Conference Agenda

Universities in Ireland strive to be places where every learner can engage fully, confidently and independently. During my Cooperative Education placement with the Centre for Transformative Learning (CTL), I have been supporting staff across the University of Limerick (UL) to make this vision real.

My position was created through Path 4 funding Programme for Access to Higher Education | Policy | Higher Education Authority, to support the Universal Design & Inclusive Practice Committee at UL to develop a systematic approach to the provision of digitally accessible educational materials. My work focuses on helping academic and professional staff create more accessible, inclusive, and student-centred learning materials. This includes developing clear, practical guides on digital accessibility, demonstrating tools such as Microsoft Word and PowerPoint accessibility checkers and aligning with (UDL) Universal Design for Learning principles & creating resources that staff can reuse and adapt, ensuring accessibility becomes embedded rather than an afterthought.

I also collaborate with the Students with Disabilities Advisory Group at AHEAD to bring student voice and lived experience into institutional decision making. This work has shaped my understanding of inclusive education.

This Gasta will share insights from my placement, and show how small changes can make learning more accessible.

The proliferation of various VR and AR applications in education in recent years brought about the popularisation of realistic, high-definition 3d models, In particular, the fields of medicine, biology, engineering and architecture experienced an increased use of such models due to their ability to provide a realistic visualisation of objects that may not be suitably portrayed with illustrations and static images. However, these models, and their application in various teaching and learning scenarios, are no longer limited to expensive VR/AR headsets and advanced programming skills. With the help of open-source technologies, it is now possible to render 3d models in the browser. This talk will introduce participants to a basic workflow using Three.js - an open source JavaScript library used to render 3d models on a webpage, or any of the most popular VLEs, offering learners the opportunity to interact with them on a wide range of devices. During the talk, participants will have access to several Codepens featuring working exemplars and be able to test and interact with the models as well as see the underlying code in real-time. The talk will be particularily useful to learning technologists, multimedia designers and instructional designers working in HE.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly reshaping teaching and learning, offering opportunities to reduce teacher workload, enhance well-being, and improve student outcomes. Framed by sociocultural learning theory, extended mind theory, and the TPACK framework (Vygotsky; Clark & Chalmers; Mishra & Koehler), this GASTA presentation examines how AI transforms teaching through automation, augmentation, and personalized instructional practice. AI enabled tools such as automated grading, intelligent tutoring systems, adaptive learning platforms, attendance automation, and content generation assistants redistribute routine administrative and cognitive labor, enabling teachers to reclaim time for pedagogical judgment, reflection in action, and student interaction. Grounded in research on teacher burnout and well-being (Maslach), these efficiencies support reduced stress, mitigated exhaustion, and improved work-life balance.

Beyond workload relief, AI supports professional growth through real-time feedback, curated pedagogical resources, and data-informed insights that strengthen instructional quality and foster integrated technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge. Emerging technologies such as chatbots, virtual reality, and generative AI enhance creativity in lesson design and engagement for diverse learners. While challenges remain, including data privacy, algorithmic bias, teacher preparation, and over reliance on automated systems, this presentation argues for responsible, human centered AI integration that positions AI as supportive intelligent help and cultivates healthier, sustainable learning environments.

Forecasting trends in educational technology is similar to predicting the weather. Both rely on observing cycles, seeing patterns from signals and making informed projections about what is likely to surface next. Over the past decade, EdTech conference themes have consistently reflected the conversations emerging from the daily realities of technology-based teaching and learning within Irish HEIs. The team in the eLearning Development Services Unit (EDSU) within MTU are particularly interested in IT lifecycles and the cultural challenges that can come about from them. In our Gasta, we will examine these evolving themes and offer forecasts around the directions future conferences may take. To explain this process we will show some previous technology cycles, the patterns they produced and compare them to some current cycles in motion.

In parallel with EDSU’s research, we consider the work of Martinez‑Garcia et al. (2023), whose analysis of trends from 2010 to 2022 highlight dominant topics such as blended learning, e‑learning, m‑learning, higher education, ICT, assessment, MOOCs, online learning, learning analytics, the impact of COVID‑19, medical education, artificial intelligence, server capacity and security, cognitive engagement, and self‑instruction. Additional areas of interest include LMS development, institutional mergers, digital transformation, strategic planning, resilience, and reflective practice.

What's an ethical educational technologist to do when a harmful technology is implemented and forced upon students? This was the dilemma many of us faced when AI-mediated remote proctoring software exploded in use during the COVID-19 pandemic. I followed my values. I shared everything I knew about how the technology worked and why it was harmful. I urged my communities to listen to students.

This Gasta talk is a sequel to 2019's "Protecting Our Values in the Shadow of Tech Giants" from ETUG 25 (available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PG_uvL7pvG8). I will share the story of being sued by Proctorio for 7 critical tweets and the lessons I learned.

After five years, the ordeal is finally over. I never backed down. Knowing that there would be only one chance to stop the advance of academic surveillance software, I continued to criticize Proctorio at great personal risk.

I have a message for all ethical educational technologists seeking to change the future of EdTech in the face of tech giants who would sue in order to silence.

The Computers in Education Society of Ireland (CESI), founded in 1973 as a voluntary, cross-sectoral community of practice, was a 2024 recipient of the Digital Repository of Ireland's Community Archive Scheme. CESI has long held the ambition to digitally preserve and share fifty years of newsletters, conference programmes, and ephemera, assigning each item a DOI and Creative Commons license. The DRI's support has catalysed this work, providing training, infrastructure, and stability for our voluntary organisation whose records could otherwise remain at risk of loss.

Against the unrelenting GenAI discourse, this project invites us to pause and reflect on the people that shaped technology adoption in Irish education. We are ingesting materials from the 1980s through the early 2010s, documenting technological advancements, national events, and professional development in Irish education. Creating metadata has provided an opportunity to recognise "openness as a living project" — honouring the volunteers who have sustained this community (Bozkurt et al., 2023).

This Gasta shares practical lessons from the archiving process, highlighting the value of capturing "fleeting, ephemeral moments to give them permanency and lasting purpose" for future educators and researchers by preserving the history of technology in Irish education (Molloy et al., 2025, pp. 1135).