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Dr. Jake Byrne
Assistant Professor, Education

Biography

Dr. Jake Rowan Byrne is an Educational Technologist and Assistant Professor in Contemporary Teaching & Learning and Computing and course coordinator for the Postgraduate Certificate in 21st Century Teaching and Learning at the School of Education, Trinity College Dublin. Jake is also the Academic Director of Tangent, Trinity's Ideas Workspace, overseeing the undergraduate and postgraduate course in Innovation and Entrepreneurship being delivered by this unit. Jake has years of experience using the Bridge21 learning models to teach teamwork, programming, problem solving, design thinking, game design and other digital media projects.

In 2017 Jake was commissioned by the NCCA to help write the new Computer Science Leaving Certificate course, helping to integrate both skills development and domain knowledge into the specification.

For 2016 and 2017 Jake was the Creative Technology Curator at the dlr LexIcon Library. Responsible for the development and curation of workshops in 3D design/printing, Electronics, programming and hardware development with Arduino and Raspberry Pi. He has continued to engage with public libraries in the delivery of maker education and developing maker spaces.

Since 2019 Jake has been the Pilot Work Package leader for CHARM-EU, a European Commission funded initiative to explore the establishment of transnational European Universities. The CHARM-EU (Challenge-driven, Accessible, Research-Based and Mobile European University) is an initiative formed by five research-based universities (University of Barcelona, Trinity College Dublin, Utrecht University, Eötvös Loránd University Budapest and University of Montpellier). CHARM-EU's vision is to have an innovative university model which embraces the change needed to meet society's challenges, breaking down borders and linking local and global solutions.

Jake is a DCU graduate in Mechatronic Engineering and completed both a Masters in Science in Technology and Learning and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Trinity College Dublin. He also has experience designing innovative technological solutions for industry and is a named co-inventor on a patent.

These experiences have provided him with the opportunity to pursue his passions for innovation, technology, design thinking, educational reform and civic engagement.

Jake welcomes queries from prospective Masters and Ph.D. students who are interested in the following topics: Computer Science Education, Learning Technologies/Tools, Approaches to Teamwork and 21st Century Skills Development

Publications and Further Research Outputs

Peer-Reviewed Publications

Griffin, Daniel, Byrne, Jake Rowan, Design Heuristics for XR Tools to Support Social Presence in Hybrid Teams, CSCW 2023: Emerging Telepresence, 2023 Journal Article, 2023

Vijge, Marjanneke J., Gallagher, Silvia, Byrne, Jake R., Britjita Madhavan, Unnikrishnan, Tschersich, Julia, Allying for sustainability education, EAIE Forum, 2023 Journal Article, 2023

Daniel Griffin, Silvia Gallagher, Vanessa Vigano, Dimitra Mousa, Sanne Van Vugt, Alex Lodder, Jake Rowan Byrne, Best Practices for Sustainable Inter-Institutional Hybrid Learning at CHARM European University, Education Sciences, 2022 Journal Article, 2022 DOI

Cornelia Connolly, Jake Byrne and Elizabeth Oldham, The trajectory of Computer Science education policy in Ireland: A document analysis narrative, European Journal of Education, 57, (3), 2022, p512 - 529 Journal Article, 2022 URL

Byrne, J.R., Girvan, C. and Clayson, J., Constructionism moving forward, British Journal of Educational Technology, 2021 Journal Article, 2021 URL

Bray, A., Byrne, J. R., Tangney, B., & Oldham, E. , The Bridge21 framework: Impact on teachers and implications for equitable, inclusive classrooms, ATEE Spring Conference 2020-2021, Florence, Italy [online], 28-29 October 2021, edited by Maria Ranieri, Laura Menichetti, Stefano Cuomo, Davide Parmigiani, and Marta Pellegrini , Firenze University Press, 2021, pp151 - 153 Conference Paper, 2021 DOI

Dahm, Ralf and Byrne, Jake Rowan and Rogers, Daniel and Wride, Michael A., How research institutions can foster innovation, BioEssays, 43, (9), 2021, p2100107 Journal Article, 2021 DOI

STEM CPD For 21st Century Teaching & Learning - The Bridge21 Approach in, editor(s)Leite, L., Oldham, E., Afonso, A.S., Viseu, F., Dourado, L. & Martinho, M.H. , Science and mathematics education for 21st century citizens: challenges and ways forwards, New York, Nova Science Publishers, 2020, pp3 - 23, [Bray A., Byrne J.R., & Tangney B.] Book Chapter, 2020

