[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.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Grace,

Thank you for your post and for comprehensively discussing some of the supports which are out there for children with literacy and numeracy difficulties. I love the idea of creating a Wakelet, from which the student can pick and choose their material (with access to their assistive tools). Kahoot is a great tool for creating that level of engagement and has a competitive element that can motivate some students. Competitors like Quizizz can also be used on occasion to ensure variety in the approach. The virtual maths manipulatives that can be found on Toy Theatre may also be of use to some children on your caseload.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Grace,

Thanks for your post. I can confirm that your post has been logged for this module. If the post time appears differently to when it was submitted, it may have went to the ‘pending’ folder, which requires admin approval before appearing on the forum.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Alan,

Thank you for your post. Teams really does make it easy to collaborate and share files/calendars, etc. between staff members. There is scope for curricular groups and school leaders to have their own teams where school policies and schemes of work are worked out in a collective space. As you have alluded to, Teams can also be a hub for students to submit and review their work and assignments. When integrated with One Note, it could be a place to go to for study and revision – files and demonstrations worked through during school could be added to the notebook for revision purposes. These could then be reused each year with the same class level, with relevant revisions made to suit the needs of the new class.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Maeve,

Welcome to the course and thank you for your post here. I really like the unit you have attached from the Applied Digital Skills programme. While there is an element of fun within this task, there is a huge amount of learning about using and formatting Google Sheets. There is nothing more frustrating than not being able to navigate a spreadsheet, but much of the content of this unit equips children with the skills they will require to do this. As you have said, there is such a wealth of resources out there within the Google suite – taking a couple of tools over the coming year and getting to grips with them should provide you with a solid foundation that can be added to over the coming years.

[Author]

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