[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Olivia,

Thank you for your post here. You are right to say that development education has an evolving importance in today’s society given the current unstable nature of global affairs. Being able to think logically and rationally around key global issues allows us to make clear decisions around what we can do to try to address this. The reliability of information we receive needs to be fact checked, and this theme of digital citizenship is becoming an increasingly important skill for children. This course will explore specific development education themes and how some of these ideas can be looked at through the lens of these specific themes.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Agnes,

Welcome to the course. Thanks for sharing your post here and for raising the key point around seeing issues as global issues rather than local issues. Seeing ourselves as global citizens and highlighting how interconnected we are is key to seeing all issues as global issues. Just because we cannot tangibly feel the effects of some issues, potentially around global inequalities, can make it more challenging to see the need to take steps to address this. However, promoting global citizenship allows us to see all these issues as issues that ultimately have an effect on us.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Geraldine,

Thank you for your post here. Khan Academy Kids is such an excellent resource to use at many classes across the primary school, but especially in the junior end. The range of free resources is remarkable and one which provides us with huge choice across different subjects. The digital citizenship idea you have mentioned is so topical and should be central to children’s lives and school experiences as they grow up. The way children experience content online requires them to have a set of skills that allow them to act ethically and responsibly online.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Jackie,

Thank you for your contribution to the forum here. It’s clear that here is lots of excellent work being carried out in your local community to help accommodate and assimilate migrants and refugees of all ages. Key words that you have mentioned such as ‘safe, inclusive and welcoming’ get to the core of what we should be looking at when it comes to helping people who have arrived in our country having experience terrible trauma in their home country.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Jimmy,

Thank you for your post here and for your overview of how Scratch may be incorporated into your work with 3rd class next year. I really like the idea of linking it specifically with SPHE themes and topics, with social stories being a  really relevant choice in all classrooms. Scaffolding the learning from introductory videos and demonstrations to paired creations of their own resources is a really valuable way to gradually release responsibility away from the teacher and towards the children.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Eimear,

It is certainly true to speak about some increased heat in summers of the recent past, with the next week looking like exceeding that in some parts. This, coupled with extreme floods and drought-like conditions across different parts of the US shows just how pertinent this issue is in our lives. Small, collective actions that are taken on a large scale can have a huge impact in arresting these changes – this is reflected in your 3 suggestions which all focus on making changes at a local level, which can hopefully be replicated on a larger scale.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Aisling,

Thank you for your post. You are very welcome to this course. It’s great that you can see much of your practice reflected in the ‘formality’ of the SSE Process and Digital Learning Framework. Seeing these as an affirmation of the great practice going on in our classrooms is so important for furthering our engagement with digital technologies, and AT in particular. The SETT model is an excellent framework for allowing us to think about the tool in question and consider how it meets the needs of the specific learners we are targeting in our class. Using this, through both formal recording and informal prompt questions, can enhance our use of AT.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Mel,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences with us here. I’m sure there are many of us on this course who can attest to have experienced similar things relating to gender stereotyping. Despite children not being explicitly taught that something is ‘girly’ or ‘manly’, the way in which they experience society leads to them forming these opinions and thoughts at a remarkably young age. The ‘new baby’ packs sold by many businesses will be categorised as pink and blue, with dolls potentially included in the ‘baby girl’ pack, etc. It takes us time to challenge these and looking at development education themes in school can be a great way of achieving this.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi James,

It’s right to say that there was a huge amount of content to take in during this module, with the same being true of many courses in this field. It is certainly one to save as a PDF and refer back to at different points in the year. I always find that there is only ever one or two things you can immediately take from any CPD session and implement – however, going back a few months later can jog my memory. With regards to Google, Gemini is the competitor and equivalent of CoPilot. Your school admin is likely to need to approve its use for school email address but this can be done by one click in the admin console.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Caitriona,

Thank you for your post and for sharing with us your experience of welcoming such a large group of IPAS children to your school in one go last year. You have hit on a very important point regarding the publicity associated with organisations doing so much to help those in such need – it is almost non-existent. There is so much good in society and it is important that this work is also highlighted. It is heartening to see so many groups and organisations mentioned on this forum who are carrying out that work all across the country.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Audrey,

Welcome to the course and thank you for sharing some of the wonderful work you are doing in your school to promote inclusion and social justice, The incorporation of project-based work gives the children real ownership over the course of their learning, and it is clear that the learning experiences they are offered through these are rich and engaging – I love the sound of the work you completed around human rights. last year. The forging of close home-school links and developing these through regular interactions and events with parents provides the perfect opportunity for extending the learning into the home and community.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Adrienne,

Thank you for your post and contribution here. Gradebook has been a staple of mine in the classroom over the past number of years and I couldn’t speak highly enough of the information it has provided me on student achievement over the course of a term/year. There are just so many Google tools that integrate seamlessly with Classroom to create an engaging learning environment that promotes child-led learning. Newer tools, such as Notebook LM, are only adding to this and with the rate of change in AI tools, we can expect more tools over the coming years.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Vera,

Thanks for your post here. I like how you have explicitly linked to SDG with goals and targets that can be achieved within the school and would be specifically related to benefiting the school in terms of sustainable practices. Whilst engaging with this, you have also noted the possibility for expanding the learning through projects – learning around supply chains could be particularly interesting and enlightening for older children.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Emma,

Thank you for this contribution. Scratch Junior is a really excellent option to introduce the basics to younger children. It works very well on iPad – there are a number of short books available that take you through sequences of lessons that will enable the children to operate it independently and create more complex stories by themselves. In terms of accessibility you have raised an excellent point around multi-sensory approaches being beneficial for all children. It is rare that only one children will benefit from particular accommodations which means we shouldn’t shy away from introducing these to all children in a class.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Mary,

Thanks for your post here. It is so valuable to have specific groups of children to be thinking of when exploring an AI tool. Having a purpose in mind is key to exploring the effectiveness of these tools, as often aimless exploration can leave us with more questions than answers. Involving the children themselves in this learning and creating problems that are embedded in a real-life context and relevant to the children is actually listed under the ‘applying and problem solving’ element of the PMC. Sometimes a small switch in the wording of a problem can be all it takes to see it in a different light and aid exploration.

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