TEL Community of Practice: Dr Tom Farrelly

Tom Farrelly’s presentation draws on the work from Martin Weller’s very recently published book (Open Access)  Metaphors of EdTech in which he “provides new ways of thinking about educational technology through a wide range of metaphors”. The use of metaphors provides a useful way of unpacking how we use edtech across a wide range of situations and as a way of interrogating the claims and counter-claims about how we use edtech.  Acknowledging the use of metaphors as a conceptual tool, Tom jointly wrote and published an article in 2020, which tracked the history and development of VLEs through the use of metaphors, entitled: VLEs: A Metaphorical History from Sharks to Limpets. At its culmination, this session will ask participants to consider what metaphor most aptly captures their experience of edtech in the past 24 months.

Tom has over twenty years of experience in ITT/MTU where he has combined his social science lecturing duties with his role as an academic developer for eleven years in the institute’s e-learning unit. Aside from lecturing on the Kerry campus, he is also a member of the lecturing team on Cork’s longstanding MA in eLearning Design and Development. Describing himself as a ‘critical technophile’ he advocates for the affordances presented by edtech while retaining a slightly jaundiced eye on the claims made by edtech devotees and edtech vendors.