Cian Ginty's portfolio

What’ next? blocking Google?
April 25, 2008

With Ballyfermot college’s internet censorship expanded once again – even if access to Yahoo was only restricted  for around a week – we find our selves saying again:

The blocks have no place in a modern third level education establishment, and such is even more so the case for a media focused college.

Blocking websites could be appropriated for secondary schools, but treating third level students like this amounts to counterproductive censorship. It is on par with China’s censorship of its people, not because the intent is there, but due to the results.

The college is at fault creating a weakness in knowledge, and experience for its students. It is putting students of a small college in a disadvantage in an area that it is completely unnecessary.

Darklight festival calls for student work
January 24, 2008

Darklight_logo_07The organisers of the Darklight art, film and technology festival have requested  submissions for their 2008 programme, including student work.

Darklight 2008, described as the premier festival for digital filmmakers, animators and artists, will take place from June 26 to 29.

With no restrictions on genre, length or number of submitted works, the event welcomes a wide range of content including feature films, experimental video works, CG animation, games sequences, and music videos.

“We really, really want to see your work… Darklight explores the convergence of art, film, and technology and focuses on work that challenges concepts, visual aesthetic, narrative, access, methods of production, and dialogue, through contemporary film-making techniques,” said the organisers in their latest newsletter.

“We support and encourage work that pushes technological boundaries and displays creative excellence. Our mission is to nurture new talent and to create bold new possibilities for the imagination”. People interisted are asked to visit darklight.ie.

Programme aims on demystifying third level to national school pupils
March 07, 2008

Bcfearts Ballyfermot College of Further Education is working with local national schools to help demystify the ideas of going to college for pupils.

Arts4Success is to start this month; it will include the areas of painting, photography and sculpturing. It follows an animation programme last year for national schoolchildren called Animation4Success.

The projects are run by arts lecturer Louise Boughton with the help of BCFE students, while the schools involved are the Dominican Convent Schools, St Michael’s, St Raphael’s and St Gabriel’s, as well as the De la Salle Boys School.

“The main aim of the programmes is to de-mystify the prospect of going to college by inviting the children into the college on a normal working day to work with art students in a fun environment and learn some artistic skills,” said Boughton.

Boughton says the projects, which are followed by a exhibition the students’ work, are also aimed to build links between the college and the local community.

“We hope to build a certain confidence and pride in the children with regard to their work by having the screenings and exhibition. Another aim is to branch out into the community more and provide links between it and BCFE”.

She adds: “We also emphasise the link with teachers in the schools and hope they can bring back some of the techniques to the classroom”.

Opens days for planned west Dublin Luas
November 20, 2007

- Luas stop planned outside BCFE

Open days will be held next week for the planned Lucan Luas. The new line may serve areas such as Ballyfermot, Liffey Valley, Cherry Orchard, Inchicore, and Kilmainham.

One of the proposed routes will see the creation of a stop at Ballyfermot Village, just outside Ballyfermot College of Further Education.

The Lucan Luas is projected to add 25m passengers per year to the Luas network, according to the RPA, the State body with control over Luas and Metro projects.

The line is set to run from Lucan to Dublin city center. There are two main routes proposed, and five sub-routes, which could use parts of the main routes. If a section via Park West is chosen, Ballyfermot will be by-passed.

The open days are part of the public consultation phase of the planning of the project. The public can find out further information and give their views on the routes. The closing date for submissions is set at January 31, 2008, and the RPA expect to have an ‘emerging preferred route’ by late Spring 2008.

“Over 110,000 copies of the Line F Newsletter which describes the route options and the process have been distributed to homes, businesses and other stakeholders along the proposed routes,” said a statement from the RPA.

The opening days, which run from 11am to 8pm, are as follows: Monday November 26 – Fitzwilliam Hotel, St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2; Tuesday November 27 – Clarion Hotel, Liffey Valley, Dublin 22; Wedesday November 28 – Lucan Library, Newcastle Road, Lucan, Co Dublin; Thursday November 29 – Ballyfermot Civic Centre, Ballyfermot, Dublin 10; and Friday November 30 – Oblates Hall, Inchicore, Dublin 8.

Ballyfermot could get Dart station
December 01, 2007

- Station would be part of the planned western Dart
- Area under ten minutes from Ballyfermot college

A railway station that would be part of the expanded Dart network could be built near to Ballyfermot Village and Ballyfermot College of Further Education.

The RPA project manager for the planned Lucan Luas line told the Ballyfermot Post that Irish Rail were looking at the possibility of creating a new station where the Kylemore Road passes the Kildare to Heuston railway line.

The location is just over ten minutes walk from Ballyfermot Village. It is even closer to the back of the media building at BCFE, although the gates for that walk way are currently locked.

The station, if it went ahead, would be a Dart station under plans to expand the Dart network to both the Kildare and Maynooth lines. It would offer transport users in Ballyfermot a fast rail link into the centre of Dublin and direct connections to all rail transport in Dublin.

As we reported before, the RPA have selected a route past college as one of two possibilities for the Lucan Luas. With both of the proposed Luas routes, the RPA would place a connecting station close to the railway.

The ‘four tracking’ upgrading of the Kildare line – allowing for a separation of city and intercity services – is currently under constriction. While the Dart Underground project is at an advanced planning stage.

- Read more on the planned rail transport for West Dublin in the Ballyfermot Post, due online and in print on Friday, December 14.

Lecturer bans Google and Wikipedia
January 21, 2008

A lecturer at a UK university has banned her students from using Google and Wikipedia, saying students were relying on the websites too much and dubbing the trend as “the University of Google”.

