Dr. Margaret Leahy

I am Head of the School of STEM Education, Global Studies and Innovation and also part of the Digital Learning Team (Primary)

As a member of the Digital Learning Team, I have been instrumental in the development of a range of teaching programmes across the continuum from preservice to postgraduate teacher education. Built on a body of classroom-based research and organic in nature, the courses are designed to explore what being digital in learning can mean and how teachers at all levels can meaningfully use the extensive range of digital tools available in the 21st century.

Driven by my interest in the ways in which teachers, learners and digital technologies can interact to create powerful learning environments in school, I have been continuously involved in a broad range of research projects and initiatives (totalling over €400,000 to date). As co-lead in many of these, I have played a key role in designing, implementing and disseminating findings. These include the Innovative Schools programme (ISP, 2007-2009); the DLPC teacher professional learning programme (developed with Meath VEC, 2009-2013) and the subsequent development of the 21CLD MOOC which was launched in January 2016. I was also involved in the development of the Digital Strategy for Schools 2015-2020 (Schools ICT Census 2013; Consultative Paper, Butler et al., 2013) while most recently, I have been involved in an international collaboration led by Distinguished Professor Niki Davis of Canterbury University, New Zealand in carrying out an exploratory analysis of smart multi-stakeholder partnerships in education (Davis et al., 2015; Leahy et al., 2016). We believe that smart partnerships will be necessary to leverage technological tools effectively in schools as many schools and related educational agencies no not have the required expertise or infrastructure.