[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Nicola,

I couldn’t agree more with regard to taking small steps. It is important not to overwhelm yourself as teacher or the pupils. Small, steady steps will be really effective and once a level of comfort is reached, you will be able to branch out and experiment with new methods and tools. Seesaw is the ideal platform to use with Junior Infants. The ease of sign-in with QR codes, and the ability to create short, snappy interactive activities really suits the younger classes. I love the ideal of using the portfolio to create an audio recording that showcases their in-school learning.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Grace,

Thank you for your post and detailed overview of the module’s content. As you have said, it’s important to have some interventions and aids at each level of the SETT Framework – a series of low-tech interventions may make a significant impact for some pupils, whereas others will require some medium- or high-tech interventions. It is so important that ‘schools evaluate the effectiveness of AT based on individual learning experiences’ – we must reflect on how the AT worked with the child in question – Did it meet the student’s needs? Why? Why not? Once we have built up a picture around this, we need to continue/modify our approach to best meet the needs of the child.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Conor,

Thank you for your post – Teams is certainly an excellent platform for use in schools and the more you work on the platform, the easier it becomes and the more comfortable you will be. It is certainly a great way to share resources as a staff and it really lends itself to the creation of a ‘digital staffroom’. Being able to access and work on documents at home/in school is essential for those who cannot stay after school for collaboration, etc. due to differing family commitments. Recording on PowerPoint has been around for a number of different versions of the app, but is certainly a feature that remains under utilised.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Conor,

Thank you for your post. As someone who shares your role in my school, I know only too well of the level of workload that goes into IT maintenance and development. You have raised a very important point and one which those who are against the use of technology in education fail to realise – digital technology is a tool through which learning can happen. It needs to take place within a wider spectrum of strategies and approaches to learning. It should not permeate every lesson. Reading, writing and arithmetic are still hugely important aspects of schooling. Hands-on experiments with raw materials is also important. Variety is essential and digital technologies are particularly useful as they make some elements of learning easier and more accessible for all.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Aileen,

Thank you for your post and for sharing your thoughts on the attached article. In Maeve’s response below, the importance of interrogating resources and looking at them through a critical lens was discussed (through the growth of AI)> I find your thoughts intriguing and they certainly cast the article and its content in a different life. It is fair to say that different generations have faced different challenges, and it is difficult to compare ‘like with like’. In response to your final comment, I couldn’t recommend Jamboard highly enough as a collaborative workspace which allows pupils to plan and extend learning further through shared learning experiences.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Marie,

Welcome to the course. I fully agree with you in regards to your thoughts on the DL Planning website. It is certainly a ‘go to’ for me as a digital coordinator and really maps easily to the domains and dimensions of the DLF and LAOS. Book Creator is a brilliant app and resource to use as part of the writing process over the school year – there are a number of ‘good practice’ videos on the DL Planning website that focus on Book Creator. For younger children, a similar app/website called WriteReader is a useful alternative.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Maeve,

Thank you for your post and for sharing your thoughts on such a pertinent issue at present. The rise of AI is something which is taking the education world (and wider areas) by storm in recent months. This is becoming a bigger concern as I have heard of people who believe whatever Chat GPT produces is true. Being able to identify fake news and critically analyse what you are reading is a key skill within our Primary Language Curriculum. We really need to promote a culture of interrogating what we are reading for truth, bias, etc. The example you have provided about Russian history textbooks is an important example of this, and is a timely reminder of the importance if prioritising this.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Alan,

Very often, large-scale projects are very effective at developing 21st century skills as they mimic real-life problems and scenarios that occur in many workplaces. Being forced to collaborate and co-operate with different departments and groups responsible for other elements of a project are all part of many 21st century workplaces. The large-scale project you have outlined affords so many learning opportunities, particularly in the areas of SESE and language. You have also skilfully interwoven many digital skills, through the use of some Office 365 apps. Indeed, there are also a variety of mediums through which learning can be demonstrated (typing, presenting, audio recordings, etc.)

