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Technology and digital skills has increased immensely over the past 30 years. Digital skills and technology literacy is needed in virtually every job. The is a need that is continuing to increase as technology continues to develop. As teachers we have a responsibility to provide our students with opportunities to develop these skills so they can leave education prepare for society and work-life. Teaching children digital literacy skills allows they to develop critical thinking skills, problem solving and higher order thinking. Through coding and computer science children has engage creatively and develop their curiosity of what is possible.
I have had the opportunity to bring coding into my classroom over the past 3 years. With younger pupils we introduced coding through Beebots and then progressed with Scratch Junior. In older classes we use scratch and code.org to develop coding skills. As an educator I had very little prior experience in coding so this was an area of professional development I had to learnt both from personal research and from co workers. From my experience with coding in the classroom the children throughly enjoyed it and were very engaged in every lesson. I was also surprised to observe that children learnt and implanted skills much faster than I expected with many children in Senior Infants having prior experience with Scratch Junior. One challenge I learnt was that after some exploratory lessons children needed tasks and scaffolding to ensure learning was present and developing. Another challenge was Teacher willingness and confidence. To overcome this teachers must be given time to learn the skills themselves, have a co worker to scaffold their learning and have pre made lessons available to use.
Minecraft Education Task:
In groups recreate a Japanese city.
Build Challenge/Success Criteria: Your City must
- Have 4 traditional Japanese style buildings
- Include a nature area with 6 native flora and fauna
- Include 3 national tourist attractions. Each attraction must have a poster that includes relevant information for Tourists to learn.
- Include 4 places to eat/drink
- Your project must be documented in Portfolio that shows all listed success criteria
Curriculum Areas Explored:
Subject: Geography
Stands: Human Environments
Strand Unit: People and other landsLearning Outcomes:
- Study some aspects of the environments and lives of people in Japan
- Measurement and geometry skills in designing and constructing structures.
- Research skills
- Computer skills
- Coding skills
- Planning skills
- Mapping skills.
- Team work and collaboration skills
Student Roles:
Leader: Ensure each group member has a role and stays on task. Time keeping.
Architects: Design and plan the construction
Builders: Create structures in Minecraft
Reporters: Create a portfolio and document the building process
Presenters: Present the project to other groupsSupporting Work:
Prior to engaging with Minecraft Education Students will read, research and explore about Japan. Once knowledge is gained students will break into groups and discuss and plan their project. As the teacher I will share the project success criteria for the project.How can digital tools create engaging and interactive learning experiences?
Digital Tools create new learning experiences our pupils. They provide another pathway of accessibility for pupils to engage with the curriculum for example pupils they my struggle to decode words or solve maths sums can showcase their skill through a medium suited to them. Digital Technologies allows pupils to work collaboratively both with other pupils, others schools, other countries and with home.
Apply School Self-Evaluation Guidelines to improve your teaching.
SSE gives schools a focus to work on and creates an environment of continuous reflection, communication and improvement. SSE provides a pathway for schools to reflect and identify needs, set goals, reflect on elements that were successful and areas for improvement.
How does developing your use of digital technology impact your school?
Digital technology allows both pupils and teachers to access content that would otherwise be unavailable. It also allows teachers to foster 21st century skills in their pupils to prepare them for the future. Technologies such as IWB, iPads, chrome books etc. allow teachers to teach lessons that are fun, engaging, adaptable and versatile. Digital Technologies creates a medium to document and store learning. This creates an easy medium through which assessment and reflection of learning can occur from both the teacher, peers and peer to peer.
Hi Barry, I have also studies Van Gogh artwork with my classes and they really loved it. I will definitely twin my starry night lesson with Don Mclean’s songs the next time!
There are so many songs, Poems and Art that connect us to the sky. This theme lends itself so well for cross curricular and thematic planning. Some examples I found are listed below. The songs, poems and artwork lend themselves to a broad range of classes and can be differentiated and adapted for each class level.
