The Transatlantic Cable – An Irish Perspective

(A paper submitted to the 2001 IEEE Conference on the History of Telecommunications, Student paper winner for Europe and Asia.) Changes in the telecommunications industry over the past decades have been significant. The last 20 years has seen a dramatic growth in the dependence of industry and commerce on telecommunications and wireless technologies. Nonetheless the laying…

Unfamiliar or improbable?

“There is a tendency in our planning to confuse the unfamiliar with the improbable” – Thomas Schelling, Harvard economist, in reference to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour Although the above quote is not at all in reference to education or technology – it nonetheless is related and important. There will inevitably be a wall in…

Resilience in Academia

Resilience is the ability the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity; the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness. Academic resilience therefore can be understood as the ability of students and/or staff to achieve appropriately good educational outcomes despite adversity. It’s not rocket science. For positive progress of staff and students facing…