Traversing digital learning landscapes: an Institutional and faculty case study.

Within the UK, there is a growing awareness to better understand what online educational technologies can offer in relation to learning and teaching, and how social technologies are changing communication and collaboration out with formal education. The concept of the ‘digital university’ is being widely debated within the UK Higher education sector (McCluskey and Winter, 2012), becoming embedded in educational policy, and beginning to be explored within many institutions. This session will report on one such institutional initiative, undertaken at Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland. A Digital Futures Working Group was established to: benchmark best practice in key areas including digitally enhanced education and digital literacies development; identify areas for short term action; and to produce a robust ‘digital agenda’ to inform the future direction of the university. Pivotal to this was the recognition to evolve staff digital pedagogical practices and to harness emerging digital opportunities, meet learner expectations, and meet wider expectations for contemporary able citizens. This session will be delivered in two parts. Firstly we will provide an insight into the focus of the project and the rich picture methodology used to consult with staff and students. Secondly we will specify the outcomes produced, and provide a case study of how the Faculty of Health, Life and Social Sciences engaged with the process and the progression of their digitally enabled educational practices.

Who is the fairest of them all? Gendered Readings of Big Brother UK

Chandler, D. and Griffiths, M. (2004). Who is the fairest of them all?: Gendered Readings of Big Brother UK. In E. Mathijis and J. Jones (Eds.), Big Brother International: Format, Critics and Publics (pp.40-61). London: Wallflower Press. RAE2008

Theme and variations: Christianity and regional landscapes in early medieval Ireland

This thesis explores the impact of Christianity on the landscape in Ireland from the conversion period to the coming of the Anglo-Normans. The premise is that ecclesiastical and secular settlement formed a cohesive whole which characterised the societal organisation of early medieval Ireland. The matter of the thesis is to isolate some of the agents of cohesion to see was this homogenous or did it vary in different areas. One of these agents was the ownership of land and the thesis undertakes to identify ecclesiastical landholding and examine the manner of settlement on it. A corollary is to explore the contribution of the genealogical link between kin-group, founding saint and territory to the construction of local identities. This necessitated a narrow focus; thus small study areas were chosen, which approximated to early medieval kingdoms in North Louth, Rathdown, Co Dublin and Ross, Co Cork. A multidisciplinary approach was taken using both archaeological and documentary evidence. The thesis found ecclesiastical sites were at the same density through the study areas, but there were considerable regional variations in related secular settlement. Ecclesiastical estates were identified in the three study areas and common settlement patterns were found in two of them. Settlement in all areas indicated the foundation of minor churches by local groups. Ecclesiastical sites were found to be integral to kin-group identity and status, but the manner in which each group negotiated this, was very different. Finally the thesis examined material evidence for a change from diffused to concentrated power in the political organisation of Irish society, a process entwined with developments of the Viking Age. This centralisation of power and associated re-formation of identity was still often mediated through the ecclesiastical sphere but the thesis demonstrates diversity in the materialising of the mediation.

Landscapes of kingship in early medieval Ireland, AD 400–1150

This thesis explores the evolution of kingship in early medieval Ireland (AD 400–1150) through a kingdom based and multi-scalar approach to royal landscapes. Through exploring the role of place and landscape in the construction of early medieval Irish kingship, this study will assess the relationship between the social, economic and ideological roles of the king in Irish society. Kingship in Ireland was vested in places, such that royal landscapes were the pre-eminent symbol of regality and authority. As such, an interdisciplinary study of kingship grounded in archaeological methodologies has a unique potential to contribute to our knowledge of the practice of kingship. Consequently, this research considers the material apparatus of different scales of kingships and explores the role of landscape in the construction of kingship and the evolution of kingdoms. It takes two major case studies; (i) Cashel, Munster and the Éoganachta federation; and (ii) the Uí Néill, Tara and the Síl nÁedo Sláine kingdom of Brega. Through interdisciplinary methodologies it charts the genesis and development of political federations, focusing specifically on the role that royal landscapes’ played in their evolution. Similarly, this thesis engages critically with the nature of assembly places and practices in Ireland, and focuses specifically on issues pertaining to the nature of assembly and the archaeological manifestation of such practices. It includes a list of 115 landscapes identified as assembly places, and through the analysis of this material, this thesis examines the ways in which different types of royal sites articulated together to create royal landscapes implicated in the exercise of kingship, and the construction and maintenance of authority. Moreover, through the analysis of assembly places within the context of the development of kingdoms, and structures of jurisdiction and administration, it also investigates the evolution of supra-regional scales of identity and community associated with the emergence of major political federations in early medieval Ireland.

