I am delighted to let you all know that Cathy Fowley is now Dr Cathy Fowley. She received this accolade following her viva on Wednesday 4th May here in DCU.
Cathy has been a very major part of the DCU Intergenerational Project (ILP)which began in 2008. She first joined as a student volunteer. That is whenI first met her and together we discussed the benefits of developing teachingand learning methodologies that could best be used so as to enable olderpeople to become more fully involved in the use of technology and in accessing social media sites.Cathy in recent times has become involved in the projectas a tutor.
Cathy's own research is in evaluating how younger people use blogs and social media as a social network medium.Through the ILP, Cathy has further developedthis concept so as to evaluate how social media might be of benefit for many older people now and in the future.
Cathy is a native of France and I have been constantly fascinated with the fluid way that Cathy moves so seamlessly from conversation in English to conversation in French when she meets with other colleagues from France hereon campus. Since 2008 Cathy has moved to introduce a Blog spot for the ILP and a twitter space so that we can discuss, exchange, ideas and perhaps most important of all is to enable us all to stay connected to each other through our shared stories and opinions shared on our Blog and Twitter site. This was during a time when she was busily studying for her own doctoral thesis. I have no doubt that she will further expand and develop this idea for the future.
Cathy together with our fantastic tutors, Carmel, Eimear, Joan, Marian and Joan have developed teaching and learning strategies so as to enable older people to access the technology with an ease and to make it suitable for use in their daily lives. In many ways we would like to think that this is a Gateway intofurther learning opportunities at third level. This together with the one-to- one shared learning/peer learning engaged in between the older students on the ILP, and in particular through the volunteering of our DCU students makes this goal much more achievable for our older students.
So on this day Cathy we would all like to congratulate you and say well done.Your achievement is so well deserved. We look forward to working with youin the future through the ILP. We would also like to wish Eimear very best wishes during her stay in hospital and Eimear we wish you a very speedy recovery. Finally for all our students who have participated in the project and whoare busily writing up their theses just now, studying for exams or workingon assessments we want to wish you very best wishes now and in the future.We also want to thank you for the time you volunteered with us on the project. We look forward to meeting you again soon.
Well done Cathy
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