[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.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Claire,

Welcome to the course and thank you for your post here. Your post demonstrates an awareness of the benefits and usefulness of AI for both teaching and learning, and leadership and management, whilst also acknowledging the need for clear and robust discussions around when it should and should not be used. As both a ISLM team and wider staff, discussions could take place of scenarios where it would be inappropriate to use AI, and times when it can be used to reduce workload.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Orla,

Thanks for sharing this lesson outline with us. It’s clear that careful prompting can ensure that very little detail is left to chance when planning for a lesson. I really like the way clear, measurable objectives have been derived for this plan. Sharing these with the children in advance of the lesson, as well as the ways in which they will achieve them, is so important for allowing them a sense of ownership in their learning and promoting self-assessment. AI can be used to prompt further, by linking it to a specific curricular objective, providing more detail on how to record assessment, etc.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Inez,

Thank you for your post and insights here. Being able to ‘fact check’ information is an essential skill for children and adults in our present society. In the past we would have cautioned against believing everything that Google tells us and that has now shifted towards not believing everything AI tells us. AI tools themselves can be used ion such a way to create learning experiences that allow children to engage in this fact checking – like you have said popular topics like football players, pop stars, etc. may be really useful subjects for this.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Laura,

Thanks for your post and for sharing your thoughts here. I think it’s so important that the children themselves are invested in the work and can relate to the specific SDG chosen. As such, climate change is an obvious choice as it is something that we all see first hand experience of. Thinking back to the past year, we had a number of extreme storms in the early part of the year that caused significant school closures in many places. Even now, children may be holidaying in Europe and be experiencing extreme heat for this time of year – being able to bring these experiences to the classroom work will add a layer of richness and authenticity to the work, as it is not a topic that is abstract for them.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Elaine,

Welcome to the course and thank you for your post here. You have hit on a very important point regarding the role of the educator and the broad spectrum of influence we can have on young people’s development. As you move through this course, you will see topics such as global inequality and climate change covered, and will look at ways in which this activism and awareness can be fostered through classroom instruction. Ehigie’s article really gets to the core of this and is certainly a key reference point for educators seeking to develop this with their classes.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Colm,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the Redesigning Education piece with us. I love the idea of redesigning the principal’s office. The criteria you have provided shows just how many cross-curricular links are available. I’m thinking of some of the pedagogical practices from the maths curriculum, with dialogue and playfulness clearly embedded in this suggested task. There is also a clear emphasis on how digital tools can be used to enhance the learning in this task – the use of spreadsheets for tracking and organising information is a clear skills that is used in so many jobs, and one which certainly could be considered important for lifelong learning.

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