On Friday the 8th of June the 2018 Digital Strategy Action Plan was published. The plan sets out a road map for the next twelve months. There are over 80 actions outlined in this action plan and one of these relates to Coding in the wider Primary Curriculum. Action Number 1.2 states that four sub-actions […]
Coding resources are Evolving Read More »
Normally my blog contribution for the TeachNet community is based on a new or interesting ICT resource that I think should be highlighted as a possible teaching resource to help further integrate ICT into the daily teaching and learning in our classrooms. This time however I’m going off-script to look at some recent research, carried
Let’s learn from this research! Read More »
There are lots of ways that ICT can act as a valuable Literacy resource in the classroom, from the numerous software programs on the market to the multitude of apps suitable for Tablets. Some of the Tablet apps, such as Toontastic and SockPuppets, have become firm favourites in the classroom and are used as part
During a “Croke Park” session on “Tablet Devices in Primary Schools” late last year, the topic of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) generated lots of discussion and debate. The arguments for and against this initiative were well reasoned and well thought out and all of the arguments will be familiar to anyone who has followed
BYOD – more headaches than benefits? Read More »
Some years back I wrote a dissertation on the topic of Gender Imbalance in Computing Disciplines at 3rd level with particular reference to Institutes of Technology and the implications for Primary and Post Primary integration of IT into the curriculum in Ireland. The conclusions I drew from my literature review and research findings were as
Wizer is an online resource website where teachers can create interactive worksheets for their pupils. These worksheets can contain images and video and questions can be presented in several different ways. There are many visual edits available to help make the worksheets more engaging to pupils and the library of templates is extensive. Once a
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 »
One of my all time favourite ICT, SESE teaching resources, Google Earth, has recently been updated and it contains lots of new features to enhance the user experience. Google Earth is of course a software program where the earth is shown in either 2D or 3D mode and the new update brings Google Earth directly
The New Google Earth Read More »
Earlier this year I participated in a European Schoolnet online course on administering a school ICT infrastructure. The course presented information about current practices and new developments to schools ICT administrators. The course content was divided into the following topics: 1: Optimising the school network 2: Wireless Networking and Bring your own device 3: Cloud models and
School ICT Planning Read More »
I use several Cloud Storage options to backup data; however I rely heavily on local backup options. The 175 Gb external hard disk that I use for all my important backups suddenly became RAW! A RAW drive is a hard drive partition which has not been formatted with the file system neither FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 nor NTFS/NTFS5. Windows does
Recovering from a Hard Disk failure Read More »
