Connect School Evaluation Report

Connect School Evaluation Report

The Connect School Evaluation Report Launch

The Connect School Evaluation Report will be launched today by Minister Eamon Ryan T.D., Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources at the Big Picture. The Big Picture is located at the last stop of the Luas in Tallaght.

The Evaluation has been carried out by Farrell Grants Sparks.

The Connect School Project is now approaching it's final year, come September the entire student cohort will have been issued with laptops. This, in conjunction with the wireless internet access and the Virtual Learning Environment makes St Aidan's one of the most progressive teaching environments in the country. There are great benefits and challenges inherent in such a ambitious project and these issues are well developed and drawn out by the Evaluation Report. Anyone working in the field of education with an interest in 21st Century teaching and learning will be very interested to read this report.

The full report will be available online once it is launched.

Watch out for a short film on the Connect School Project which will be available here once the Evaluation Report has been launched.

Avatars play starring role at virtual seminar

THE PROGRAMME for the recent Metameets conference at Dublin Institute of Technology – flagged as Europe’s Premier 3D Internet and Developer Conference – carried an unusual little note after each speaker’s name: “live” or “virtual”.

For a conference about 3D and virtual worlds, perhaps it isn’t odd at all that about a third of the presentations were given not by someone standing before the audience, but by their avatars in some online virtual world like Second Life. That a good proportion of the audience was scattered across cyberspace too is the norm for this international event, now in its second year (it debuted in Amsterdam last year).

Add to that the oddity of having the conference organisers listed by both their real-life and their avatar names, and you get the picture.

These are people passionate about the virtual, who do not consider it just an amusing pastime, or a hobby, but a significant element of daily life and for many, their chosen area of entrepreneurship and business. Read More

Courtesy: Irish Times

Most Irish politicians to use social media for campaigning

MORE THAN three-quarters of Irish TDs plan to use social media tools in the next general election campaign, with Facebook overwhelmingly the favoured platform.

A new survey from PR firm Pembroke Communications found that 77 per cent of politicians said they would use these web-based tools to get their message out during the next hustings. Of the 48 TDs that responded to the phone and online survey, 96 per cent said they would use Facebook, 65 per cent said they planned to use Twitter, while half said they would use YouTube and blogs.

The survey found that fewer than one-third had used social networking tools in the 2007 general election.

The recent British election saw a large number of prospective MPs use web tools to communicate with voters. Read More

Courtesy: Irish Times

Merck's MSD to create 150 new Dublin jobs

MSD is recruiting immediately for 150 positions at a new facility to be located in South County Dublin.

MSD is a part of Merck, the world's second largest pharmaceutical company.

The new MSD shared business services centre will serve the firm's operations in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Already MSD has manufacturing, research and sales and marketing centres located in Ireland - in Swords, Cork, Wicklow, Tipperary and Carlow.

The new facility will provide support in the areas of finance and accounting and the 150 jobs have all been described as high quality by the IDA which is supporting the project.

Ireland and Dublin was selected because of its track record in delivering such complex projects according to MSD and Merck.

The company says the country's educational system, quality of the workforce and proximity to European markets were all key factors in deciding to locate the jobs here.

Courtesy: RTE News

Dublin social media firm raises €500k

Dublin-based social media agency Simply Zesty has just announced news of a €500,000 investment from The Oxford Research Agency (TORA) for a minority stake in the firm.

Celebrating its one-year anniversary earlier this week, the investment now values the social media company at €1m. With clients including Vodafone, Universal Pictures, Nokia and The Body Shop, Simply Zesty was co-founded by chef Niall Harbison and social media marketing consultant Lauren Fisher in May 2009. TORA is a long-standing market research agency founded in 1982, whose repertoire includes retail and shopper insight, social research and simulated test markets.

"This is a huge vote of confidence for our young company and we are delighted to be partnering up with such a well-established and reputable company," said co-founder Niall Harbison.shopper insight, social research and simulated test markets. Read More

Courtesy: Silicon Republic

Irish diaspora create their own social networking site

Some 5,000 members have already signed up to join a social networking site called RendezVous 365 that aims to link the 80m people of Irish heritage across the world. It is poignant that such a site is being established by emigrants as the spectre of emigration returns.

RendezVous353 was created in response to modern-day emigration, providing a resource for Irish people all over the world to stay connected with each other and to provide a link between those in Ireland and the Irish-connected people outside of Ireland. Since the test site was created in February, 5,000 members worldwide have already signed up. The newly launched version of the site aims to connect Irish business people around the world, encouraging social interaction and creating a platform for business networking amongst the diaspora. Read More

Courtesy: Silicon Republic

State urged to support clean technology

THE GOVERNMENT and public services should be using their purchasing clout to aid the development of the Republic’s clean technology sector, according to some of the industry’s leading figures.

The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) yesterday published a snapshot of the sector, Inside the Smart Economy, at a seminar for the industry, its financiers and relevant State agencies. After the event, SEAI chief operations officer Dr Brian Motherway said one of the issues that the report identified was the need for State support for the industry, which was just beginning to find its feet.

Mr Motherway said that did not necessarily mean grants but through adjusting procurement policies so that the companies involved could sell their technology, goods and services to the State.

He said this would give the businesses a meaningful revenue stream on the one hand and also allow them to demonstrate the worth of their products to other potential customers. Read More

Courtesy: Irish Times

At last the west awakes to broadband

FOR SEÁN O’Flannagáin broadband access is more than simply a luxury. The former investment banker left Merrill Lynch earlier this year to set up a small investment management firm, Kinsale Capital Management. Based between Dublin and Inisheer, the smallest of the Aran Islands off the west coast, O’Flannagáin depends on high-speed internet access to successfully run his business.

“When we decided to set up the business, we knew that dependable, high-speed broadband was imperative,” he says. “It wasn’t just a matter of having access to e-mail and the internet, we’re increasingly using cloud computing so we need to access data remotely.” Much of the firm’s work involves the use of web-enabled applications. Because it works with global banks, it needs to have secure and speedy access to finance programs.

The arrival of wireless broadband to the remote islands in November last year allowed O’Flannagáin to base his business in Inisheer.

He eventually hopes to work full-time from the area. Read More

Courtesy: Irish Times

Users explore alternatives to Internet Explorer

THE FACT that Microsoft is airing primetime television advertisements to promote its Internet Explorer 8 web browser says more than bragging by its competitors ever could.

Years of security threats regarding Internet Explorer and innovation by more nimble rivals have given the iconic browser a bad reputation and shrinking market share, both of which Microsoft is now trying to reverse. Just a few years ago this kind of push was unnecessary. As late as 2004 the blue “e” was a standard feature on almost all PC and Mac desktops. For many users it signified “the internet” as opposed to an application of any kind.

However, 2004 was also the year that Mozilla launched its alternative Firefox browser, rekindling competition that had not existed in the market for years. Read More

Courtesy: Irish Times