Tangney B., Byrne J.R., Girvan C.(ed.), Proceedings of the 2020 Constructionism Conference, Dublin, May 26-29, 2020, 619 p Proceedings of a Conference, 2020 Handle

Tangney, B. Byrne, J. Rowan Girvan, C.(ed.), Constructionism 2020, The University of Dublin Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, May 26-29, TARA, 2020 Proceedings of a Conference, 2020 TARA - Full Text

Daniel Griffin, Jake Rowan Byrne, Mixed Reality (XR) Tools For Distributed Teamwork, The Irish Conference on Game-Based Learning, Cork, Ireland, 26-28 June, 2019 Published Abstract, 2019 URL

Ana María Pérez Cabello, Jake Byrne, Brendan Tangney, El aprendizaje ubicuo en la formación universitaria del Profesorado de Primaria, 2019 Journal Article, 2019 DOI

Technology-Mediated Collaborative Learning: The Bridge21 Activity Model in Theory and Practice in, editor(s)Linda Daniela , Didactics of Smart Pedagogy, Springer, 2019, pp309-330 , [Jake Rowan Byrne, Sharon Kearney, Kevin Sullivan] Book Chapter, 2019 URL TARA - Full Text

Byrne, Jake Rowan and Sullivan, Kevin and O'Sullivan, Katriona, Active Learning of Computer Science Using a Hackathon-like Pedagogical Model, Proceedings of Constructionism 2018, 2018, pp138 - 149 Conference Paper, 2018

Byrne, J. R. and O'Sullivan, K. and Sullivan, K., An IoT and Wearable Technology Hackathon for Promoting Careers in Computer Science, IEEE Transactions on Education, 60, (1), 2017, p50-58 Journal Article, 2017 TARA - Full Text DOI

Fisher, L., Byrne, J. R., & Tangney, B., Teacher Experiences of Learning Computing Using a 21st Century Model of Computer Science Continuing Professional Development, 8th International Conference on Computer Supported Education, Rome, 2, 2016, pp273 - 281 Conference Paper, 2016

A 21st Century Teaching and Learning Approach to Computer Science Education: Teacher Reactions in, Computer Supported Education, Springer International Publishing, 2016, pp523-540 , [Byrne, J. R. and Fisher, Lorraine and Tangney, B.] Book Chapter, 2016

Sullivan, K and Byrne, J. R. and Bresnihan, N and O'Sullivan, K and Tangney B., CodePlus-Designing an after school computing programme for girls, Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), 2015. 32614 2015. IEEE, Computer Supported Education, IEEE, 2015, pp1-5 Conference Paper, 2015

Lorraine Fisher, Jake Rowan Byrne and Brendan Tangney, Exploring Teacher Reactions towards a 21St Century Teaching and Learning Approach to Continuing Professional Development Programme in Computer Science, 7th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU), Lisbon, Portugal, 2015, pp22 - 31 Conference Paper, 2015

Byrne, J. R. and Fisher, Lorraine and Tangney, B., Empowering teachers to teach CS-Exploring a social constructivist approach for CS CPD, using the Bridge21 model, Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), 2015. 32614 2015. IEEE, Computer Supported Education, IEEE, 2015, pp1-9 Conference Paper, 2015

Byrne, J. R., Fisher, L. & Tangney, B., Computer Science Teacher reactions towards Raspberry Pi Continuing Professional Development (CPD) workshops using the Bridge21 model, 10th International Conference on Computer Science & Education (ICCSE), Cambridge, UK, July, IEEE, 2015, pp267 - 272 Conference Paper, 2015 DOI

"CAWriter" a Computer Supported Collaborative Tool to Support Doctoral Candidates Academic Writing: A Pedagogical and Human-Computer Interaction Perspective in, editor(s)Angel A. Juan and Thanasis Daradoumis and Meritxell Roca and Scott E. Grasman and J. Faulin , Collaborative and Distributed E-Research: Innovations in Technologies, Strategies and Applications., Hershey, USA , IGI Global, 2012, pp181-205 , [Byrne, J. R. and Tangney, B.] Book Chapter, 2012 DOI

, System and Method for Measuring Parameters Relating to Agriculture, 2012 Journal Article, 2012

