2016 has been a year of turmoil, uncertainty and divisiveness. Sometimes it’s difficult to see how we as individuals and communities can make a difference when events seem so overwhelming. Young people and children in particular without a vote or a voice can feel impotent when it comes to tackling the big issues. But now […]
World’s Largest Lesson – Development Education Resource Read More »
In February of this year (2016) I wrote about the Lego WeDo robot based learning system for Primary schools. The system includes the ever familiar Lego brick, some absolutely amazing software and a wide range of projects designed to teach scientific skills. Recently I came across a piece of technology that is completely compatible with
New Brick on the Block! Read More »
When I stated, in mid-September, that I would promptly return with an update on how our school was progressing with the Raspberry Pi Weather Station I certainly did not expect it would take this long for the follow-up post! Often, the thief of time is procrastination. However, in this case our Pi team had been
Raspberry Pi Weather Station for Schools – Part 2 Read More »
I was recently asked to help prepare some students for the Credit Union Inter School Quiz competition. One of the children on the team was given the job of learning all the major world capitals. No easy task but one he told me he could achieve in one week using Memrise. I hadn’t heard of it
Learning With Memrise Read More »
As we enter the ‘crazy’ final weeks before end of the term, you think I am going to have time to engage in professional learning activities. Well this is an interesting twist on professional learning and one that has been running successfully for three years now, it is called the Twelve Apps of Christmas. It
Pocket size Professional Development for Christmas Read More »
It’s that time of year again when term tests are coming closer and you remind your students of the importance of revision and regular study. In the case of maths, I find myself continuously emphasising the need for students to practise problems to improve their skills. I prefer to call it math practise as opposed to
Providing Students with Further Opportunities for Learning Maths Read More »
It’s around the time of the year when Parent Teacher Meetings take place in primary schools. I used to dread them despite the fact that I don’t actually meet any parents as I am an administrative principal. The reason I dreaded the meetings was having to organise the timetable for the days. What might seem like
Technology to Book Parent Teacher Meetings Read More »
In an educational context, a Digital Portfolio is a collection of all of the work from a pupil or group of pupils in a class; the work is in electronic format and can contain text, images, video, audio and links to content on other websites. Digital Portfolios can be used to bring together information about
By now most of us are very familiar with Surveymonkey, the online survey and questionnaire tool. Even if you’re not, chances are you’ve been asked at one stage or another to answer a bunch of questions online – whether it’s a course evaluation, expression of interest form, course signup sheet or general feedback questionnaire. The
Dúchas.ie is an ongoing project to digitise the National Folklore collection of Ireland (NFC), one of the largest folklore collections in the world. Basically the objective of the project is to initiate this digitisation so that, by the end of 2016: (i) the public will have access to material from the Collection (a significant portion
