Micheál Heffernan

Senior Editor

Micheál Heffernan is the Senior Manager of Copy and Content at Learnosity. He’s interested in communication generally and appreciates the multidisciplinary approach taken by artist-designers like Abbot Miller and Olafur Elisasson. He loves books, running, and good coffee – just not at the same time.

Kevin Bell, Head of Higher Ed & Research at AWS
Partner Ecosystem
Learning & Development
Read Time 6 Mins

Partnership, personalization, progress: AWS’s Kevin Bell on how technology is shaping the future of learning

Kevin Bell, Head of Higher Education & Research at Amazon Web Services shares his thoughts with us on technology’s impact on learning, the benefits of disruptive partnering, and the future of learner measurement.

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Profile picture of VP of GLobal Support at Learnosity, Rich Schupe
People
Customer Support
Read Time 4 Mins

Our people: Rich Shupe

Rich Shupe, Learnosity's VP of Global Support, talks big-picture motivations, the power of care in building a company culture, and the wonders of woodworking.

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Disintegrating Head Of David On Pink Background. 3D Illustration.
Principles
Learning & Development
Read Time 6 Mins

How assessment can help tackle learning loss

The concept of learning loss has taken on a new dimension in the era of COVID-19. As learning undergoes a generational shift, it's time to reboot our thinking about assessment too.

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Profile picture of David Sullivan, Technical Sales Engineer at Learnosity
Principles
Strategy
Read Time 7 Mins

“Our job is to find the fit”: Transparency, trust, and the art of the Technical Sale

As the Technical Sales guru at Learnosity, David O’Sullivan combines an oceanic knowledge of our product suite with a deep-seated customer empathy.

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Principles
Learning & Development
Read Time 7 Mins

How to drive digital assessment beyond the MCQ test

Assessment in the Digital Age has been slow to advance much beyond assessment in the Industrial Age – but why? The phonograph changed music forever.…

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Process
Engineering
Read Time 8 Mins

Infrastructure as code: Successfully scaling to new heights

How do you prepare a product to meet the demands of a rapidly growing user base? Meet someone who knows. Alan Garfield is a busy…

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Remote learning distraction
Principles
Learning & Development
Read Time 6 Mins

Remote learning: Can education find its focus in a world of distractions?

The age of remote learning has dawned. But can education compete with the big tech players in the war for students' attention?

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Horacio Balseiro Learnosity
People
Customer Support
Read Time 3 Mins

Our people: Horacio Balseiro

Horacio Balseiro is a support engineer in Learnosity's New York office who appreciates the finer things in life - good wines, art museums ... and climbing stairs.

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Conor Walsh Learnosity
People
Customer Support
Read Time 2 Mins

Our people: Conor Walsh

Conor Walsh is a support engineer in Learnosity's Dublin office, where he brings his sporting talents to the fore by ruling the roost on the in-house pool table.

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Alan Garfield Learnosity
People
Engineering
Read Time 3 Mins

Our people: Alan Garfield

Alan Garfield is the Principal Engineer at Learnosity, where he takes care of our production systems around the world. So no big deal then.

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Gonzalo Learnosity
People
Partnerships
Read Time 2 Mins

Our people: Gonzalo Zawadzki

Gonzalo Zawadzki is the Partnerships Manager at Learnosity, where he works with some of the most innovative edtech companies in the world.

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Allain Dollete profile
People
Customer Support
Read Time 2 Mins

Our people: Allain Dollete

Allain Dollete is a member of Learnosity's support team in the city that never sleeps – New York. His job is to make complex technical stuff seamless for our customers.

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Adam Bextream 2
Principles
Engineering
Read Time 3 Mins

“Accessibility shouldn’t be a separate consideration”

Learnosity's Adam Bextream talks process, priorities, and his hopes for the future of accessibility and inclusive design.

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Heracles with math symbols
Product
Engineering
Read Time 5 Mins

“Perfect practice makes perfect”: Inside the making of Learnosity Math

Jeff Dyer, the brains behind Learnosity’s powerful Math assessment engine, talks programming, product, and philosophy.

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Nina van der Kley Learnosity
People
Engineering
Read Time 2 Mins

Our people: Nina van der Behr

As one of Learnosity's Technical Product Managers in Sydney, Nina van der Kley focuses on self-service products that put clients in control.

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Abstract illustration of waves
Principles
Learning & Development
Read Time 5 Mins

Can student math performance in the US rise above the tide?

Student math performance in the US currently lags well behind its economic rivals. How can it catch up?

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Principles
Learning & Development
Read Time 6 Mins

The workplace skills that will survive the AI revolution

The AI revolution isn’t the end of the line for employees: it’s a chance for them to evolve and develop workplace skills that will endure.

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Principles
People & Culture
Read Time < 1 Mins

Donating today to help the innovators of tomorrow

"Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance."

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Principles
Learning & Development
Read Time 6 Mins

Want to foster greater diversity in the workplace? Start with how you assess candidates

The drive toward greater workforce diversity is part of the battle for talent and another reason why employee assessment needs to evolve. In the Internet’s…

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Principles
Updates & Product Tips
Read Time 3 Mins

Why GDPR is an opportunity to move forward

How does a company whose product is used by clients with millions of users go about ensuring GDPR compliance?

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Principles
Learning & Development
Read Time 5 Mins

How technology can help overcome test anxiety

Test anxiety has a negative impact on genuine learning, but technology can help conquer it. Sometimes it takes a challenge to bring out the best in…

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Students raising hands in a classroom
Product
Updates & Product Tips
Read Time 3 Mins

Some popular questions about Learnosity’s assessment technology

No-nonsense answers to some of the questions we get asked the most.