Jake Byrne, David Guerin, Steven Lock, Jerrold C. Manock, 'SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MEASURING PARAMETERS RELATING TO AGRICULTURE', PURDYLUCEY Intellectual Property, PCT/EP2012/068565 , 2012 Patent, 2012 URL

Byrne, J. R., and Tangney, B., CAWriter: A CSCW/CSCL Tool to Support Research Students' Academic Writing, BCS HCI2010 Conference, Dundee, Scotland, edited by Byrne, J , 2010, pp458-462 Conference Paper, 2010

Research Expertise

Projects

  • Title
    • CHARM-EU
  • Summary
    • Trinity is part of the CHARM-EU (Challenge-driven, Accessible, Research-based, Mobile European University) alliance, along with partners Eötvös Loránd University (Hungary), the University of Barcelona (Spain), the University of Montpellier (France) and Utrecht University (Netherlands). Today, CHARM-EU was confirmed as one of 17 pioneer alliances selected by the European Commission. As part of CHARM-EU, Trinity will form part of an inter-university campus around which students, doctoral candidates, staff and researchers can move seamlessly. Alliance members will pool their expertise, platforms and resources to deliver joint curricula or modules covering various disciplines. These curricula will be very flexible and allow students to personalise their education, choosing what, where and when to study to get a European degree. All European Universities in the alliances share a long-term strategy and promote European values and identity. They will also contribute to the sustainable economic development of the regions where they are located, as their students will work closely with companies, authorities, academics and researchers to find solutions to the challenges their regions are facing
  • Funding Agency
    • European Commission
  • Date From
    • 01/11/2019
  • Title
    • CHARM-EU 8
  • Funding Agency
    • European Commisiion
  • Date From
    • January 2023
  • Date To
    • January 2027
  • Title
    • Exten.D.T.2: Extending Design Thinking with Emerging Digital Technologies
  • Summary
    • Exten.(D.T.)2 uses Emerging Technologies (ET) to enhance the pedagogical value, sustainable digitization and potential for wide deployment of Design Thinking (DT). DT is a promising transformative pedagogical innovation based on engaged interdisciplinary learning and the growth of 21st-century (21C) skills for everyone, through entrepreneurial co-creation. Like other such innovations however, it has yet to pull its potential weight in terms of impact in educational transformation. Exten.(D.T.)2 will use design-based research to support/provide evidence for pedagogical transformation via DT enhanced by ET. It will employ already institutionalized, home-grown and open-access digital expressive media of advanced technical readiness for students to engage in DT projects. It will also uniquely integrate with these expressive media ET i.e. ΑΙ-enhanced Authorable Learning Analytics, Augmented Reality, 3D printing/scanning and virtual robotics, to leverage digital implementation, monitoring and assessment of DT projects by teachers in schools. Implemented/developed in different social contexts across 6 European countries, Exten.(D.T.)2 will explore the risks and potential of the pedagogical use of ET and how they support 21C skills, in turn increasing the scope, transformative potential and applicability of DT with ET in mainstream schooling. Exten.(D.T.)2 will invite and inspire teachers and other stakeholders to design and implement such projects, by running original strategic teacher professional development, providing courses and guidelines for them to design, implement and evaluate DT projects in their classrooms. The Exten.(D.T.)2 consortium includes 8 research sites with complementary interdisciplinary academic expertise, to support project development and at the same time with maintained active and sustainable connections with educational institutions and policy-making centers across 6 European countries.
  • Funding Agency
    • European Commission
  • Title
    • ASSESSMAKE21
  • Summary
    • As the maker movement is increasingly adopted into K‐12 schools and nonformal makerspaces, students have more opportunities to generate unique, personalized projects and artifacts, such as computer programs, robots, DIY electronics and to develop new competencies and skills. Digital making technologies if coupled with proper learning methodologies such as suggested by Constructivism (Piaget, 1974) and Constructionism (Papert & Harel, 1991) can provide learning experiences that promote young people's creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and problem-solving skills, the essential skills necessary in the workplace of the 21st century (21st C Skills). However, assessment of these higher order skills is not easy, particularly within these open-ended environments where students create unique solution paths to problems, interact with peers, and act in both the physical and digital worlds. Currently, digital technologies offer novel methods and solutions to assess the 21st century skills and offer insights to learners' efforts and achievements that become available for both learners and researchers. Thus, the goal of this project is to provide, pilot and validate novel assessment methods and tools intended to use for the assessment of 21st century skills. The assessment solutions will be piloted in different learning contexts but focused on makerspaces (schools and nonformal i.e. the makerspaces will be either currently located in Schools or will be nonformal spaces whose programmes engage with School groups). The project partnership will run learning environments that will enable students to act as makers using a wide variety of physical and digital tools through hands-on experiences that emphasize collaboration and creativity following inquiry-based approaches instead of direct instruction of facts and formulas. Teachers and non-formal educators will receive training and will be highly involved in planning and implementing the activities. Finally, the project will report findings and conclusions from implementations and assessments that will take place in 5 schools and 4 non-formal maker spaces in 4 countries.
  • Funding Agency
    • Leargas
  • Title
    • Bridge21
  • Summary
    • Bridge21 is a design based research programme which is exploring a new model of technology mediated learning, that can be adapted for use in Irish secondary schools.
  • Funding Agency
    • Google, Microsoft, NCCA, Ireland Funds, The Iris O'Brien Foundation, ICS Skills and philanthropy
  • Date From
    • 2007
  • Date To
    • on-going
  • Title
    • Trinity Access 21
  • Summary
    • Trinity Access 21 is a manifestation of Trinity College's commitment to innovative educational outreach, expressed in the 'Engagement with Society' theme of the current Strategic Plan. It is a partnership of Bridge 21, the Trinity Access Programmes and the School of Education to develop and disseminate engaging, innovative, insipirational educational models, grounded in research and advocacy.
  • Funding Agency
    • Google, Social Innovation Fund Ireland
  • Date From
    • 2014
  • Date To
    • on-going
  • Title
    • InvenT
  • Summary
    • InvenT is a project based computer science camp for teenagers in Trinity College Dublin. The week long experience is facilitated by Trinity Walton Club in partnership with Bridge 21. InvenT camps run Monday to Friday, 9.30am-3.30pm. On the camp teens will explore and experience Computer Science and Information Technology. Amid daily challenges, CS sessions, and design workshops, there will be time for building friendships with like-minded peers and connecting with experts.. The InvenT curriculum has been developed by Trinity academics and compliments the new Leaving Certificate Computer Science Curriculum. Though only five days long, the course will touch on all four applied learning tasks from the Leaving Certificate.
  • Funding Agency
    • Higher Education Authority
  • Date From
    • 10/04/2019
  • Date To
    • 02/10/2019

