That’s the reason I am still on social media: I find out about events from all over the world that I can afford to attend. Yes, I suffer from Zoom fatigue like everybody else, but whenever I get the chance to listen to speakers like Audrey that I admire and never had the chance to listen to in real life, I do take it. That’s what my post title, “going against the stream” refers to.
That’s where I heard for the first time about a new ideation method for wearables called the Crazy Eights. I found the method interesting, and I decided to use it with my class in the Interaction Design seminar I run with the master in User and Experience Design class this semester. So two weeks later, when I was preparing the seminar, I wondered how to mock-up the cards for an online exercise. All I needed was to Google “Crazy Eights Wearable”, and I came across a website called Wearable Crazy Eights that did exact this: generated combinations!
I had to send each of my students a small kit by mail, as my intention was to get our hands dirty and see everybody using a needle with conductive thread. And I used the Wearable Crazy Eights method in the very first session, to get people thinking and trigger their imagination. They worked in pairs, so there were eight ideas per group – 4 each. This is what came out:
My favourites were the belt for cooking playfully and the wig for watching gayly! And what made it even better, Mural already had a template for the Crazy Eights!
A week later, I had the chance to listen to Lee Jones presentation of the paper at TEI:
This made me think gratefully of all the events I managed to attend because they are online. I’ve never attended TEI before, although I always wanted to!
January is not my favourite time of the year. I feel like hiding under a rock and hibernating. Once it gets dark, the only place I like being in is my bed. With a lot of cosy lamps on.
My energy levels are low and my usual mood is ‘grumpy’. On top of this, I haven’t been well lately. So after 3 days of 38.2 degrees C fever in the evenings and some more fatigue than usual, I asked my GP to be referred for a COVID test. I phoned the GP at 10am, I got my appointment at 10:35, went for the test at 12:30pm and had the results in less than 24h. In the mean time, I self isolated in my room, got my own cutlery, mug and plate and wore a mask during the two trips I took downstairs. I rang Ray a couple of times, to avoid shouting through the walls. When the result came back negative, it was such a joy! We went downstairs and had lunch together. We had only skipped one lunch and one dinner together, but it felt like 100 years!
And today I had to go to the hospital for a pre-op assessment. It sounded a bit weird that the surgeon I met last week decided to have my tests done now when we discussed gallbladder removal through keyhole surgery for the end of April. Anyhow, I thought there would be no harm to remind someone about the stent that still lives in my bile duct and couldn’t be removed as planned because all non-urgent procedures are cancelled.
I have a fat big folder in the hospital, and because all the recent developments, I got a lot of questions and attention. Two nurses, an intern, an anaesthesiologist and a registrar took turns questioning and examining me. I was supposed to be there for about two hours, but in the end it became more like five hours, with the perspective that I would go on the drip to be given an antibiotic to treat a gallbladder infection, followed by an emergency open cholecystectomy. I was extremely lucky that in the end all my blood tests were close to normal and no signs of infection were found. What I feel is probably just discomfort from having the stent in there. I can’t explain how grateful I felt for being allowed to go home! I had a whole scenario in mind and a long list of all the things I wouldn’t have been able to do if I got surgery.
And then a story I read yesterday came to mind, told by a Romanian actress that I admire very much. Oana Pellea talks about her mother’s teachings on how to overcome daily challenges: ” When you are discontent or you think you have problems…when you get home, just put your right hand at the back and try to do everything with the left one: turn on the gas, wash yourself, take things out of the fridge…for no more than 10 minutes. And after 10 minutes, bring your right hand in front of you and look at it with your eyes of flesh. And you’ll see the miracle! You’ll realise what it means to have both hands. Or both feet… And then ask yourself: how important were the problems you thought you had 10 minutes before?“
By the time I got home, I felt like I had won the lottery. The blue hyacinth in my bedroom had just opened – I could smell it the very moment I opened the door! Ray cooked dinner and I dealt with my emails. Then we had dinner together. Tried out things on our new Internet radio. And a beep on my phone reminded me about the Limerick Garden Festival webinar – The Spring Organic Garden with Jim McNamara.
