[Aileen Moriarty]

After engaging with Redesigning Education: Meeting the Challenges of the 21st Century (Hallissy, Butler, Hurley & Marshall, 2013), I was struck by how central collaboration is to preparing students for the future. After teaching over 20 years I also recognise the importance of collaboration in our school amongst the teachers to help share experience and have a shared vision together for the future of the school as staff can change year on year. The paper highlights that learning should be active, participatory and rooted in solving problems together—skills that are really valuable in this modern age.

In my classroom, I will be focusing on developing collaboration by designing opportunities where students must work as a team to reach a shared outcome. For example, I plan to use group projects, where pupils take on different roles (researcher, designer, presenter etc) to solve a problem and then bring their contributions together into one cohesive solution. Digital tools such as Microsoft Sway, Padlet, or Google Docs will support this, making it easy for students to co-create and also reflect on the process. In our school we love to share our projects with other classes across the school sharing all of these collaborations is a wonderful thing to promote.

By embedding structured collaborative tasks, I aim to help the pupil’s practice listening, negotiating along with compromising while also valuing diverse perspectives. In doing so, they not only build stronger social and emotional skills but also learn how to thrive in real-world team environments.

Here’s the Sway I created with ideas for classroom collaboration opportunities:

[Aileen Moriarty]

I created a OneNote on Triangles for a class in September. It was so easy to add different sections and enjoyable to discover different aspects of OneNote, I will definitely use this more in future to enhance my teaching and pupils learning. Please press link to see OneNote https://waterparkns-my.sharepoint.com/:o:/p/aileen_moriarty/EjcvzAVXjQBDvVEXuDOleoYBj2W9rTE-cJiQfX1Ejf2q8A?e=mekegl

I enjoyed this module and experimenting with OneNote and the OneNote Learning Tools. They offer powerful opportunities to enhance deeper learning for pupils by creating a collaborative, inclusive and flexible learning environment in our schools. OneNote is like a digital binder where pupils can organise notes, research, projects and assignments in a personalised way allowing ownership over their learning. It also allows for further integration with multimedia like audio recordings, videos, images, and web links. This really supports multiple learning styles and encourages creative expression and critical thinking and something I think children in our school would love.

I really enjoyed delving into the learning tools further. It is so important that each child is listened to when reading and can learn from it too but it is also extremely difficult in class sizes of 30. The Learning Tools add-on amplifies these benefits by offering built-in accessibility features like Immersive Reader, which helps students with reading challenges by reading text aloud, highlighting parts of speech, and adjusting text size and spacing. These tools can help reduce barriers to comprehension, allow differentiation and allow all students to engage with content meaningfully. Collaboration is also enhanced through shared notebooks, enabling immediate feedback and group work. Altogether, OneNote fosters a pupil-centred approach that encourages reflection and engagement. I intend using these both with my own children as well as in school.

[Aileen Moriarty]

In my classroom, I find that digital technology really helps to bring learning to life for students. Tools like interactive quizzes, collaborative documents, and multimedia presentations keep learners engaged and give them different ways to explore the material. Children are multi modal learners in this modern age and need a variety of teaching methods to access the curriculum in my opinion. I’ve noticed that students respond particularly well when they get instant feedback through online platforms, as it helps them understand their progress and encourages them to take ownership of their learning.

Applying the School Self-Evaluation (SSE) guidelines, I can use digital tools to gather evidence of how well my teaching strategies are working. For example, student surveys or digital portfolios provide valuable insights into what’s effective and what needs adjustment. This makes reflection more concrete and helps me plan for improvement. I have spent time in the Acting Principal Role and spent plenty of time gathering and analysing data from all stakeholders of the school – the children the staff and the parents and community. Everyone was able to have a voice and add valuable contributions. We often do surveys with various classes through forms on school Ipads and answers are instant and easy to compile and share results.

At a whole-school level, developing my own use of digital technology allows me to share strategies with colleagues and contribute to a culture of innovation. I think when teachers model confidence with technology, it builds momentum across the school and benefits both staff and students. I am teaching over 20 years and have so much still to learn but step by step and completing and engaging with courses like this one don’t make it as daunting as it once seemed.

[Aileen Moriarty]

 

During covid I found myself very quickly using many methods of communication with staff and the children across our school. So many platforms were tried and tested and rolled out and I really wish I had the knowledge then that I am now gaining from this course. We used Zoom a lot and even had a graduation through it, that all seems quite mad now!

I did not have much experience with Microsoft Teams except to attend online meetings so I look forward to trying it out in the future and am enjoying investigating it here also. It would also be a good way to have valuable speakers from outside your school join at Croke Park sessions. It seems very user friendly and easy to navigate around. It will also be wonderful to be able to use it to share documents and policies with others and allow teachers to collaborate together better in the future.

I also like the way of communicating with parents as it allows them to see their children’s work along with teacher responses.

I think it would be extremely important to roll something like this out with a whole staff and training would need to be undertaken by all for it to work effectively and efficiently. Staff buy in an sometimes be challenging particularly where teachers and staff change throughout the years.

I enjoy using Microsoft PowerPoint and we work as a team to collaborate on a newsletter together each term for the school. I have shared PowerPoints with screen recordings to our staff and parents to show them how to follow instructions on new initiatives we roll out across the school.

[Aileen Moriarty]

Reflective Post – Classroom Use of Microsoft Tools & School Self-Evaluation

As part of this activity, I created a 5-question multiple choice quiz using Microsoft Forms based on Shape, which can be accessed here: https://forms.office.com/e/DZsbCXWX5B

I also engaged with the two Microsoft Learn Education Centre courses:

1.    Microsoft Sway

2.    Microsoft Forms

I really think these tools have significant potential in the classroom. Microsoft Sway is particularly effective for creating digital stories or interactive presentations, helping students consolidate their learning creatively. It supports visual literacy and differentiated instruction by offering multimedia integration and accessibility features.

Microsoft Forms, on the other hand, simplifies formative assessment. It provides immediate feedback and analyses test data immediately, which are valuable for informing instruction and tracking progress over time.

From a school self-evaluation perspective, these tools offer measurable data and evidence of innovative teaching practices. Teachers can demonstrate engagement, formative assessment strategies and also a level of digital competence. Moreover, the inclusive features in Microsoft products help address areas of diversity and support in school inspections or reviews.

These technologies empower both students and teachers, encouraging a shift toward more pupil centered and inclusive education something we always strive for in our school.

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