The Research
Fostering Digital Empowerment — an online multimedia art resource for Irish primary school teachers.
About Me
I am a lecturer in Primary Education at Dublin City University, where I work with undergraduate student teachers to develop confident, creative, and critically informed approaches to teaching the arts in primary classrooms. My teaching focuses particularly on Visual Arts education, with an emphasis on supporting future teachers to integrate digital technologies meaningfully into their practice.
Alongside my teaching, I am a part-time doctoral researcher on the DCA17 programme at DCU. My research, titled Fostering Digital Empowerment: An Online Multi-Media Art Resource for Irish Primary School Teachers, explores how digital tools can enhance teachers' confidence, agency, and creativity in delivering Visual Arts within the context of the new Irish Primary Curriculum.
Through both my teaching and research, I am committed to supporting teachers to see digital technologies not simply as tools, but as creative opportunities for expression, exploration, and engagement in primary education.
The Research Project
As part of this research, I am developing the Digital Art Lab (DAL) — an online platform designed to support Irish primary teachers in integrating digital art practices into everyday teaching and learning. The project aims to make digital creativity practical, inclusive, and achievable for teachers at all levels of experience.
Design-Based Research
The platform is built iteratively — through real cycles of design, workshop implementation, reflection, and refinement. It is both a research intervention and a practical tool for teachers.
Unlike traditional research that tests a finished product, DBR develops the intervention and the knowledge simultaneously — meaning the DAL platform is shaped by what teachers say, do, and discover in real workshops.
The research sits within the context of the new Irish Primary Curriculum — particularly its emphasis on creativity, agency, inclusion, and the development of contemporary competencies in Visual Arts education.
Cycle