The webinar was a breath of fresh air: just hearing people talking about plants and growing makes me happy! And Jim is such a fantastic speaker – he smiles and jokes and turns words into joy and images, and never forgets to be humble! The plans for the spring garden came to life in his imagination, and we could all see with our mind’s eyes what he meant! We owe so much to Carmen Cronin for making these events happen, even during a pandemic! And thinking back to the Ennis and Limerick garden festival several editions, I can almost see the plants in my garden that I brought home from these events!
So all is well in my world! There will be little seeds planted this weekend, and less thoughts about what could be wrong with me, and more plans for the spring garden. After all, there’s a lot of work to be done!
This morning there was a guest on the radio talking about jobs for the garden this week. The sun was shining, so when it came to go for a walk during our lunch break, I opted out and grabbed the secateurs instead. I have a difficult task planned for this spring – replacing two rotting wooden boxes at the back of the garden with a proper greenhouse – and I have already booked the greenhouse installation for February.
The biggest achievement of 2020 was creating a Hügelkultur in our urban garden, that we named Mound Juliette (Hügel means mound, and it was a word play on Mount Juliet, a beautiful place near Kilkenny we spent a weekend at a couple of years back). The mound incorporated the leftovers of an old pergola, and a lot of branches and leaves resulted from the spring clean, plus our own compost. During the first lockdown, I tried very hard to buy a shredder, but to no avail. And one day, Google brought up an add about tool hire, and we hired one for 24h from the nearby HSS branch. We arranged everything online, and the shredder got delivered to our door and collected the next day.
There’s a lot growing on our Mound Juliette this January – from purple sprouting broccoli to red kale, parsley, chives and garlic. And they all survived the frost unharmed.
So I went out and cut a bush that will need to go away to make place for the greenhouse, moved a blackcurrant into a big pot, and distributed a few buckets of compost around the garden. The sun was shining, the robins and starlings kept on popping by for food, and suddenly I felt that this was the best medication for me. Pruning is my spring superpower – it gives me a sense of atonement, helps me observe and imagine how each plant will grow and occupy space throughout the season. And it strikes me how much I resemble my father, who was an avid gardener, but always crammed too many plants in the limited space, because he liked them all so much!
And then I turned around and found this daring snowdrop. It must have been out last week, when it snowed and we had a night with -4 C. But nobody had time to see it and admire its bravery! Thank you, little snowdrop. You made my day!
Today it snowed. It’s very likely this is the only day of the year we’ll see snow in Limerick, and I had to see it in a photo taken by Ray from my bedroom window. That’s because I am not at home – I am back in hospital.
Continued 8 January 2021…
As I mentioned before, I had a long overdue surgery in November to remove an overactive parathyroid. So I had scheduled an appointment with my GP for blood tests on Monday 4th of January to check on the values post surgery. Routine tests, if we are to ignore the rebellious gallbladder that sent me to A&E before Christmas. On Monday evening I got a phone call that my potassium was out of whack, that it was probably a mistake, and I will have to repeat the test on Tuesday morning. Got the test done and forgot about it, until my GP rang at 7:30pm to tell me to pack and go to hospital, as it would not be safe to spend the night at home. It was a huge shock, and I needed a few moments to get used to the idea. I dreaded the hospital and I already knew I would have to go back to have the gallbladder stent taken out, but I didn’t expect to need another A&E trip. This time I arrived early, around 8:40pm. I waited for triage for more than 2h, and then another hour to get to a ward. I felt no pain, just a slight heart flutter. When I finally got to speak to a nurse and a doctor on the ward, I got transferred to the Critical Care unit, as they were worried about my body’s potential reaction to the electrolytes they were going to use to attempt to bring down my potassium. I had no clue where this new problem could have come from. I got connected to an ECG monitor, put on not one, but two IV drips, one in each arm, and had blood samples taken every 4h. I barely closed an eye – every time I fell asleep, one or another of the monitors in the room started beeping. The unit was really busy, staff coming and going, changing PPE for entering each and every cubicle. In the morning, a doctor came to talk to me saying they managed to lower potassium, but my heart beats were far too frequent and something had to be done about it.
