you and a tribute to so many of our ancestors who experienced so much pain, death and destruction so that future generations of Irish men and women of all creeds and none could have a better life, one based on dignity, respect, justice and hope.

Finally I have to compliment Dáire for celebrating his graduation by taking part in a 80km charity cycle to the Electric Picnic.

Little Schools are the Heartbeat of Rural Ireland & the Foundations for its Revitalisation

 

COVID cut me off from what is one of the most enjoyable blessful elements of my work at the Insight Centre for Data Analytics NUI Galway, namely the opportunity to travel to every corner of Galway county and city in order to teach different aspects of technology in the schools that function as the heartbeat of their local communities.

This is particularly true of the little schools of rural Galway, which serve as the vibrant hub of their villages and parishes. The photo shows Creggs, one of these great primary schools located in the idyllic village that gives it its name and in which I spent a most enjoyable day last week teaching coding to the senior classes (being teaching there since 2006!).

In this period of rural decline it has been these learning institutions that have kept alive local traditions, such as making St. Bridget Crosses on February 1st; decorations and floats for St. Patrick’s Day; planting trees for Tree Week; painting festive eggs at Easter; and playing the songs and reciting the myths and legends of the locality in times past. As Irish people have abandoned farming (for work in the big city) and the great social gatherings that was the weekly Sunday only a few decades ago, it is the school that maintains a sense of ‘community spirit’ by bringing together the grannies, parents, cousins and neighbours of the pupils to enjoy concerts at Christmas, fancy dress parties at Samhain/Halloween, heritage nights, charity fundraising and group cycles. It is also the children of the school that are the life blood of the parish sports and youth clubs.

But these schools have been suffering for many decades due to creeping urbanisation. Fifty years ago Ireland's social and economic life revolved around an agricultural system based on the small family farm and rural towns were vibrant places serving their farming hinterland. Today too many of these country towns look like ghost towns with lines of abandoned and boarded up premises; the small family farm has lost its national economic centrality and the mosaic of fields of colourful wildflower meadows, barley, rye, oats, potatoes, cabbages and apple/damson/pear/orchards have all but disappeared from the landscape.

Depopulation in rural Ireland has led to many school closures including some that I worked in such as Corgary, Carnageehy and Woodlawn in east Galway. The car-based transport infrastructure assists this trend as it encourages some parents living in an increasingly suburban-orientated Irish countryside to understandably take children to schools near where they work in the big towns and cities.

But I now see the seeds for a resurgence in rural Ireland based on the principles of the Circular Economy characterised by mixed organic farming; the return of grain, vegetable and fruit growing in fields surrounded by hedgerows or drystone walls; a revitalisation of indigenous crafts and arts, the establishment of wildlife sanctuaries which includes deciduous forests, a network of interlinked greenways, an increased state committment towards public transport, an increased emphasis on renewable energies (wind, water, biomass), and a hospitality trade focused on sourcing locally grown foodstuffs.

The COVID lockdown has opened our eyes to the endless opportunities available with a proper broadband infrastructure allowing many to work long distance be if from homes or from the shared space of small town innovative digital hubs (some are set up already in what was until recently boarded up shops and pubs). Climate Change and Biodiversity Loss as well as the consequences of the destructive Russian invasion of Ukraine have shown us the crucial need to use local solutions to solve global crises. Sustainable jobs exist in nature guardianship, Outdoor Learning, Outdoor leisure (hiking, rowing, cycling etc), energy production, farming at so many levels, electronic repair/recycling/upcycling, biomedical manufacturing, education, crafts, arts, culture, scientific/technology research and green tourism. 3D printing, using safe recyclable materials, will mean the return of the 'cottage industry' to rural Ireland.

So it is crucial that the little country schools are now nurtured and kept open during this period of transition.

I have happily worked in these schools (and their second level ‘big brothers’) since 2002 teaching a range of science and technology courses (coding, film production, photo editing/enhancing, heritage, environmental science, data science, Citizen Science and Internet Safety) as well as offering teachers and children the opportunity to attend sessions at my university workplace to learn from my younger research colleagues, to visit my beloved computer museum as well as to exhibit at the annual Galway Science and Technology Festival Fair.