Keywords

Automation, Robotic Control Systems; communication, interdisciplinary education,; Computer Science; Computer Science/Engineering; Contemporary Pedagogical Practices; Continuing Professional Development; Design thinking; Educational Technology; Human computer interactions; Information systems development; Information technology in education; Innovation in learning; interdisciplinary collaboration; Interdisciplinary research; Knowledge and data engineering; Lifelong Learning; Skill and Competencies Development; TRANSDISCIPLINARITY; transdisciplinary collaboration; TRANSDISCIPLINARY EDUCATION

Recognition

Representations

Computer Science Education Domain Expert - National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA), development of and consultation on the Leaving Certificate Computer Science Specification (Curriculum) https://www.ncca.ie/en/about/boards-and-development-groups/computer-science-development-group-senior-cycle 2018

Journal Reviewer - IEEE Transactions on Education 2019

Journal Reviewer - British Journal of Educational Technology 2019

CESI*CS Working Group - Computer in Education Society Ireland - Coordination group including CESI, NCCA, PDST and other stakeholders related to Computer Science Education at post-primary level. 2018

Programme Committee - UKICER 2022 Conference - UK ACM Special Interest Group in Computing Science Education

Guest Editor - British Journal of Educational Technology, Special Section "Constructionism Moving Forward" 2019-2021

Programme Committee - UKICER 2020 Conference - UK ACM Special Interest Group in Computing Science Education July 2020

Programme Committee - UKICER 2023 Conference - UK ACM Special Interest Group in Computing Science Education

Awards and Honours

John Holland Undergraduate Scholarship awarded by RINCE @ DCU 2007

EdTech Ireland U.S. cultural exchange recipient - Awarded by U.S. Embassy Dublin 2014

Trinity Teaching Innovation Grants 2016 - Co-Applicant 2016

CHARM-EU - EduBadge in Applying innovative approaches to assessment 2024

Memberships

Ireland ACM SIGCSE Chapter 2019 – Present