They planned to move me to Acute Cardiac Care when a bed became available, which only happened that evening. I was looked after by an amazing team of nurses and doctors, who explained the procedures to me and did everything they could to put me at ease.
The next day, I was first sent for a thorough TTE upstairs. The team had warned me that they will have to check for possible blood clots through a procedure called TSE and only afterwards, if no clots were discovered, I would go through a cardioversion – basically a heart reboot using an electric shock. After 1pm, just as I was losing hope anything would get done, the team arrived to my ward and set everything up for both TSE and cardioversion. I was sedated, and I only remember feeling the endoscope going in and not finding its way. The nurse told me afterwards that they had to take it out and try again, but I don’t remember anything else. I woke up about two hours later, and the nurse told me all was well and the cardioversion succeeded to put my heart back into its proper rhythm and that I’ll be sent home that evening, which was a huge relief.
The following night at home, I woke up around 4am with a sore throat, wondering if I caught a bug in the hospital, and an itchy area on the right side of my chest, that was slightly red. Only in the morning I realised that this was all to be expected – the throat soreness was from the endoscope, and the itch – a slight burn from the defibrillator pad. Sweet sedation amnesia! So glad it worked out and I am back in action, although a bit tired!
2020 was a year like no other. It affected us all in ways that are maybe not yet evident. I read this morning in a mail by AFP that the Kiwis have been saying: “We’re all in the same storm, but none of us are in the same boat.”
For me, it was time to stop and think. I had been travelling too much. I had been doing too many things. I still remember the first week of the spring lockdown when I had the revelation that I managed to have lunch three days in a row. This working from home did me a lot of good. Moving my teaching online was not a problem, as I had the skills and I had the tools. Also, I knew my students quite well by then and continuing online was not a problem. A few adjustments, a few glitches – but it worked. And our 2019-2020 cohort of master students were an absolute pleasure to work with!
I spent my free time gardening – and it was rewarding and uplifting. We built a Huegelkultur in our tiny urban garden that we named Mound Juliette. We made improvements to our home – like many others who found themselves spending a lot more time at home. We went for walks in new and old places. Life went on. We even managed a one week holiday in Bantry, with long walks and sea swims.
Online conferences became the norm. In some ways, this gave me the chance to attend events I could have never dreamt of. In other ways, not getting to Siegen for ECSCW 2020 was a major disappointment, although the organising team did absolute wonders with handling the challenges.
During the summer, I joined a Facebook group organising online writing retreats for women in academia and became one of the regular hosts. In many ways, this peer support group became my saving grace, providing me with a strict temporal structure and a bit of chatter with an international group of colleagues.
A stray cat had her two kittens in our garden and we suddenly became cat people, going out of our way to accommodate the clan.
And there was a bit of canoeing on the Shannon – mostly from Worl’s End to O’Brien Bridge thanks to Munster Kayak Adventures.
The autumn brought a delayed start for the academic year. And then I was faced with the challenge of teaching one module to 285 students from first, second and third year and a handful of programmes ranging from humanities to computer science. The logistics were complicated enough, but what made it really difficult was the relentless coming and going of students until the end of week 5. But we survived, me and my two excellent teaching assistants. It wasn’t easy – everything took 3 times longer than usual, and everything required yet another Zoom or MS Teams meeting.
I was supposed to go to Scotland in April to attend Rowena Murray’s Retreat Facilitators’ training course and the course had to be cancelled. Fortunately, Rowena decided to to offer it online this autumn and I was able to attend. I am planning to organise an online writing retreat as soon as I can in 2021.