Hopefully soon I will have re-established the school circuit that I had in the years before COVID not only in the city but in so many villages and parishes in the county stretching from Inishbofin off the coast of Connemara to Tiernascragh near the River Shanno

"When We Were Young": Student Days & Nights at UCG’s Rag Week

 

I feel really sorry for the present generation of students at GMIT & NUIG including my son Dáire.

For this is the week, when in my student days (& nights!) at UCG we hosted College Week (aka Rag Week), a wonderful fun 7 days events programme before most (well some!) of us began the serious stuff of study and exam preparations.

And what an action packed week it was!

There was the Mr & Ms College Week auditions in the Skeff; live music from the best local/national/international bands every night in Leisureland; the clubs in Salthill bursting at the seams dancing to the disco sounds of DJs Gerry Sexton, the K-Tel kids..; Kissing Competitions in the Concourse (Mike Jennings - didn't you win it one year?), the Crazy Boat Race; the Greasy Pole competition over the Eglinton Canal; the male & female Pub Crawl (on stretchers!) Races, the Tug-of-War & other field sports; the kidnappings of bishops and college lecturers held until a ransom (for charity- all good fun though!) was paid over; the streakers running through crowded lecture halls; the myriad of 'social action' activities provided by SAM (Social Action Movement); the crazy ‘pogo’ lunchitime dancing in the (canteen) basement; and the grand finale- the 'Fancy Dress Ball' on the Saturday Night with musical acts such as Bob Geldof & the Boomtown Rats, U2.....

All coordinated by a College Week Director- Ollie Jennings was director one year and Patrick Gillespie another year(I was lucky to be Pat's assistant!) with Padraic Boran, UCG SU Ents Officer securing the big music acts.

The city was rocking!! In spite of the craziness though, there was very little alcohol consumed per student. Unless we won a beer keg in a competition we did not have the money then to afford more than a few beers per night. Outside Rag Week, for most of us it was alcohol, the pub & the dance club only on Thursday nights. Overall the week was all good (largely clean!) fun with no violence and, except for small amounts of cannabis, no drugs. There were great prizes for the winners of the competitions. In 1981, our house in Hazel Park enjoyed a party night when 2 kegs (prizes!) of beer were enjoyed by residents and guests! I never got a drop though- I was dancing the night away in the 'Beach' nightclub!

In 1978 one of my house mates won Mr College Week- it meant free tickets to all of the main gigs!

The photo shows the cover of the independent student Unity magazine in the year that I was editor. The brilliant artwork was done by my good friend of the time Marie Drumgoole, a Medical student with an extraordinary artistic touch.

Dancing to Music from Hell

Part of my youth died yesterday on hearing of the sad passing of Meatloaf. The man was a force of nature. During my student days at UCG(NUIG), his operatic voice, Wagnerian ballads, music pulsating with pent-up passion captivated so many of our hearts, souls and bodies transforming us at the discos into demonic creatures dancing madly to the strains of 'Paradise by the Dashboard' and then, as if by magic, becoming lovable sweet angels gently holding our partners swaying slowly to the tender sounds of 'Heaven Can Wait'.

Thank you Meatloaf- you were a gift from heaven during that halycon era of the late 1970s-early 1980, giving us so much love, fun and joy. Godspeed agus ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam

A final word of praise to Gerry Sexton, his disciple on Earth who served him so well in his role as Galway's finest college DJ, pumping out the good vibrations at the Beach, the Aula, the International....

A New Member for the ‘Hall of Graduates’ at Data Science Institute, NUI Galway.

 

Congratulations to my good friend and (now) former Insight Research Centre colleague Safina Showcat Ara who defended her PhD thesis today on the topic of "Exploration Algorithms for Discoverable and Undiscoverable Decentralised Online Social Networks."

She will soon take her rightful place alongside her husband Zia Ush Shamszaman on the walls of our 'Hall of Graduates' at the Data Science Institute NUI Galway dressed up in her spectacular PhD finery.

