I suppose it would be a good idea to write a little about what this whole blog is meant to be, and it might be a good idea to share a little about myself while I am at it.
My name is Ken and this is my blog. It is mostly a personal playground where I can share, thoughts, music, photos and anything else that crosses my mind. It is my little corner of the Internet and the only purpose it serves is to keep me busy, keep me occupied, and keep me distracted. I guess it is like my digital garden, I’m not much of a gardener in real life so this will have to do instead.
I was born in 1969, so my most formative years were the 1980’s. That decade shaped me for better or worse and it has heavily influenced my musical tastes and also it was the decade that I first got an introduction to technology. It started with a ZX81 and ended with an Amstrad PC1640, a few short years later in the 90’s I got my first taste of online life with Compuserve. Musically the 80’s started with Madness and the Ska revival, in the mid part of the decade I was a huge Frankie Goes To Hollywood fan and for all of the second part of the 80’s I worked as a DJ.
I am a husband and a father, a son and a brother. I have three grown-up children to remind me exactly how old I am. I have two sisters and twice as many brothers. I am the second youngest and have often joked that the first four years of my life (when I was the youngest) were my best ones and that it has been all downhill since then. I have lived most of my life in Fermoy, Co. Cork but as neither of my parents was from Fermoy I have lots of relations all over. My mother was originally from Dublin and my father was from Milford in Co. Cork.
I am currently living and working in Waterford city. It is my third time living here after two previous spells in 1990 and again in 1997. All three of my children were born in Waterford. Professionally, I have worked for myself, I have worked in the family business (now sadly closed), and I have worked for others in enterprises of all shapes and sizes. I have worked in sales, management, and IT/Web development for all of my career to date. I am always thinking about new business opportunities and ideas.
I grew up working in the family motor and hotel businesses in Fermoy and have also spent time working with Motorola, Thomas Crosbie Holdings and currently with Waterford Institute of Technology where I started helping people avail of the Springboard opportunities to return to education and now work within the Centre for Technology Enhanced Learning as Head of Technology-Enhanced Learning (Acting). I am a lifelong learner and I completed a Higher Diploma in Management in 2013 and completed an MSc in Management of Internet Enterprise Systems with DCU in 2014, I have also completed half of the Executive MBA in WIT and hope to complete it eventually and occasionally get the mad idea that I would like to undertake a PhD.
I am an avid user of MOOCs and have completed over a dozen to date on the various platforms including Coursera, EdX, FutureLearn and iVersity. Technology and education and the interplay of the two are the things that I get excited about and I look forward to seeing the future unfold.
More recently I have started a new podcast / podcast called Who’s Zoomin’ Who? where I get to talk to interesting people about education and technology.