I had to have surgery to remove a parathyroid gland gone rogue at the end of November. I lived with the signs for more than 8 years, but things had gone really wrong this year. And then, just as I was recovering, a gallbladder stone decided to take a trip down my bile duct and got stuck there, sending me to A&E at 3am one Thursday night. The 6 days I spent in hospital were probably the worst part of 2020 for me.
I missed my children at Christmas – that’s the time of the year when they usually come to Ireland. And we only got glimpses of Ray’s grandchildren!
Not an easy year, by any means, but I can say we were fortunate enough to come out of 2020 the way we did.
Moving on to 2021, I am a bit slow in setting goals. My biggest wish is that we can get out of this terrible situation we are in and build a better life for us and this planet.
I had a very full year – a lot of things happened in 2018! I was busy – sometimes madly busy, but in a way I was better equipped to deal with the madness than in previous years. Inspired by Ton, I started writing similar blog posts three years ago, but never managed to finish and publish any of them. They are still there in draft form.
I keep on telling my students that there’s never enough time, and one has to make time for the things that are important to them. For 2019, I am planning to take a leaf of my own book, do less things and make more time for reflection. As part of this, I plan to blog more and spend less time on Facebook. It is a valuable source of professional news and observation material for me, but I reckon I could compartimentalise and organise my usage better. And write more.
+CityxChange, a large scale EU project I was involved in at the proposal stage, got funded, and we had our kick-off meeting in November in Trondheim, Norway. I am looking forward to working on the community engagement aspects together with our partners!
Two other projects started as community initiatives and are slowly taking a life of their own:
Friends of Lace, a collaboration between Limerick Museum and a group of local lacemakers that started in 2017, had an excellent year in 2018. We created a new website, a booklet and a Limerick lace making kit for beginners, and we are currently working on a digital catalogue. Our Amazing Lace Symposium brought together over 50 lace makers, researchers and artists, and included two thought-provoking keynotes by Fiona Harrington and Sara Robertson.
Collaborative Housing Limerick, that started as a grassroots research group in May this year, is advancing toward becoming an initiative group. Networking with cohousing groups from all around Ireland following the Housing Ourselves annual conference in Cloughjordan, a visit to the Blahojen Cohousing Association in Aarhus, Denmark, a lot of readings and online observation equipped us well for taking the next steps.
Event organisation:
the Design Research Conference 2018 in Limerick in June. 600 attendees. Fabulous experience. Great speakers. I had the chance to be part of the organising committee. The worst complaint we got was about the weather- too hot – for a change! My personal highlights were the picnics on the lawn and the sessions we decided to move outdoors!
This year we hosted the Irish HCI annual conference in Limerick. Usually it is very difficult to convince people to attend events anywhere else than in Dublin, but based on the feedback we got, the event, which brought together over 60 HCI academics, researchers and students, was enjoyed by all.
A number of publications I worked on for a long time finally came out. Check out this open access Springer book where I have a chapter on the Limerick Local Heroes events and another one with my colleagues on the Woodquay Project initiated and led by the Adaptive Governance Lab.
I had some articles rejected for ‘interesting’ reasons (too long, nothing new here, not enough papers received for publication) and will need more work. Looking back, I am now publishing things I worked on 3-4 years ago, and sometimes the energy is not there anymore. The funding lottery has put new things on my plate, I’ve moved to new topics, and it’s a bit like having to live in the present and in the past alternatively.
I travelled a lot for work this year and this is something I want to become more selective about. Invited talks and conferences are tempting, but do not leave much time for in-depth reflection, reading and creativity. I went to PDC in Belgium, and it was one of the best conferences I ever attended. The community is alive and creative, it creates space for criticism and growth, and I came back with a lot of ideas and new contacts. And the organising committee people were really amazing – the venues, the food, the side events – a fantastic experience!
I also attended a couple of other events, not strictly academic, that brought together various mixes of people: Open Coop 2018, ThingsCon, ICT2018.