Safina and Zia were key members of Insight and contributed to the life of the centre at so many levels.

As well as their research work, they were active participants in our multi-cultural festivals, our excursions across Ireland, our Christmas/end of year parties, our ‘coffee and chat’ get togethers in Deri Cafe, our public engagement activities in schools and elsewhere…

Due to COVID, we can’t understandably organise these social activities for the foreseeable future. So many friends have left my workplace since the pandemic began as they complete their studies to move on to pastures new. But due to the new environment we all find ourselves in, I don’t have the opportunity to meet the new Safina Showkat Aras and Zia Ush Shamszamans in the flesh.

I really miss this social connectivity. I really need to met people in the real world. The online and virtual worlds have limitations

Joe Murray - One of life's gentlest and kindest gentlemen is no longer with us. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam

Today I attended the funeral mass for Joe Murray, a true friend and comrade from my student days at UCG.

Joe was our local postman when I lived then with student friends in a rather famous/infamous(!) rented house in Hazel Park. Many's the night Joe would pop in for tea and a political chat when he was out campaigning/leaflet dropping for the Labour Party or earlier in the day after he had completed his postal rounds. It was usually a few hours later that he would cycle off to his homeplace in Shantalla happy in the knowledge that a few of us around a table in a rented house in Galway had analysed and come up with solutions to all of the problems of the world!

We struck up a friendship then that has remained strong over the decades in spite of years apart. He was a man with a heart of gold, an analytical brain, a soft sense of humour and a gentle smile. Friday before last was my final visit to Joe in hospital when we were making arrangements for his bike to be brought to Richard Walsh's Woodquay for repair before I was to cycle it to the Eglinton Direct Provision Centre where it was to be handed over to an African friend of mine that needed it. This was Joe's request to me. He wanted his bike, that was his mainstay for so long, to be given to a person that could really benefit from it. During our bedside chat, after we finished watching the Lions-South Africa test match (he loved rugby with a passion) on his iPad, Joe proudly showed me the letter that he had recently received from our mutual friend President Michael D. Higgins.

It meant so much to him. For Joe was one of the reasons why Michael D got elected multiple times as a Galway councillor, as a TD and finally as President of Ireland. As a life long Labour Party member, he was one of those dedicated, reliable, hardworking, solid foot soldiers that was out there every night and day, hail rain or snow, ensuring that Michael's philosophy of liberty, fraternity and egalitarianism were known.

Our President, being the loyal caring person that he is, was in the church today along with his darling wife Sabina. Neither of them have ever lost contact with their old friends from the early days of struggle and campaigning when we were all (from an array of left wing parties and from no parties) fighting for a better just and more humane world.

Along with chatting to Catherine Connolly TD, councillor Níall Mc Nelis, Andrew Ó Baoill and Nuala Nolan, it was especially lovely today to see so many of the activists from the time when Michael D. was first elected to Dáil Éireann attending his funeral to give their respects- Niall Kelly, Liam Boyle, Pat Hardiman, Peter Kenny, Liz Hackett, John Cunningham.... Joe's friends have been his friends for so long- it was a tribute to his warm endearing character.

Joe was an old style socialist and trade unionist who wanted to ensure that the working class overcame centuries of exploitation to secure political power. It was therefore appropriate and a tribute to Joe’s life-long and deeply held political beliefs that musician Greg Cotter gave a wonderfully powerful moving rendition in the church that he loved of the classic American socialist song ‘Joe Hill’ "...In every mine and mill, Where working men defend their rights, It's there you'll find Joe Hill...". It brought tears to my eyes as it reminded me of many battles fought but not always won.

My last campaigning meet ups with Joe were in December/January when he was gung-ho about ensuring our fellow UCG progressive Mike Jennings got elected to the NUI Galway Governing Body.

Joe knew for many months that he was dying from cancer. We had our last coffee together in June in a café near the hospital where he had just come from one of his regular clinical visits. After the banter and the sharing of stories, I told him that he would of course feature in my book coming out next year on “UCG Student Days & Nights”. The book will be richer for his presence.

