Having spent many years teaching in a main stream primary classroom I returned to school this year with the exciting challenge of teaching children with special educational needs [SEN] as a resource teacher. The Down Syndrome website provides an excellent list of free and commercial software that you may use within your classroom. A site […]
Visual Schedules for Special Education Needs [SEN] pupils Read More »
For the first time in 35 years I didn’t join the morning commute to school on the opening day of the new academic year as I had taken “Early Retirement” a month before the summer holidays began! I now find myself on the outside of the school railings, no longer a participant in the educational
The Flipped Classroom Read More »
As you may know the Department of Edcucation launched the Active School Flag in 2009 to promote physical activity within schools and their communities. There are a number of steps that primary or secondary schools have to follow to recieve the flag and these can be found on their website. At the moment my own
Using ICT to gain an Active School Flag Read More »
Last year Damien Mulley announced that he was ending the Irish Blog Awards just in time for me to pluck up the confidence to enter Anseo.net so I was delighted when I heard that my friends in the KLCK Bloggers’ Network decided to take it on. The Blog Awards Ireland will be happening later this
The Irish Blog Awards are Back! Read More »
Our school uses 3P Learning’s Mathletics, an online subscription based Mathematics programme purchased through CJ Fallon with fifth and sixth classes. During the Easter holidays, I received an invitation to register for a free trial of their latest product – Reading Eggspress. Reading Eggspress is also an online subscription based literacy programme for pupils aged
Towards the end of March I had the pleasure of attending the Atlantic Corridor STEM (Science, technology, engineering and mathematics) 2012 Conference in Tullamore and was inspired by the speakers on the day. The speakers included: Carol Lynn Parente the producer of “Sesame Street”, Ward Van Duffel (managing director of Lego Education), Marc Watson, president
Atlantic Corridor Stem Conference Read More »
Last Thursday The Irish Times carried an opinion piece by Brian O’Connell entitled, “Technology in classroom still in the Dark Ages”. In this article Brian makes some interesting observations on the state of ICT in Irish primary and second level schools. Though these observations appear to be based on personal experiences it is good to
“Technology in classroom still in the Dark Ages” – Are we Really? Read More »
Despite having a difficult web address to remember (http://h30411.www3.hp.com/) Hewlett Packard have one of the most interesting sections on their web site for teachers. I follow them on Twitter (@HPTeachExchange) and they often come up with some lists of great resources for teachers. For example, I used their list of animation resources for a project
HP Teacher Exchange Read More »
Class Dojo (www.classdojo.com) is a real-time behaviour management system for teachers who have an internet-enabled computer and a projector or IWB. You start by creating an account and setting up a class by typing in the names of your students. Avatars for each student are automatically generated during this process. In class, you select a
Behaviour Management With A Little Digital Help Read More »
Earlier this year I introduced some students to blogging. They set up their blogs, wrote their first posts and started down the path of maintaining their blogs. A few weeks later when I asked how things were going, one student commented that she was still enjoying the process but felt that it was like ‘writing