I didn’t manage to fit in a proper holiday this year. Nevertheless, attending Elmine and Ton’s Smart Stuff That Matters unconference in Amersfoort in September really helped recharging my batteries! This photo reminds me of the excitement I felt co-designing and building a butler robot who was supposed to befriend all the people in that lovely neighbourhood, as a birthday present for Elmine! Of course our robot came under Elmine’s unforgiving huge hammer in the end, but it was fun to build! I came back filled with thoughts and dreams and joy, having re-connected with old friends and having made new ones, with the best intentions to blog about what happened there…I have a draft somewhere!
The last week of the year was a no-work period, as my grown-up kids managed to finally visit at the same time, and we took advantage of the mild weather to take trips to Connemara, Dingle and also closer to home. And there was time spent with family, new and old friends, cooking and eating and being merry!
Back at my desk now, as those exam papers won’t correct themselves!
Finally, borrowing Neil Gaiman’s words, a wish for all of you:
“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness!”
A few weeks ago, I received an invitation to a Collaborative Economy workshop organised by the Single Market Forum 2017/2018 in collaboration with Sharing Economy Ireland taking place in Dublin on October 18.
On a very fresh morning (only 5 degrees) and after missing the 5:30am bus, I made it to Dublin on time.
We started with a quick round of introductions, and I found out that in the audience there were several people from the EC, guests from Denmark,UK, Portugal
and Italy, representatives of various Irish governmental and non-governmental organisations, people from academia studying the phenomenon, companies and organisations involved in the Collaborative Economy in Ireland.
Then a few of the guests had very short (4 min each) interventions, where we heard about the study initiated by DG Grow on short-term accommodation platforms, about defining the term “worker” in the case of non-standard work (DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion), about a two years fact finding investigation on the role of platforms for e-commerce (DG Connect). Guests from Sharing Economy UK and Denmark (link to the Danish Govt Strategy here) spoke briefly about their countries’ specific situations.
We spent the next session sharing stories about our own involvement in the collaborative economy in Ireland. I had the chance to hear from, among others, Karolis Duoba from Tryilo, Maggy Morrissey, a photographer who has an Etsy shop and is involved in organising monthly meetups for photographers interested in monetising their work in Dublin, and Fiachra Duffy, who is working for Deliveroo in Dublin. The story that stuck with me was Simon O’Rafferty‘s story about the Trade School, an initiative that aimed to bring people together to exchange skills, while at the same time giving them the opportunity to connect with others.
During the next 3 sessions, we joined various “Conversation Tables“, each dedicated to a topic. I started with “From local to global“, where we spent a good part of the time trying to come to a shared understanding of what we all meant by “local” and by “global”. I then moved to “From rural to urban“. During the last session, we discussed “Harnessing social and environmental opportunities“, talking about what could be done to provide better support for housing, education and food issues. The format worked well- at each table we examined challenges(1st round), resources(2nd round) and solutions (3rd round), while a topic facilitator stayed with the same topic for all 3 rounds.
Before lunch, the Your Europe resource website was presented. The resource is dedicate to those who move from one European country to another for work and have to make sense of the legislation in a new country. I would have loved to have access to something like this years ago when I moved to Ireland!
In the afternoon, we were all invited to suggest topics for two rounds of Open Space sessions in relation to the future of work in the digital economy.
First, I joined a session on ‘Creativity and Freedom‘ suggested by Saoirse Sheridan, whose ElderHomeShare initiative had drawn my attention in the morning. We attempted to understand what the two concepts meant for each of us, and we ended up noting the future steps each of us wanted to take to bring more creativity and freedom into our own lives. I surprised myself telling the group how much I enjoy the creativity and freedom afforded by my academic career, which is quite a change from my usual moaning. I guess the sabbatical did wonders!
The second session I joined was titled “Are platforms creating value? If so, for whom and how?“. We spoke about how platforms are more similar to marketplaces than to corporations, the various skills required by the collaborative economy, the possible sharing of data between governments and platforms. We were all intrigued by the business model of Urban Volt, illustrating that not all the collaborative economy initiatives rely on platforms.