The photo is one I took of Joe in 1984 at his summer graduation in University College Galway (UCG). No wonder he has such a broad smile, for Joe and his fellow students made history that day being the first class to graduate from the part-time evening BA programme. This degree was a trailblazer for the university, as it represented an early attempt to reach out to ordinary working people from office, factory and shop in providing third level qualifications.

Rest in Peace Joe

 

-       Brendan Speedie Smith

UCG Student Days & Nights– The wonderful Stories that must be told!

 

Dancing in the Aula on a Friday night, UCG, 1979

A few weeks ago, I completed a month’s leave of absence from my employment at NUI Galway. I took this break for two reasons:

(a) to concentrate on promoting the ‘Galway National Park City’ initiative and particularly to lobby the councillors of Galway City Council to include this designation within the Galway City Development Plan 2023-2029 in order to make our city a flagship for sustainability and environmentalism that other cities would emulate. In spite of the support of many councillors (Niall Murphy, Imelda Byrne, Owen Hanley, Frank Fahy, Terry O’Flaherty, Deputy Mayor Martina O’Connor and Mayor Colette Connolly), that did not happen. A motion to have it deferred to a later date was passed. This is no bad thing as it will give time to prepare further to ensure that City Hall adopts an initiative that has been endorsed by President Michael D. Higgins (our patron), Duncan Stewart as our National Champion, Kathryn Tierney as our EU champion, and over 100 champions from across all sectors of local society. But more on that anon!

 

(b) to start the research for a book that I have postponed for far too long about student life in Galway during the period of 1975-1981. Over the years, I have gathered together a wonderful collection of photos and stories of that exciting era which I and so many of my good friends were part of.

Thanks to the introduction of state grants for third level education I was part of a first generation of young people from small farming and working backgrounds who got the opportunity to go to university and the technology colleges. We had no idea what to expect. But the change to us personally and to Irish society was monumental. We arrived to what was essentially a large but quiet town in the West of Ireland as starry-eyed young teenagers leaving home for the first time. It was my first time west of the river Shannon.

 

As the days, weeks, months and years rolled by, we immersed ourselves in the freedoms offered as the campus became an exciting spicy melting pot of radical priests, nuns, monks, capitalists, liberals, communists, socialists, republicans, artists, musicians, army officers, scientists, innovators and so much more. Every issue under the Sun (& beyond) was debated and argued at meetings, over coffee in the daytime and over pints on Thursday nights. By the time most of us had left UCG (later NUIG) and RTC (GMIT) a few years later, it had been transformed beyond recognition into a vibrant cosmopolitan city pulsating with social, political, economic, scientific, technological and artistic activity, made possible by the youthful creativity of its new population of students and those that came to work in its new factories, arts centres and expanded hospitals. We felt like pioneers opening up a new frontier where anything was possible and very little was out of bounds. 

 

In our time in Galway we were also part of the first wave of Irish youth that discovered the newly unfolding Global Village as we spent summers working as far afield as Atlantic City, New York, San Francisco, Paris, Amsterdam and Munich; or travelling by ferry, train, and camper van to Athens, Berlin, Belgrade, Kabul, Kathmandu and Marrakesh. When we didn’t travel abroad for the summers, we hitchhiked to the many open air musical festivals that started to appear across the country including Lisdoonvarna, Ballisodare, Slane to Carnsore Point. 

 

In UCG, we studied hard and attended lectures given by inspirational lecturers (Michael D Higgins, TP O'Neill, Pete Smith, Emer Colleran, Gearoid O'Tuathaigh, Iggy O'Muircheartaigh, Chris Stevens, Gerry Humphreys, Nicholas Canny, Mícheál Mac Craith, Breandan Mac Aodha, Ollie Ryan, Rosaleen O'Neill, Owen Bourke, Jim Gosling, Kevin Boyle, Tony Finan, Frank Imbusch, Leo Smyth, Bill Shade, Jim Flavin, Ma Heavey, Tom Boylan, Jimmy Browne, Hubert McDermott…); played sport or organised a plethora of cultural events; often protested, marched and occupied college or state buildings as we passionately fought against discrimination on all fronts both at home and abroad; on Thursday and Friday nights we socialised in the city centre, danced in the nightclubs of Salthill and partied (no drugs, no violence) late into the night in student houses across Galway. 