Songs
Sky Full of Stars by Coldplay
Space Oddity” by David Bowie
All the stars by Kendrick Lamar ft, SZA
Midnight Sky Miley Cyrus
Look up at the Stars Shawn Mendez
”Across the Universe” by The Beatles
Reach for the Stars by S Club SevenTwinkle, twinkle little star
Catch a Falling Star by Perry Como
Poems
Stardust” by President Michael D. Higgins
Hey Diddle Diddle
Star Light, Star Bright
“Stars” by Robert Frost
“Bright Star” by John Keats’Art
Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh
Adam Elsheimer, The Flight into Egypt
Joseph Wright of Derby, Vesuvius in Eruption
J. M. W. Turner, Fishermen at Sea
Galileo’s Moon Drawings
The Moon by AmaralMichelle, I love your idea of creating nighttime habitat in shoeboxes, another idea this gave me would be to create stop start animation videos of nocturnal creatures and the impact of light on their behaviours.
To incorporate the needs of nocturnal species in my school’s biodiversity plans I would focus on three areas education, survey of our schools impact and action plan to reduce this impact.
For the Education piece we would engage in lessons that explore nocturnal species such as hedgehogs, owls, bats , etc. We would also explore the impact of light on their behaviours. This step can also include talks or webinars form outside agencies.
Lastly, I would involve the community by hosting workshops on reducing light pollution and collaborating with local authorities to promote better lighting practices, such as using shielded fixtures and dimming unnecessary lights. These efforts would help foster a commitment to protecting nocturnal biodiversity among students and the community.
Then we will conduct a survey of lighting around our school building and explore what impact this may have on nocturnal species. We will then create a commitment and action plan tor reduce the impact we having on nocturnal species.
Lastly classes can engage in activities to promote and protect and nocturnal species such as campaigns to inform the school community of the need to protect nocturnal creatures from light pollution, building bat boxes, hedgehog homes, bug hotels etc.
I also teach near a great resource of Dunsink Observatory, I could try and arrange a class tour there to learn more about the night sky and the work they do.
I work and teach in a suburb of Dublin, as it is a populated area it can be difficult to get a good view of the night sky. Recently the Northern lights being visible really brought to my attention the impact of light pollution in my area. Although visible, when I compared my photos of the northern lights with my friend who lives just outside Dunboyne the difference was huge. To spark a conversation around this I would display both photos side by side for my students. I would give a background for both images and then I would then ask my students ‘what factors do you think impacted the visibility of the Northern lights in each photos?’ Working in groups I would encourage the students to use google maps to look at the geographical differences in each area. When the students have explored the impacts on light pollution on the photos I would introduce them to term such as glare, skyglow, light trespass and clutter. We would also explore resources such as the light pollution map and darkskys.org. Building on this lesson we could engage in further lessons on how light pollution affects animals in our local area.
Hi Barry,
I love the idea of using the Stellarium app. There is also a great app called moon phases calendar.
I would plan lessons to observe the Moon in the first term of school starting in September and completing lessons through until December. This gives the children an opportunity to observe the moon through each phase. To begin the topic I would first find out what the children already know about the moon and see what they are still curious to learn. These discussions would lead the learning that we do in our lesson. We would then watch videos from the ESA such as ‘Paxi and Our Moon: Phases and Eclipses’ so the children can build their knowledge to help with their observations. In September the moon should be visible in the morning so we could observe it in school and then we could move to observing the moon for Homework with an adult at home to help. The children can document their observations on the ESERO Moon Observation Log or by taking photos. At the end of the series of lessons we will discuss using our observation logs what differences we noticed over the course of our observations, what factors influenced our observations etc. This topic could also cross over into art lessons where students recreated 3D moons or use chalk to draw moon phases.
Hi Eithne,
I love the idea of using the ribbon to the distance of the shadow, Brining in google sheets to record data is also a great way to build technology skills!
I feel the best way to begin this lesson would be to spark the curiosity on my pupils. To do this I would pose the question “ Before clocks were invented how did people know what time of the day it was? After some discussion I would then use the resource Sundials in Ireland (sundials-ireland.com) to show examples of sundials from medieval times.
As a team we will then brainstorm and collect the needed materials to construct a sundial in our school grounds. We would then explore the school grounds discussing what area would be best to construct the sun dial, weighing up the pros and cons of each suggested area.
Once our area is selected we will construct our sundial starting our observations on the hour. At each hour mark we will document the shadow cast. This could be done by taking photos, time-lapse video , using stones or chalk , etc.
At the end of the day we can engage in open reflection on what we have learnt and what we could do differently next time.