We came back in a circle for a round of presentations and conclusions, which was video recorded and might appear online at some point. All our discussions were illustrated throughout the day by the fantastic Sabine Soeder aka CoCreative Flow, who persuaded me I should have a go at graphic facilitation(will have to find the time though!).
It was a dense and exciting day that gave me the fantastic opportunity to meet and talk to peers interested and working in the Collaborative Economy. I left with the hope that this was only the beginning, and that we’ll be able to help disentangle these complex issues through the SharingAndCaring COST action and the CollabEire Special Interest Group.
The Single Market Forum 2017-2018 has organised 3 other similar workshops in other European countries before the one in Dublin. Kudos to Dana-Adriana Puia for bringing it to Ireland and to Elizabeth Douet from Sharing Economy Ireland who initiated this!
Last Saturday, we attended the “Housing Ourselves” conference in Cloughjordan eco-village.
The conference is part of the Convergence Festival, that is at its 20th edition. Cultivate hosted this conference in partnership with Cloughjordan Co-Housing and Cloughjordan Ecovillage, and its aim was to explore new models of housing, smaller homes and more liveable neighbourhoods for healthier and more sustainable local communities. The participants – from all the ways of life, all around the country, and all ages- were all interested in how a community-led approach to housing could work. The introductions session was titled “Voices from the field“, and we really heard a variety of voices, from young couples interested to build a tiny home to seniors in search of the ideal retirement solution (as were we!).
Housing is a real problem in Ireland, and the number of people (and families) who become homeless is rising.
The event was facilitated by Davie Philip from Cultivate. In his introduction, Davie mentioned the Irish Community Living Unconferences series that happened earlier this year in Dublin, Cork and Galway and attempted to bring together people interested in the areas of Community Living, Co-operative Housing and Eco Villages. In Cork, an initiative group formed following the unconference held there.
In the morning, we started with a series of presentations.
The first part was dedicated to Irish case studies. Prof. Peadar Kirby spoke about the Cloughjordan ecovillage project started 20 years ago. The economic crisis prevented the project from being completed, and only 55 family houses were build on the existing 120 plots.
After that, Margarita Solon gave a talk about McAuley Place in Naas. The former convent was redesigned and extended to host people from all paths of life for a weekly rent of 100 Eur. As Margharita Solon emphasised, the centre does not provide care – but they really care. The initial idea emerged in 2000, and the first resident moved in in 2011. The facility includes tea rooms, a garden, a charity shop and a reception. Art exhibitions are organised periodically. The centre hosts many kinds of community events, that allow the residents to interact frequently with people from their local community.
The next to present was Hugh Brennan, one of the founders of O Cualann. O Cullann was created in 2014 and is a voluntary housing cooperative based on the principles of co-housing approved by the Irish Council for Social Housing. The first estate built is located in Ballymun. The development includes 49 units(while there are more than 700 people on the waiting list at the moment. It is dedicated to families with a household annual income between 36 and 79,000 Eur per annum. The future residents meet periodically, get to know each other and write their own rules for communal living. The development started the construction in Oct 2016, and. The first 5 families have already moved in. 70% of people are from the local area and only first time buyers are accepted.
During the next session – Learning from Europe, Davie Philip gave us a tour through various co-housing projects in Europe, from the Eva-Lanxmeer project in the Netherlands and East Whins in Findhorn, UK to the SUSI Vauban project in Freiburg, Germany, that gave a new life to a Vauban fortress. The beautiful images in Davie’s presentation gave wings to my imagination!
Paul Allen’s stories from communities formed around CAT in Wales were really fascinating. Turning a derelict mansion into a co-housing place makes a lot of sense now that I’ve listened to Paul. Paul mentioned Radical Routes , a network of co-ops and individuals working toward a world based on equality and co-operation, the One Planet Development law that was passed by the Welsh Parliament and the Llamas ecovillage.
We had a delicious lunch prepared with local produce and we enjoyed meeting more of the participants and hearing about their reasons of being there.
The next session was dedicated to conversations in a World Café format.We discussed what hinders and what enables a cooperative approach to housing.
