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Hi Fearghal,
Your use of Teams has coincided with the primary purposes needed during the school closures of the last two years. Using it for file sharing and ensuring that all relevant policies and plans are backed up is an excellent idea. It is something that we often put off and regret if we lose a USB or storage Drive, or our laptop gets damaged. It is possible to allow your students access their class team both in school and at home. It sounds like your admin may have a restriction placed on this. If you wish, it is something you could decide to lift in a whole school basis. You could assign some homework through the platform, or use it to promote a ‘flipped’ approach.
Hi Garrett,
I am more adept with the Google products, but would have to concede that OneNote is far superior to what Google can offer. There is no Google alternative at present, and if a school is in limbo over what platform to choose, the availability of One Note may be the deciding factor. The ability to store notes in the ‘content library’, embed PDFs, videos, Forms quizzes, etc. means that students would rarely have a reason to leave OneNote. The built-in Immersive Reader feature is also crucial in making lessons and content more accessible.
Hi Declan,
You’ve hit the nail on the head by saying that SSE revolves around ‘the individual school taking ownership of their own development’. This is both a good and bad thing. SSE allows you the autonomy of picking a specific area that will benefit your school but also places a responsibility of the staff and management of the school to implement the plan. The use of Croke Park hours are very important – those who are inventive and design innovative ways of looking at the SSE process can definitely have more success.
Hi Sandra,
I also have more experience of working with Google Forms, but can confirm that there is very little difference between the two programmes. Both of them are equally adept at gathering information, assessing students and providing instant data on strengths and weaknesses. It is difficult to find specific tools that will meet the very specific needs in a special school setting. With some groups, there may be some scope for using pictures, videos or audio files as the central question and as the possible answers.
Hi Veronica,
Welcome to the course. It’s certainly an exciting time ahead for you and the children in your school. I can tell you from firsthand experience that both you and the pupils will get so much from using the Chromebooks. They are a powerful tool which will allow you to approach the curriculum in a more varied fashion. It is an excellent way of sending work home for learning, with videos, audio clips, etc. attached. I hope you will be able to get plenty of ideas for using them in the subsequent modules.
Hi Peter,
Given that you will be working in SET next year, I would agree that the Immersive Reader is a tool you could get a lot of use out of. It can be of huge benefit to EAL learners and those with a specific learning difficulty like dyslexia. Even for fluent readers, the ability to pick out different parts of speech may assist those who are struggling with the writing process. As you have also said, it is a great collaborative tool. If you were taking a literacy or numeracy group from a senior class, you could certainly incorporate it into a collaborative venture.
Hi Orla,
Certainly as it is your first year working in SET, there will be lots of things that are new to you. Digital technologies can be really useful in supporting children with additional needs, but you will need time to pick out the ones that will work for you. OneNote could be really useful in helping to organise work for those with DCD – the colour coded files could match coloured stickers on the books and copies for that subject, etc. In addition, Immersive Reader really would be a ‘go to’ tool for work with EAL students. The picture dictionary and translate feature would greatly assist their language acquisition and development.
Hi Kathleen,
There is certainly a premium on real world problem-solving and innovation. It is probably one of the 21st century skills that is most relevant but most difficult to obtain. The context of the problem is the all important factor. Once it is rooted in something relevant to the lives of the children / the locality, it becomes much easier. The Christmas Market activity sounds like an activity that could really touch on this. There is so much cross-curricular learning and preparing speeches for securing sponsorship, etc. is a very important literacy skill. Within the activity, you are also hitting on the skills of collaboration and skilled communication.
Hi Brendan,
Thank you for sharing your experiences of using digital technologies for the creation of short movies and digital storytelling. I have used tablets for digital storytelling (Adobe Spark) in the junior classes and found that it made teaching the narrative genre so much easier. Being able to orally voice over and act out their illustrations was such a game-changer. It’s possible to go even further in the senior classes and the Fís Film Project is a great initiative to get involved with if you had the time. The use of Croke Park hours in your school seems to be really pro-active and beneficial for staff development.
Hi Liz,
Thank you for sharing your slideshow outlining a fact file of all of our presidents to date. I am glad that the course has provided you with more confidence in using the Google tools. I am a huge advocate for them and feel they have had a huge impact on our school over the past four years. Docs and Slides (and all the Google tools) are very easy to use and require little additional training. The children pick things up very quickly, and consistent use of Chromebooks / the Chrome browser will bring them on so much. I wish you the very best with the integration of the Google tools going forward.
Hi Laura,
As you have pointed out, collaboration is a crucial life skill and one that the children in our classes will require throughout their working lives. As teachers, we can see the value of it on a daily basis. Collaboration can often be a buzz word that involves multiple people working independently at the same table. This is not true collaboration – the integration of digital technology can help transform this into a truly collaborative activity with shared decision making and responsibility. The rubrics provided in this module are an excellent resource to guide us in designing these learning experiences.
Hi Orla,
Welcome to the course. I’m delighted that the content of the module has encouraged you to give both Sway and Forms a go with your class next year. They are both excellent tools from both an assessment and content creation point of view. The immediate feedback and data collection that Forms offers is it’s clear selling point. It can give you so much information in such a short space of time and can greatly increase productivity.
Hi Claire,
You are right to refer to the use of digital technologies as a ‘scaffold’ for learning in some cases. For those with SEN, this is particularly true. In terms of SSE, you could certainly look at how digital technologies are being used to promote accessilbility and inclusion within the classroom. This would be a very beneficial focus, and quite specific. It would tie in neatly with the domains of ‘learner experiences’ and ‘teacher’s individual practice’.
Hi Kathleen,
A number of years ago, I had the same reservations about One Note. While I was proficient with the other Microsoft apps, I was reluctant to try OneNote as it was different and outside my comfort zone. However, it is a really fantastic tool. While it is too advanced for junior infants to use and navigate, it could be used by teachers for the creation of resources, some of which could be distributed to parents for revision purposes.
Hi Matthew,
Thank you for submitting your quiz. Within this, we can see both the simplicity and the beauty of using Forms as an assessment tool. This quiz would clearly highlight those who are able to complete linear equations and those who are not. The quiz itself could be created in c.5-10 minutes and can be shared/re-used over a number of years. It’s certainly a time saver when viewed in that context.