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Sinead,

Thank you for your post and for sharing this SETT plan with us. It is clear that this pupil has a number of challenges, and that the classroom environment in itself poses a number of challenges for their progress. In such a large class, it can be difficult to address the needs of all children. A plan like this allows us to think about what we want to achieve with this child and the different interventions at each level that will help us get there. The Nessy Programme, Dictate and Immersive Reader are all suitable AT’s for children with literacy difficulties. Some other low-tech or medium-tech interventions could be used if access to devices was limited at certain times.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Marie,

Thank you for your post and for sharing your many wonderful ideas with us. Your use of Google Forms shows a detailed understanding of the main ways in which this medium can be used for assessment. You have mastered the use of banners and backgrounds, and the awarding of point values for each question. I love the extension activity involving the use of Google Earth. I can only imagine how labour-intensive it must be to have to make many Gaeilge-themed resources from scratch. One of the few ways to make this easier is to ensure as much collaboration as possible within the school. Setting up a Google Site for each class level might be a good idea, where everyone contributes the resources they have made for each topic/theme. This would also help when teachers move between classes. Over a couple of years, a large repertoire should be built up.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Aileen,

Thank you for your post. One of the greatest features of Classroom is the variety of approach that it supports. It can be used as a medium for sharing information and helpful links (potentially for a flipped classroom approach), as a means for children to submit multimedia items or as a way of promoting different forms of dialogue among the students. In terms of student commenting, setting clear boundaries around what is/is not acceptable is very important. Within the teacher settings, commenting can be turned on and off at different times – for example, over weekends/school holidays, etc.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Aileen,

Welcome to the course! Thank you for your post. Very often, the use of digital technologies can be a game changer for children with literacy difficulties. It offers them an alternative route to accessing content. When used correctly, it can greatly enhance their attainment of learning intentions, and allow them to maintain ace with their peers. ‘Voice typing’ is a feature that is available in Google Docs and will convert oral speech to text with reasonable accuracy. ‘Talk and Comment’ is a Chrome extension that allows children to orally record themselves and embed the recording into a Doc, Slideshow, Sheet, etc.

Jamboard is a brilliant tool – it can be really useful for children with additional needs in an SET setting or whole-class setting. I have used it whole-class for language activities, and you can see children grow in confidence when other responses are added. For example, as Gaeilge they may see that all sentences are structured the same and they just have to use an online dictionary to search for one word to change the description of an animal, for example.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Diarmuid,

Thank you for your post and for outlining the primary 21st century skills outlined in the attached article. Reflective practice is central to our work as teachers – we must be able to use reflection both during our practice and afterwards. This allows us to improve our instruction to better meet the needs of our learners. While this is a crucial skill for educators, it is also important to develop it with our pupils, as it is a skill required in almost all workplaces. It is something that I would see as a challenge for many students who would rarely edit or reflect upon their work. The use of Forms could be very effective – another tool that may be useful is a rubric. Children could potentially grade their own work / a peer’s work against a rubric and then attempt to improve it to move to the next level of the success criteria.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Annmarie,

Thank you for your post and for sharing your Sway with us. It is certainly fair to say that digital technologies have become interwoven into the fabric of teaching, learning and assessment. For many teachers, it is now a staple methodology that they couldn’t do without. There are so many benefits that the use of technology in education can bring – real-time feedback is one you have mentioned and I fully concur with this. Being able to immediately identify gaps in learning from a glance allows you to put interventions and supports in place ‘in the moment’. Traditional methods such as the collection of copybooks/correction of tests may see a couple of days pass before difficulties are noted.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Aisling,

I would be in full agreement in terms of the Microsoft tools being fantastic for pupils with SEN. If your school has a Microsoft license, there is so much you can do for these pupils. Indeed, you can use many of these tools, such as Dictate and Immersive Reader. with the entire class (which will remove any stigma around being the only ones to respond orally, etc.). Lens is such an amazing tool and one which I have started to use casually so much in recent months – translating road signs abroad, looking up car models from an image, and searching for many items online are just some of the ways I have been using it.

[Author]

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