My return to school had been a relatively smooth and tranquil one until I had my first stint on yard duty. Here, I was quickly reminded that the fidget spinning craze is still alive and well. I had convinced myself that, surely at this stage, it had met the same end as loom bands, dabbing, […]
A new school year and lots of opportunities to try different strategies or tweak approaches to topics. For me, the classroom-based assessment component of the Junior Cycle will be a key focus. Our school is running a junior cycle short course in Coding and Programming which I teach alongside two colleagues. This will be our
Junior Cycle Short Courses – Ongoing Assessment with OneNote Read More »
The start of the year generally means the purchasing of new equipment. The three main pieces of hardware that most schools look at are laptops, iPads and, most recently, Chromebooks. This article goes through the advantages and disadvantages of all three. Windows Laptops Strengths: Microsoft Office – Open source and online alternatives still can’t compete
My iPad is an iPad 3; the battery life is still pretty good and the touch sensitive display has no dead zones. All the hardware buttons such as volume control and home button still function correctly and there are no dead pixels on the screen. It works really well and I can’t remember ever having
My iPad & Swift Playgrounds = Obsolete! Read More »
Our journey with the Raspberry Pi weather station for schools has been well documented. To wrap up and celebrate our project we managed to organise a visit from Gerry Murphy, RTE meteorologist. He came into our school on the 19th of June 2017 to see the 6th class project work and to see the school’s
RTE Meteorologist Checks Out Our Raspberry Pi Weather Station Read More »
We recently got a bank of new laptops for our school as we had 10 windows xp devices that we needed to retire. I hate throwing anything out, so I had a think about how we could make use of them in the school. After some research I decided to give these machines a new lease
Converting Your Old Laptop into a Chromebook Read More »
So, the summer is here and as we begin to wind down for our summer holidays, I already find myself casting my gaze to the 2017-2018 academic year. Without doubt, I have made some mental memos about things I want to do next year but that’s often not quite enough. If you have ideas get
Have you planned to focus on anything specific next year? Read More »
Live streaming video has taken the world by storm allowing everyone from individuals through to groups, organisations, news providers and companies to tell their story from their own perspective in real time without edits. It’s that instant share that can of course cause problems, but that’s another story. I’m far more interested in the learning
Facebook Live for Learning – Education DESTY Read More »
Towards a STEM Education Policy Statement and Implementation Plan for Schools The Department of Education and Skills are currently developing a STEM Education Policy Statement and Implementation Plan for Schools. The Department’s work in this area is being informed by the STEM Education in the Irish School System report. The report contains 47 suggested actions
STEM – New Plan on its way Read More »
Technology has given teachers some new superpowers! It is possible for classrooms to open their walls around the world and to communicate with each other. Many schools are now communicating with parents via technology, whether it’s by text messaging or online newsletters or social media. In this article, I’m going to discuss 3 ways that teachers
Setting homework using technology Read More »
