[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Anna,

Welcome to the course and thank you for contributing to the discussion here. It is so true that assumptions around gender roles are embedded in young children from an early age. The reference you made to all children drawing a make scientist is very similar to an experience I had this year when children were asked to draw an engineer. These assumptions and stereotypes are often a reflection of what our children experience within society. As you have said, development education provides the ideal platform to challenge some of these and ask children to think about the various assumptions that might be made around who should be taking certain jobs, roles, etc.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Fiona,

Thank you for you post and for sharing your thoughts with us here. AI tools within programmes such as Diffit and Microsoft can be transformational in terms of accessibility and really lend themselves to a UDL approach in classrooms. They are constantly evolving and new features are being added and tailored on a monthly basis. Immersive Reader offers huge functionality within Microsoft, but recent Co-Pilot updates offer huge scope for accessibility to be prioritised within the 365 apps.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Fiona,

Thank you for you post and for sharing your thoughts with us here. AI tools within programmes such as Diffit and Microsoft can be transformational in terms of accessibility and really lend themselves to a UDL approach in classrooms. They are constantly evolving and new features are being added and tailored on a monthly basis. Immersive Reader offers huge functionality within Microsoft, but recent Co-Pilot updates offer huge scope for accessibility to be prioritised within the 365 apps.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Valerie,

Thank your for post post here and for sharing your insights here, specially related to the use of Scratch. Like many of the other applications mentioned in the module, Scratch has huge potential for use in a cross-curricular fashion, with a problem-solving focus at its core. The final point you made in the lesson sequence is noteworthy and one which we should probably give more credence too. Having the opportunity to showcase their work to others can be an important motivating factor for many children. Often, this is not facilitated as the ‘learning/production’ phase of the lesson takes too long but it is certainly something to be considered for all lessons.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Norma,

Welcome to the course and thank you for sharing your insights here on Google Classroom as a tool for enabling a flipped classroom approach. You have raised a number of very important points here around self-paced learning and the way in which active learning can be enabled through this approach. I’m sure that you will find this becoming more seamless to use when you have Chromebooks to use in September. The ability to mix between individual and collaborative tasks allows us to keep the child at the centre of the decision making process when selecting the learning experiences that will be most effective in this regard.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Mary,

Welcome to the course and thanks for sharing your thoughts and insights here. The SETT model is excellent for prompting us to consider the tools that may best meet the needs of the children in our class – when linked with knowledge of the children and pedagogical knowledge, it can be an especially powerful tool. There really are a myriad of resources when it comes to assistive technology, and it is for us to consider the individual needs of the children we teach to choose what would be most effective. The subsequent modules in this course may help with identifying key metrics for these choices.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Geraldine,

Thank you for your post. Like many others throughout the five modules of this course, you have pointed to the importance of tying development education themes with issues that are affecting the local communities in which our schools are situated. Getting the children invested in a project is so much easier when they have something tangible as a reference point. The activities mooted above are all highly effective at connecting the issues associated with ocean pollution and the local community. Your last point around ‘linking classroom learning to real world issues beyond the school gates’ is pertinent and something for all educators to consider.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Ailish,

Welcome to the course here and thank you for your response here to Ehigie’s article. Taking the learning into the school and allowing children ownership over the direction it takes can be seen as central to embedding the learning and ensuring it becomes something they can take with them in life. The idea of ‘action research’ is particularly useful in this regard. Allowing the children to see just how prevalent these issues are in their school and locality can help provide the catalyst for change and activism on these fronts. The cross-curricular links that development education lends itself too allows us to engage in this deeper learning that action research would lend itself to.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Colm,

Thank you for your post here and for your engagement throughout the course. Thanks also for sharing your link to the slideshow, outlining the potential uses of the Google tools in 6th class. I think your last slide is particularly relevant, where you chart the progression of how we might get our children to engage with these tools and this style of learning experience. It is all about taking small, manageable steps and working towards being able to collaborate in real-time on real-life projects. However, there are a number of steps to take before that is a possibility and you have charted this very clearly in your submission.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Thomas,

Thank you for your post here. The reality is that no one textbook or one digital resource website will have exactly what we need to meet the needs of the children in our class. However, AI offers huge time-saving potential. Instead of going to numerous online stores or sifting through 3 more textbooks from different publishers, we can generate an alternative immediately. You mentioned that you are happy to take ‘as much as I can use from it’. This is the key here – not everything will be useful or beneficial – if you do not have enough from your first prompt you can ask it to be more specific at a certain point or to offer alternatives for one aspect of the return, etc.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Shirley,

Welcome to the course and thank you for your post here. It is completely understandable to have concerns about the trajectory AI is heading, whilst also acknowledging the huge potential it has to make our jobs easier and the children’s learning more varied. There is certainly a role for children engaging with technologies to interrogate AI generated content, but much of this can be done ‘offline’. As a multigrade teacher, AI can offer you huge time-savings by suggesting ways to differentiate work, producing reading passages pitched to two different age groups on the same topic, modifying maths problems on the same concepts, etc. I hope the content in the subsequent modules will be of benefit in this regard.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Daniel,

Thank you for this post. As someone also teaching in an all-boys school, your experience is something I can relate to. In some cases, we can even see it at earlier stages, particularly around class plays and the choice of toys and roles during Aistear sessions. The reality is that this is being subconsciously drilled into both boys and girls from a very young age, and it is something that needs to be explicitly tackled. This may involve the use of role play, stories, etc. as you have mooted. The book ‘Amazing Grace’ might be a good reference point to those wishing to look at this with their class.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Tadhg,

Thank you for this post and for sharing your experiences of gender stereotyping in action within the school grounds. This is unfortunately a very common occurrence in so many schools and community organisations. As you have pointed out, the inclusion of a series of classroom lessons may be the only way to tackle and address this. The use of ‘big books’ can be an excellent way of tackling sensitive issues such as this, as children are discussing the characters in the book rather than themselves. The book ‘Amazing Grace’ by Mary Hoffman is a great choice for tackling gender stereotyping.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Colm,

Thank you for your post here and for sharing so many interesting and ‘doable’ activities with the children in our classes here. Having events in the local area and being able to see the impacts of flooding on agricultural land and livelihoods provides a clear context for the children to know that this is becoming a serious problem. The extreme weather events in recent years have provided children with first hand experience of the devastating impact of climate change. The gardening project within the school grounds is a particularly interesting suggestion and offers so many cross-curricular and home-school learning opportunities.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Claire,

Thank you for sharing this clear and comprehensive overview of how the collection of Microsoft accessibility tools can be used to allow all children in your class access the class novel. Whilst the AT tools are doing plenty, teacher knowledge of the child is huge and this has been demonstrated through the increased font size – similarly the font itself may be changed or the background colours on the document. AT tools open so many doors for children with additional needs, but are only truly transformational when they are used by a teacher with a clear understanding of the child’s needs and interests.

[Author]

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