 

So it is long past the time that the seriousness, inventiveness, madness and humour of this previously unwritten part of modern Ireland was captured and made known to present and future generations.

I made friendships then that have lasted a lifetime. I owe it to these good folk to ensure our times together will not be forgotten.

Publication Date: 2022.

 

p.s. Photo was taken at a Friday night Disco in the Aula section of the Quad in UCG. This was a regular event organised by the Students' Union. No alcohol was served. Students just went along to dance the night away!

p.p.s. If anyone feels they may have photos/images or some interesting stories to tell related to the period 1975-'81, please do not hesitate to contact me

A ‘Green Highway’ in Galway City - Build It & They Will Come!

 

The survey of the Terryland River and its surrounding area, presently been undertaken by full-time summer intern Tara Speares and her supervisor Dr. Colin Lawton of NUI Galway, is further reinforcing the scientific evidence from over many decades that the community-driven council-managed Terryland Forest Park is having a significant positive impact on the numbers and species of biodiversity in Galway city and shows the critical importance of an ‘ecological corridor’ or 'green highways' (one of the objectives of its founders) in restoring wildlife in urban environments. Terryland connects the Corrib Waterways into the farm lands of east Galway. The park is Galway’s largest and oldest (2000) ‘rewilding’ initiative but hopefully not its last. With the continued huge growth in human populations and cities worldwide, it is crucial that we make significant spaces in urbanised areas to serve as wildlife sanctuaries as well as ensuring their protection from human footfall. Otherwise we destroy the very thing that we are trying to nurture and preserve. Parts of Terryland Forest Park as with parts of the other borough parks (Merlin Woods and Barna Woods/Rusheen Bay) across Galway admirably fulfill this function.

Photo shows Dr. Colin Lawton and intern Tara Speares with wood mice temporarily captured in ‘traps’ whose data was recorded before being released back into the wild. I enjoyed watching the freed little mammals disappear into the undergrowth of the woods and riverbanks.

Colin has a long and distinguished role in assessing the impact of Terryland on the city’s biodiversity as he has been undertaking different types of mammal surveys on its lands since 2004. His efforts provide important scientific data to policy makers, scientists, and environmentalists. Thank you Colin- we really admire and appreciate your great efforts!

Volunteers needed to transform Old Laptops into New to Help School Students in need!

 

Are you available to volunteer in helping in a wonderful transforming old laptops into new’ initiative that aims to benefit school students and others whose financial circumstances do not allow them to buy new laptops? If so an online training course under the Tech2Students scheme being organised by Camara and the Access Centre NUI Galway is taking place from 2.30pm to 4.30pm on Monday. To book a place contact me as soon as possible and a set of instructional notes will be sent to you in advance.

The closure of schools last March due to COVID-19 led to a seismic change in Irish education as online teaching and learning became the new normality. However this shift exposed a considerable technology gap in society with many families not being able to afford the laptops that have now become an essential device for their children to access and download online educational courses and teaching materials. In other homes, children that are in their Leaving Certificate year have had to share a laptop with their siblings and parents. As a result of this smart device deficit and with problems associated with broadband connectivity, many young people with financial difficulties are encountering serious learning barriers and have been locked out of education as a result.

To come up with a solution last spring that could help students in their time of need and to face up to the challenges of providing the necessary secure equipment, the technical personnel at our workplace of the Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics compiled easy-to-follow guidelines that reimaged laptops by wiping off all data and installing free open-sourced operating systems and other key software. I was so happy at the time that we managed to help a lot of young people continue their educational studies unhindered by providing fully functional and suitable smart devices.

Insight is now working within the Tech2Start programme led by the Trinity Access Centre, Camara and coordinated in Galway by the brilliant Imelda Byrne, Aidan Harte and team at the Access Centre of NUI Galway to offer a similar but expanded system nationwide.