As factors hindering the approach, mentality, a culture favouring ownership, the lack of information and facilitators, the difficult access to land, passive and dominant people, people seeing themselves as disempowered, fear and conflict avoidance were listed. On the side of enablers, the Friendly Societies Act and CLG companies, crowdfunding and access to financial resources were named.
Community Finance Ireland and Clann Credo were mentioned as potential funding sources for such projects, and the example of the Calann Camphill Community was brought into discussion. We watched this video and got a better idea of the goals of the Camphill Communities, which I had only heard vaguely mentioned before.
The PIMBY concept (as opposed to NIMBY) was mentioned in relation to this inclusive neighbourhood project involving mutually interested citizens.
The next set of presentations, dedicated to Financing Cooperative Housing Projects, started with John Masterton, the Head Financial Officer of Cooperative Housing Ireland. The organisation was formed in 1973. The houses they develop are 25-30% cheaper, and they currently have built 5800 houses that are owner occupied. 2300 houses are under management, and 600 units are leased. They are approved to borrow from the Housing Finance Agency. The building of a 8-10 houses estate involves the identification of a site, a general specification and contracts signed with all future home owners.
Finally, Jackson Moulding and Anna Hope from Bristol’s Ecomotive spoke about their work in Bristol. Jackson had just returned from a 2 months study trip through Japan, the US, and Canada, where he sought inspiration from other co-housing projects. Jackson and Anna initiated the Ashley Vale Action Group, building their own houses in an area that was initially supposed to become a parking lot. Jackson spoke enthusiastically about Bristol as an ecosystem of innovation, where things often happen in spite of the local authorities. He maintained that “a No is an uneducated Yes”, and it is our duty to educate the people around us when it comes to social innovation.
The final discussion was dedicated to Community Led Housing and Modular Homes, and ended with a reflection on the day.
I found the conference extremely well organised and informative. It was useful both from a personal point of view, giving me alternative ideas for when we’ll retire, and professionally, providing me with a unique chance to reflect on the existing gaps in the efforts toward ensuring proper housing for everyone in Ireland that technology might help filling. I am already looking forward to the next edition of Housing Ourselves, which will take place in May 2018.
For the third and last leg of my sabbatical, I decided to visit the University of Siegen, in Germany. I was here in July 2010, with a DAAD grant, and I really fell in love with the place. My colleagues here were among the founding members of our COST action, I hosted and supervised a few of their HCI master students in Limerick, and every time the chance occurs, we are organising events together.
As I was spoiled back in 2010 (one of the secretaries found me a small studio overlooking the valley in Weidenau before I arrived), I was hoping I’ll be that lucky a second time. In the end, I had to be grateful to be accommodated in a small university guest apartment in Artur-Woll-Haus, as the semester is still in full swing and my efforts on online rental sites didn’t pay off so far.
On Friday – my first day at the university, I had a full day, meeting up with my hosts, making plans for my stay and joining my colleagues on a visit to a potential city centre venue for FabLab Siegen.
I also found a nice cafe by the river with good wi fi.
I recognised some places from my previous stay, and I discovered some new ones.
I am really looking forward to the next two months!
I am back in Limerick for a while, enjoying my own home’s comfort and tweaking things in the garden. The last two months in the UK were demanding and I did a lot of travelling around.
It’s good to be home for a while, reflecting on what I saw and writing.
In the mean time, there are a lot of interesting events happening in my own university – a briefing about joint EPSRC- SFI projects, an information session on the Draft Societal Challenges 6 Work Programme 2018-2020 (part of Horizon 2020).
My colleagues running the Social Media for Social Good module had the idea to submit a paper to the Shannon Consortium Teaching and Learning Symposium about our experience teaching this module over the last two years. Our paper “Building Resilience Through Experiential Learning: A Case Study of Undergraduate Engagement with Community Organisations”, co-authored with John Lannon, Sheila Killian, Liam Murray and Stephanie O’Riordan has been accepted and will be presented at the symposium this month.
