At the end of May 2025, I finally had the opportunity to visit Galway Technical Institute (GTI), our long-standing partner institution in Ireland.
My first contact with GTI staff dates back to 2015 or 2016, when a group of business teachers visited Porvoo. At the time, I was working as a vocational teacher for business students and was tasked with hosting their visit at Amisto – and that’s when I received my first invitation for a return visit to Galway.
Since then, our collaboration with GTI has continued through two international digital projects: DigiVET4all and EDaMVET. In these projects, we developed support materials and training for the use of Moodle for vocational education teachers across Europe. Due to scheduling conflicts, I hadn’t been able to participate in visits to Ireland – until this spring.
In early 2025, I was invited to deliver digital-themed training sessions for GTI staff. During the spring, we planned the content together with GTI contacts, resulting in a diverse training workshops. The workshops covered topics such as:
- Preview of upcoming features of Moodle’s AI subsystem
- AI-assisted creation of H5P activities and Moodle quiz questions
- Learning materials created with Thinglink (including language translations and accessibility tools)
- Using Google’s NotebookLM tool in the production of learning materials
- And other digital tips based on participants’ requests
The workshops went very well – there was plenty of discussion and questions, and the atmosphere was one of genuine interest.
The trip as a whole was busy, educational, and extremely rewarding. I also had time to explore the coastal city of Galway. The return journey was slightly complicated by a strike in Finland’s aviation sector, but I still made it home successfully.
The visit was funded by GTI’s Erasmus+ program – a warm thank you to GTI for the invitation and collaboration!
Teemu Eskola
Teacher, Careeria
