<span>This paper examines the possible influence of podcasting on the traditional lecture in higher education. Firstly, it explores some of the benefits and limitations of the lecture as one of the dominant forms of teaching in higher education. The review then moves to explore the emergence of podcasting in education and the purpose of its use, before examining recent relevant literature about podcasting for supporting, enhancing, and indeed replacing the traditional lecture. The review identifies three broad types of use of podcasting: substitutional, supplementary and creative use. Podcasting appears to be most commonly used to provide recordings of past lectures to students for the purposes of review and revision (substitutional use). The second most common use was in providing additional material, often in the form of study guides and summary notes, to broaden and deepen students' understanding (supplementary use). The third and least common use reported in the literature involved the creation of student generated podcasts (creative use). The review examines three key questions: What are the educational uses of podcasting in teaching and learning in higher education? Can podcasting facilitate more flexible and mobile learning? In what ways will podcasting influence the traditional lecture? These questions are discussed in the final section of the paper, with reference to future policies and practices.</span>

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The use of peer learning and peer assessment has gained increasing interest in higher education driven by both its educational value and by its ability to provide students with the opportunity to develop important transferrable skills. This paper reports on the use of peer learning and peer assessment with a cohort of four-year undergraduate physiotherapy students and an eighteen month taught post-graduate teacher education programme. The study observed the students' engagement in the process, surveyed their opinions on the activity at the end of the experience and conducted one focus group discussion with a subset of students from each cohort. The study found that the vast majority of respondents felt that the experience was valuable and enjoyable. However, when asked to indicate whether it was a fairer method of assessment there were more varied responses. Similarly when asked whether their peers should have a greater say in their overall grade the majority disagreed. Views on the educational value of the experience appeared to differ between the two cohorts of students. The study highlights the influence of a prevailing assessment cultures on students' engagement in peer learning which requires consideration when including such pedagogical approaches.

This study aimed to explore the digital competence of recent entrants into a pre-service teacher education programme in an Irish University. The participants were drawn from a cohort of 208 undergraduate teacher education students. The study employed an online survey that captured both self-reported levels of digital competence and knowledge of key areas of cyber ethics and digital technology. The respondents were active users of technology and very frequent users of social media but reported levels of skills in the use of other digital technologies was lower. In addition, their knowledge of cyber-ethics and associated practices varied. The study also found that they were positively disposed to technology in teaching. The paper argues that, while there are limitations to surveys that aim to capture one's level of digital competence, they can help guide teacher educators in responding to pre-service teachers. However, digital competence is an evolving concept and care must be taken to ensure that frameworks and tools used to assess it do not stifle teachers' autonomy in relation to their utilisation of technology.

This literature review explores the historical development of ICT in Irish postprimary/secondary schools and examines how the education system has responded to the various ICT initiatives and policy changes. The review has found that despite national policy and significant ICT initiatives, it appears that the use of computer technology has instead evolved independent of these changes. The various policy nudges throughout the past three decades have had limited impact on the nature of its use. The predominant use of the technology lies within discrete informatics subjects, which tend to focus on learning about the technology rather than learning with it. Future ICT policy needs to be cognisant of the past, particularly how national ICT initiatives are mediated within schools and the powerful influence of the prevailing ICT culture on external ICT initiatives. IntroductionThe evolution of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has placed continuous pressure on schools to 'modernise' and benefit from their educational potential. Ottesen (2006) argues that expectations of ICT are high both at a policy and institutional level. At a policy level its importance in sustaining competitiveness in the global economy is stressed; at an institutional level it is seen as a potential catalyst for change in education. Beliefs about the influence of ICT on existing pedagogy are quite prominent. Provenzo, Brett and McCloskey (1999) argue that there are a number of questions teachers using technology should ask, they include: how does the computer change the ecology of the classroom and the school? How does it change learning? How does it change instruction? This view of ICT as a catalyst for pedagogical change fails to consider the alternative perspective, that is, rather than asking how ICT changes pedagogy we should perhaps consider how existing pedagogy changes ICT? (Loveless, DeVoogd and Bohlin, 2001).