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Principles
Learning & Development
Read Time 5 Mins

Change anxiety: Is your brain holding you back?

Facing something new presents us with a choice between taking shelter and taking charge. Recently, Slate magazine ran a piece in which a married couple…

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Principles
Design
Read Time 4 Mins

How designing for accessibility can improve product usability

Accessibility and usability ultimately share the same goal – to make products or services easy to use for everyone. The Internet can be a powerful…

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
A red frog sitting on a log in a forest
Principles
Partnerships
Read Time 3 Mins

Collaboration is edtech’s evolutionary advantage

We launched the Learnosity Partner Ecosystem five years ago. It’s since grown into a dynamic community that includes content experts as well as tech vendors. Traditionally…

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Principles
Learning & Development
Read Time 4 Mins

6 ways online testing software can enhance education

To illustrate technology’s potential in education, here’s a list of 6 ways that online testing software can help modernize school assessments.

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Product
Updates & Product Tips
Read Time 3 Mins

Being responsive: Using customer insights to reinvent product features

Our engineers created a far superior image drag & drop question type, but it was our users who helped make it what it is.

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Principles
Learning & Development
Read Time 5 Mins

Under the microscope: The Next Generation Science Standards

The what, the how, and the why of the Next Generation Science Standards. There is a growing sense of anxiety among educators that learners are…

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Product
Updates & Product Tips
Read Time 4 Mins

Making some noise about audio recording Questions on iOS

Keeping our ears to the ground and anticipating change has lead to a vastly improved user experience of the audio question type.

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Principles
Design
Read Time 5 Mins

Accessibility in education helps create better opportunities for learners

If learning materials are not accessible to learners, then learners' abilities won't be accessible to educators. Education should be challenging for all learners. If it…

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Principles
Learning & Development
Read Time 6 Mins

The gathering storm: Student data security in the Digital Age

How can student data security be guaranteed when faced with a threat that can neither be detected nor predicted? In the not-too-distant past, banks represented…

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Principles
Learning & Development
Read Time 4 Mins

Survive or thrive? Investment, insight, and the future of higher education

The future of higher education will not depend on how much investment there is, but on where it goes. It's a worrying time for institutes…

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Principles
Strategy
Read Time 5 Mins

Why tech integration should be part of your product development strategy

Knowing when to leverage others' technologies lets you focus on building a better core offering for your customers. The English poet John Donne once wrote…

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Principles
Learning & Development
Read Time 6 Mins

Seeking a new direction – the future of the multiple choice question

Where does the multiple choice question go from here? Multiple choice tests have been a staple of learner evaluation for a century. Even as technology…

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Process
People & Culture
Read Time 6 Mins

Moving At The Speed Of Thought – Learnosity Hackathon 2017: Part 2

Read about the ideas, the obstacles, the processes, and the results of our teams’ Hackathon 2017 projects. Last week we took a look at some…

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Process
People & Culture
Read Time 6 Mins

Moving At The Speed Of Thought – Learnosity Hackathon 2017: Part 1

Working with teams and technology to turn ideas into realities in a single day. At Learnosity, we value innovation, so it's important to us to…

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Uncategorized
Partnerships
Read Time 3 Mins

Making paper a possibility in computer-based assessment

From paper cuts to cutting edge – Learnosity is working with Paperscorer to better integrate tradition and technology. Despite the forward momentum that technology has…

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Process
Partnerships
Read Time 7 Mins

Paper and digital will converge on the road to better learning

Paper and digital learning may be taking separate routes, but they're heading toward the same goals. In some ways, comparing student performance in digital assessments…

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Uncategorized
Read Time 7 Mins

A byte at the Big Apple: Lessons from Educate NYC

At Educate 2017, our first ever self-run conference, we learned just as much as anyone else. Unlike music idols, A-list actors, or world-famous sports stars,…

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Principles
Learning & Development
Read Time 8 Mins

Are competencies more important than credentials in the modern Workplace?

As college enrollments decline, have skills become more valuable to employers than credentials? “From almost any individual’s perspective,” wrote David Leonhardt for the New York Times in…

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Process
Updates & Product Tips
Read Time 4 Mins

Looking back on Learnosity’s 10-year journey to date

From scrappy startup to SaaS success: Looking back on Learnosity's 10-year journey to date. For the last 10 years, Learnosity has pretty much followed the…

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Principles
Updates & Product Tips
Read Time 4 Mins

Birthday musings: Why company growth isn’t just about the numbers

“Youth ends when egotism does; maturity begins when one lives for others.” – Hermann Hesse, Gertrude On our tenth birthday we realized that age is…

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Principles
Engineering
Read Time 6 Mins

Everything you need to know about the API economy

The API economy is changing the world. But will it change edtech? True innovation transcends barriers such as time, place or culture. From prehistoric plows…

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Principles
Learning & Development
Read Time 5 Mins

In corporate learning, standing still is the same as falling behind

Employees today are no longer learning so they can work; they are working so they can learn. It is difficult to weigh up the considerable…

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Principles
Partnerships
Read Time 6 Mins

Why edtech should be about enriching learners, not investors

As the edtech market continues to grow apace, when does choice simply become confusion? Most journalism on the topic of edtech tends to fall neatly…

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Principles
Learning & Development
Read Time 4 Mins

Exploring wonders is part of the magic of science

Science and magic may have more in common than you think. It might seem odd to us today, but there once was a time when…

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor
Principles
Learning & Development
Read Time 4 Mins

Why assessment matters: A look at the thinking behind testing

Just why exactly does assessment matter so much to your grey matter? When it comes to the brain, there’s a general tendency to mythologize its…

by Micheál Heffernan Senior Editor