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
Last week I attended the Ericsson Atlantic Corridor National Primary Science Leinster regional finals in Tallaght IT and was delighted to see such high standards of science work being displayed by all the pupils that attended. The winners of the event made electricity using lemons along with copper and zinc plates. One can find videos
The uses for the digital camera in the classroom are endless. Both the teacher and the child can easily integrate this simple piece of technology into their everyday classroom activities. As the saying goes; “A picture speaks a thousand words”, and this is certainly something that we as teachers need to exploit this in our
Digital Camera during Activity Time Read More »
Every teacher has accumulated a number of websites that they use every day for teaching different topics. At the moment I’m teaching the pupils about money. Three great websites that I find very useful to teach money in the primary setting are: This is an award winning game for primary school pupils to learn all
Sharing maths resources using delicious Read More »
A couple of months ago, I decided to try and make a mobile phone app for my school. Apps are considered quite the fashion accessory and most well-known companies have their own app to showcase their products. For a school, I thought it would be a good idea to be able to give parents the
Our School’s Smartphone App Read More »
Primary Games Arena is a website I came across in September when looking for games that would help my Junior Infant class with their mouse control skills. It has subsequently become one of our most visited websites in the class. It is operated by Primary Technology which is a UK based company that provides ICT