Professor Tara Brabazon (49) restricted her students to a strict reading list, saying: “I ban my students from using Google, Wikipedia and other websites like that. I give them a reading list to work from and expect them to cite a good number of them in any work they produce”.

Brabazon is the author of ‘the University of Google: Education in a (post) information age’. Reports from the Daily Telegraph, the (London) Times, and Daily Mail newspapers as well as the Press Association all exclude the fact the lecture was the author of the book published last year. She is also credited as editor of ‘the Revolution Will Not Be Downloaded’ due out this year.

The author and lecturer of Media Studies at the University of Brighton recently held a talk titled “Google is white bread for the mind”. But her messages, including looking further then the first web search results, may be easily due to the focus on the high profile internet names.

Her call comes as warning from third level institutions increasingly warn about wholesale plagiarising from the internet. Websites such as Wikipedia should also be only used as a starting point for research as anybody can edit pages on the site, and it can take months or longer before unsound information on the site is corrected.

Our tips for online research
- Wikipedia can not be trusted
- Google is not the authority on every thing
- Use advance search for searching one site or between dates
- Try news, news archive, books, and scholar searches
- Also try Yahoo, or directories like dmoz.org
- Use the search features on other websites, like newspaper sites
- Remember not everything or everybody is online

Student union welcomes official grants website, but warns of rise in rents
January 23, 2008

116836339647483701phpya2qlr1A new website, studentfinance.ie, has been welcomed by the Union of Students in Ireland (USI), but the union also recently claimed a rise in rents.

The new site was launched this week by the Higher Education Authority as a guide to student grants, it is the first official website of its kind.

USI president, Hamid Khodabakhshi, said: “This website is essential viewing for every student, school-leaver and final year student”.

“The USI hopes that studentfinance.ie will make the subject of applying for supports less daunting. This is one way of supporting more students to continue in education”.

Last week the USI also warned that students could soon be forced to decide with collage they attend based on what they claimed was a “soaring” rise in private rent and a shortage of affordable accommodation.

The student’s union called on the Minister for the Environment, John Gormley, to establish a student accommodation taskforce.

“The student grant was not raised adequately last August, so students are measurably worse off compared to 12 months ago. Ministers need to get real about what it costs students to support themselves,” said Paul Lynam, USI eastern area officer.

“Once Minister Gormley fulfills his promise to establish a Student Accommodation Taskforce, one of the first things USI will propose is immediate Government investment in purpose-built student accommodation”.

UCC to hold journalism conference on the future of newspapers and new media
January 29, 2008

Journocon University Collage Cork is to hold a journalism conference next month which will ask if newspapers are on their last leg and in danger of being replaced by new media.

The event will include speakers from newspapers and new media.

Organised by the UCC Journalism Society, the second annual National Journalism Conference is set to run on from 9.30am to 4.30pm on Wednesday February 20.

The theme of the conference is “Death of a newspaper: is the traditional newspaper at risk of being replaced by the various strands of new media?”. Tickets for the event cost €10 for students and €15 for others.

Media industry speakers at the conference include: Ger O’Regan, editor of the Irish Independent; Jill O’Sullivan editor of Thomas Crosbie Media; James Cridland, head of future media and technology at BBC Audio & Music Interactive; Rick O’Shea, 2FM presenter; Joe O’Shea from the Seoige & O’Shea show on RTE; and Damien Mulley, an expert on technology trends and social media.

More details on the conference can be found at motley.ie.

COMMENT: Road safety must be taken seriously
March 07, 2008

The Irish Examiner reported Monday that there have been 63 lives lost in the 63 days so-far of of 2008, our story on drivers’ behaviour on a road near this college is just another of many indicators that making Irish roads safe is little more then something we would like to do, but it’s just too much effort for most. A statement last year from the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) shows the typical mentally in Ireland.

“The imposition of a tougher licensing regime on younger drivers is designed to address road safety concerns. USI welcomes the fact that the Government is determined to lower the number of accidents caused by inexperienced drivers,” said Peadar Hayes, the USI welfare officer. “But younger drivers are often quite dependent on their cars, and that is often by necessity.” Simply put, the union welcomes ways of stopping deaths, but not at the apparently extreme cost of inconveniencing students.

The union said the emphasis on improving road safety must be matched by “wholesale” public on transport improvements… Is there another way of reading this besides ‘no safety without public transport’?

And it gets worse, the now USI president, Hamid Khodabakhshi, said: “Protecting people’s mobility, safety, and the environment: these three watchwords must inform improvements to licensing and testing, but also improvements to public transport,”

Watchwords, more like buzzwords. What kind of nonsense is this? More people driving is good for the environment?

COMMENT: Democracy, the real loser with Lisbon
March 07, 2008

Ireland is the only European Union state to be putting the Lisbon Treaty to its people; but it must be questioned why Europe sees nothing wrong using the back door to push through a watered-down version of the rejected EU Constitution.

The text for the proposed constitution for Europe said citizens would have been “directly represented” in the European Parliament and represented at the European Council a less directly.

“Every citizen shall have the right to participate in the democratic life of the Union,” the text read, and it went on to say the “will of citizens of the Union” should be taken into account. The document not only talks of democracy in lose terms, it adds the workings of the Union should be democracy and every citizen “shall have the right to participate”.

The EU constitution would have enshrined the idea and ideals of a democracy system. Therefore, it should not be a leap of faith to expect its follow up to be introduced in the most democratic way – putting the question to all the “citizens of the Union”.

Why then are the democrats of Europe passing the constitution’s predecessor through the back door?