Tony Hall

Tony is a Professor of Education in the School of Education, University of Galway. A design-based researcher, he is Director of Educational Design Research for Designing Futures, University of Galway (funded by the Higher Education Authority's Human Capital Initiative, Pillar 3), and Joint Principal Investigator for the evaluation of the Designing Futures programme. Tony is a Principal Investigator (and Co-Founder) of T-REX (Teachers' Research Exchange (national online platform for teacher research, funded by the Teaching Council, National Council for Curriculum and Assessment and the Department of Education). He is a former second-level teacher (Physical Education, English, ICT, Mathematics) and School ICT Coordinator, and at University of Galway he primarily teaches on initial teacher education programmes, at both graduate and undergraduate levels, and the Life Design/Design Your Life module within Designing Futures, for which he is the academic lead. Within University of Galway's teacher education programmes, Tony teaches modules in English Subject Pedagogics, ICT/Digital Education, Educational Design, and the History and Philosophy of Education. Tony's research interests focus primarily on educational design research, innovation and technology in education. This entails exploring the potential of design-based research (DBR) as a change-driven, solution-oriented research methodology in different educational contexts and settings. Tony has supervised 11 PhDs to completion, in education and design-based research/technology-enhanced learning; and he is Director of Doctoral Studies in the School of Education. He has served as editor-in-chief for two of Ireland's leading educational publications: Irish Educational Studies (Co-Editor, 2015-2020; General Editor, 2020-2023) and Education Matters Yearbook: Ireland's Educational Yearbook (Editor, 2012, 2013 & 2014). He is an Executive Committee Member of the Educational Studies Association of Ireland, and convenes the ESAI Special Interest Groups (SIGs). Tony serves on the editorial boards of several international journals, including Irish Educational Studies and Journal of Computer-Assisted Learning; and in 2022 was appointed Academic Advisor for Routledge Open Research. Since 2007, he has been an invited expert on educational design, technology, and research e-infrastructures for the European Commission; and advises the Teaching Council on educational research.Tony has served as both Head and Deputy Head (two terms) of the School of Education, and inaugural Vice-Dean for Learning, Teaching and Assessment in the College of Arts, Social Sciences & Celtic Studies, University of Galway. He is an Elected Member to Academic Council 2024-2028. Tony is a graduate of concurrent initial teacher education from the University of Limerick (BA in Physical Education & English), and he holds a Master of Information Technology (MIT) from the University of Galway and a PhD from the University of Limerick. He was appointed Lecturer in Educational Technology in the School of Education, University of Galway in 2006, promoted to Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor in 2017 and to Full Professor of Education in 2022. Tony has previously held research positions at the Interaction Design Centre and Enterprise Research Centre, University of Limerick; Learning Sciences Research Institute (LSRI), University of Nottingham, UK; and the Center for Informal Learning and Schools (CILS), The Exploratorium, San Francisco, US. Elected in 2016, he is a Fellow of the International Society for Design and Development in Education (ISDDE).