Furthermore if you have laptops that you no longer need and are willing to offer them to this initiative, please contact tech4students@nuigalway.ie

'

Calling all Graduates of NUI Galway. Vote Mike Jennings in next week's elections for the university's Governing Authority.

 

Please consider voting for Mike Jennings in next week’s elections to the graduate panel of the NUI Galway Governing Body

I was honoured that Mike gave me the opportunity to officially nominate him as a candidate for this election.

 

Details on how to vote are below.

 

During his student days at what was then UCG and in his subsequent working career, Mike has always been a passionate campaigner for access to third level education for all, a defender of student rights and of academic freedom and an advocate for proper funding for higher education. He believed in and lived by a holistic approach to learning, in which involvement in college societies, sports, students unions, in reaching out to the wider communities outside college especially those that were disadvantaged, and in other extra-curricular activities were as important as the formal studies in helping develop a student’s life skills and in finding ways to contribute to the betterment of society.

His record at UCG exemplified these beliefs: President of UCG Students’ Union(photo), student representative on the university’s Governing Body, auditor of DramSoc, editor of two weekly student newspapers (“Unity” and “Student Forum) and an active participant in Lit & Deb events.

 

After leaving UCG, he continued in promoting equality and education throughout a long and distinguished career that took him from being an organiser for USI (Union of Students of Ireland) and first ever student representative on a VEC (Limerick City); a trade union official representing non-academic university staff, a representative of Local Authority Engineers and Professional Officers; and finally to becoming General Secretary of IFUT (2007-2017), which is the union for University Academics, Researchers, Librarians, and Senior Professional Staff.

 

Mike is currently European Treasurer / Vice President of ETUCE, the European Region of Education International; a member of the advisory group on International Co-operation established by the European Higher Education Area; and chair of the Board of TASC, a research and educational think-tank, engaged with the issues of equality, democracy and sustainability. 

 

As a graduate representative on the Governing Authority, Mike would be a strong voice for progressive change and will bring his wealth of valued knowledge and experiences to protecting academic freedom; improving working conditions for researchers and continuing to ensure that education contributes to reducing social inequality, in benefiting society and in promoting the life skills and all-round development of all its participants.

 

Election Details 

Elections for the Graduate constituency will take place online over a 27-hour window from 9am Monday January 11th to 12pm on Tuesday January 12th, 2021.

As a graduate you will receive your unique link to vote by email on January 11th at 9am.

You will be eligible to vote for nominees in the Graduate constituency only.

Eligible voters are graduates of the University whose contact details are registered with the Alumni Office.

Your link to vote is unique to you and will not work if shared with others so please avoid forwarding the voting link on.

For any queries on the upcoming Governing Authority elections, please contact govandacademicaffairs@nuigalway.ie

UCG Science Dress Dance 1979- The Boys of 80 Hazel Park!

(L-R) John D. Sheridan, Paul Hickey (front), Brendan 'Speedie Smith', Mike Murphy and Tommy Sheridan

My housemates from my UCG student days at the Science Dress Dance 1979, occupants of the best party house in Galway in its day!

Before the Balls (we were regulars at the annual Arts & Science dress dances!) were over, we use to quietly tell our friends that the party would continue at our place, then dash off in the first taxis available to 80 Hazel Park. Taxis packed with students would soon after be prowling the city looking for the late night house parties. But we cleverly would have the curtains pulled tight and leave all the house lights off whilst the rooms were filled with dozens of our friends happily chatting in the darkness. Then exactly one hour after the dress dance had ended everything would be switched on, the disco flashing lights and deck would start with the legendary DJ Gerry Sexton playing the music from Saturday Night Fever, Abba, Mud, T Rex, Beatles, Stranglers, Meatloaf, Sweet...... and many of us would dance the night way until the wee small hours of the morning.

We had No. 80 internally 'zoned' for parties- the front room painted orange was the Disco; the back dining room painted pink became the 'snog room' and the kitchen painted blue was where all the political and social problems of the world were fervently discussed and argued upon. The upstairs bedrooms were a no party zone (as much as was possible!) Luckily for us, our immediate neighbours were all students, nurses, young factory workers and couples, most of whom were our regular guests!