(Un)veiling desire: re-defining relationships between gendered adult education subjects and adult education programmes

My underlying argument, in this paper, is that conceptualisations of power as a commodity, through which the 'disempowered-as-illiterate' subject moves towards becoming an 'empowered-as-literate' subject, forces constructs of identities into a powerful/powerless dichotomy which does not always do justice to diverse experiences. The claimed 'empowering' intentions of adult education programme and policy practice may, in reality, contribute to the dominance of restrictive disciplining and regulatory discursive practices. Moving away from emancipatory trajectories of adult education programmes that allege only liberation from domination, through 'literacy', can promise freedom points to another position of hope. Drawing on Foucauldian analysis, I explore sites of resistance as possibilities of transforming 'structures of understanding' at different levels. Officially validated and recognised transformations, in adult education programme as well as policy understandings, of the 'illiterate' subject may also hope to include choices in postures of autonomy (see Spivak 1996) made by programme participants in other 'fields' of socio-cultural practice linked to their material realities. Subsequently, 'empowerment' of the 'illiterate Indian village woman' cannot solely be imagined as a product of laws, policies and institutional discursive practices (see, for example, Gouws 2005; Rai 2003 on gender mainstreaming and Mosse 2005 on aid policy and practice). The 'illiterate Indian village woman' represented as a site of resistance, throughout this paper, displaces homogeneous representations of the 'illiterate' which situate her in the role of 'dependent' or 'victim', as failed attempts to rob her of her historical and political agency (Mohanty 1996). Through narrating other 'images' of refusal in my ethnographic vignettes, I hope to recognise different individuals' sense of agency, at all levels, as embedded in and evolving through forms of collective action that activate differences in order to develop possibilities and sustain hope for transforming historically rooted discursive practices of inequality. I provide ethnographic accounts of resisting 'literacy' programme participants, based in different villages in Bihar (Northern India), as accounts of resistance impacted on by notions of norms, translating and interpreting Others, networks and empowerment.

Prey landscapes help identify potential foraging habitats for leatherback turtles in the NE Atlantic

Identifying key marine megavertebrate habitats has become ever more important as concern increases regarding global fisheries bycatch and accelerated climate change. This will be aided by a greater understanding of the patterns and processes determining the spatiotemporal distribution of species of conservation concern. We identify probable foraging grounds for leatherback turtles in the NE Atlantic using monthly landscapes of gelatinous organism distribution constructed from Continuous Plankton Recorder Survey data. Using sightings data (n = 2013 records, 1954 to 2003) from 9 countries (UK, Ireland, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Norway and Sweden), we show sea surface temperatures of approximately 10 to 12 degree C most likely indicate the lower thermal threshold for accessible habitats during seasonal foraging migrations to high latitudes. Integrating maps of gelatinous plankton as a possible indicator of prey distribution with thermal tolerance parameters demonstrates the dynamic (spatial and temporal) nature of NE Atlantic foraging habitats. We highlight the importance of body size- related thermal constraints in structuring leatherback foraging populations and demonstrate a latitudinal gradient in body size (Bergmann's rule) where smaller animals are excluded from higher latitude foraging areas. We highlight the marine area of the European continental shelf edge as being both thermally accessible and prey rich, and therefore potentially supporting appreciable densities of foraging leatherbacks, with some suitable areas not yet extensively surveyed.