The day after the party, myself and the lads would clean everything up from ceiling to floor including washing the walls down! Then as if my magic, the house was transformed back to normality, until the next party night!

It was all good clean fun! No drugs. Just dancing & a few beers (remember 'draught' Guinness in a bottle!) However we were raided by the forces of the law every so often (on non-party nights only!) Why? That is a (political!) story for another day!

I really feel sad for youth and students at this present time. Not being able to socialise together and have a bit of fun due to COVID restrictions. It is so tough on them and they are generally taken it so well, so disciplined. 

 

p.s. Mike Murphy has two fingers raised in the photo in front of my face! Nothing nasty- he is just giving the 'rabbit's ears' to Paul

‘Back to BASIC’- workshops on the coding language that helped democratise computing 50+ years ago

As part of this year’s Galway Science and Technology Festival, the computer and communications museum, in conjunction with the Data Science Institute, will host a series of coding workshops using the original programming language on the very computers by some of the same mentors that provided such teaching in schools, colleges and computer clubs in the city during the early 1980s!

The workshops will take place at the Data Science Institute subject to COVID-19 restrictions then current. If this cannot happen, we will host online workshops using virtual console simulators and reschedule the ones using the vintage computers to a suitable time in 2021.

Back to the Future - the 1980s revisited
Today so many good-minded tech savvy educators are working really hard to promote computer coding amongst our young people through coding clubs such as Coderdojo and by campaigning to have it accepted as a curriculum subject in schools. We see it as our mission to transform our kids from being passive Computer Users to active Computer Creators. Coding is a skill set that is increasingly beneficial in so many professions and will be even more so as the century rolls by.
But in some ways it can be seen as a ‘Back to the Future’ saga. For during the 1970s up until the mid 1980s,  using a computer was synonymous with knowing how to code one. It was a programming language called BASIC that introduced personal computing. In a time when few people ever saw a computer let alone use one, John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz of Dartmouth College USA designed a language in 1964 that allowed everyday people to have computers carry out many different tasks from writing letters, undertaking research, solving problems and playing games. The language was known as BASIC (Beginner’s All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) and had commands with easy-to-relate to English words that related to their functionality (Print, Goto, If___Then, and later Input). Programming had lost its elitism (for mathematicians only) and could be understood and programmed by ordinary people. But what truly made it accessible to all was the invention of the microprocessor, which formed the basis of the first fully-assembled personal (table top) computers that started to appeared from 1977.  The Commodore Pet, RadioShack Tandy TRS-80 and the Apple 11 that were launched that year were off-the-shelf low cost computers aimed at the ordinary consumer and schools. All three came bundled with BASIC. Within a few years the standard version of the language on most computers was Microsoft Basic invented by Bill Allen and Bill Gates.
Schools all over the world started to teach programming. By 1983, most secondary schools in Galway had computer labs populated with computer equipment donated by Ballybrit-based Digital Equipment Corporation(DEC) where students learnt to code. The demise of BASIC and indeed programming in general across educational establishments happened with the rise of application software or what we know call apps from the late 1980s.

Pacman- Happy 40th Birthday!

One of the greatest video games of all time, Pacman is 40 years old this month and yet remains as popular as ever.
Created by Toru Iwatani and a team at the Japanese game company Namco, it was released on May 22nd 1980. It was the first game written to appeal to a female audience. Iwatani saw that the whole video games industry catered only for men and concentrated on sport and violent war themes. Only boys seem to populate the arcade machine halls. So he decided to develop a game with cute, happy looking bright coloured characters based around colourful foods such as deserts and sweets. One of the inspirations for the Pacman image was a pizza with a slice removed. The ghosts in the game were inspired by the television series Casper the Friendly Ghost.

Galway’s United Nations: 34 Languages spoken at my university workplace!

In celebration of international Mother Language Day we installed, in the foyer of our workplace (the Insight Centre for Data Analytics, Data Science Institute, NUI Galway), a World Map in which our colleagues decorated with scripts written in the alphabets of their own language.

February 21^st is a global day of commemoration designed to increase awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity. It is officially recognised by the Galway’s United Nations: 31 Languages spoken at my university workplace as an opportunity "to promote the preservation and protection of all languages used by peoples of the world."

It was first initiated by Bangladesh. So it is appropriate then that it was my good friend and colleague Safina Showkat Ara from that country who suggested that we also mark this very important occasion at our research institute. I was only to happy to oblige.

And what a wonderful exercise it turned out to be. For in populating the map we happily discovered that there are at least 34 languages spoken at our research institute- Arabic, Armenian, Bangla, Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Irish, Italian, Kannada, Kashmiri, Kurdish, Magahi, Mandarin, Marathi, Nepali, Pashto, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Ukrainian, Urdu, Russian, Sanskrit, Slovene, Spanish, Swahili, Tamil, Vietnamese and Yoruba. Wow!

We hope that this new initiative will become a new tradition that will continue to be observed for years and years to come.

It is also worth noting that my other good friend and colleague Sina Ahmadi correctly pointed out that millions and millions of people across the world are today deprived of learning in their mother language in their own countries. Denial of a people’s right to express their cultural identity has been used throughout history by brutal repressive regimes often to overcome resistance to foreign rule. For hundreds of years the British imperial forces in Ireland tried to destroy our right to independence by a combination of war, ethnic cleansing, introduction of foreign settlements, economic exploitation and a denial of cultural expression by the native Celts. 

It was Pádraig Pearse, the great Irish revolutionary and leader of the 1916 uprising against British rule, who summed up so well the need to resist the latter policy of ‘cultural assimilation’, “A country without a language is a country without a soul.”

Today cultural assimilation is the policy of many countries towards indigenous peoples living in forests, wetlands and mountains, none more  so than in Brazil where President Bolsonaro

aggressively pursues a campaign of taking Amazonian lands from the Amerindians for commercial exploitation by ranchers, palm oil growers, miners and loggers leading in the process to the loss of the Earth’s lungs. 

In a time of growing globalisation it is important that we promote harmony, the sisterhood /brotherhood of humanity, and peace between cultures, race and sexes based on respect and equality. Fundamental to this view is that we should also treasure diversity in all its form. For the world would be so much poorer if we lose our traditions, heritage and language. Variety is after all the spice of life! 

Furthermore, as you can see from the large poster in the front of the photograph, our institute is where people from all over the world come together to work on research into tackling Climate Chaos in so many sectors (peatlands, air, water, waste, manufacturing, cities...). We stand united for the common good.

Nóta: Tá muintir na Rúise agus na hÍsiltíre inár n-ionad oibre a labhraíonn Gaeilge!

Our Research Institute: Using Science & Technology in the war against Climate Chaos, Biodiversity Loss...

The research taking place at my university workplace is contributing to tackling the issues being caused by Climate Change, biodiversity loss and the excesses of the consumer society.
As part of our Educational and Public Engagement (EPE) programme at the Insight Centre for Data Analytics of the Data Science Institute NUIG, we have been offering since last summer a package to visiting schools that combines an introduction to our research, a coding workshop, an immersive Virtual Reality experience and a guided tour of the Computer & Communications Museum.

The first part is based on talks by our researchers on their work (mostly in collaboration with other European countries) that more and more has a strong emphasis on Sustainability and on Citizen Science. . On Tuesday, Niall O’Brolchain outlined the 'CarePeat' partnership research project to students of St.Jarlaths College from Tuam. CarePeat is about reducing carbon emissions from and restoring the carbon capacity of Europe’s degraded peatlands. Niall pointed out that, though only covering c3% of global land surface, peatlands store twice as much carbon as all of the Earth’s forests combined, but are now responsible for 5% of global carbon emissions due to degradation.

The second talk was by Umair ul Hassan on his research project entitled 'Sharerepair'. Its purpose is to roll back Europe’s fastest growing waste stream by scaling up citizen repair shops through the use of digital tools