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I can see why Diffit stood out Mary. For SET or small group work, anything that speeds up levelled texts or differentiated activities is going to earn its keep, so a tool like that could take real pressure off. I know what you mean about the Microsoft side too. If your school is fully Google-based, it’s hard to see where some of those tools would slot in, especially if you’re not working with them day to day. Opening an account might be worth it just to have a look around. There are so many AI tools now that it gets overwhelming fairly quickly. Your point about cost is a realistic one as well. Schools would want to choose carefully and think about what would actually get used across the staff, rather than paying for something a few people try once and forget about. Starting with one free or already-available tool like Diffit or something inside Google Classroom might be the most manageable way in. You’d get a sense of what genuinely helps before putting much time or money into it.
You make some important points, Mairead. Children are seeing so much online now, and not all of it is balanced or age-appropriate. Some of the messages around boys, girls, behavior, and “how you should be” can be very strong, especially when they are coming from people with huge followings. I agree that we have a role in helping children question what they see online, not just absorb it. It definitely links with home as well, because so much of that content is being viewed outside of school.
I agree with this Eimear. It starts so early, doesn’t it? Even the colours, toys and comments children hear when they are very young can quietly shape what they think is “for boys” or “for girls”. Science Week and Engineering Week are great chances to challenge that a bit. I like your idea of bringing in examples of famous female engineers, because children need to actually see those role models and not just hear that “anyone can do it”.
This strikes me as a very sensible way of looking at assistive technology Shelly. The SETT framework slows the process down a bit and stops us picking a tool just because it looks the part or happens to be sitting there.
Starting with the School Support File makes sense to me. It gives you the whole picture of the child rather than the difficulty as it shows up in one lesson or one task.
Your point about beginning low-tech is an important one too. Often a small change, a visual checklist, or just a different way into the task does the job before you’d need anything more complicated at all.
And the line about the technology meeting the student’s needs rather than the other way round is probably the heart of it. The tool only earns its place if the child can actually get at the learning more independently because of it.This is a good example, Siobhán, and I’d say it happens in plenty of schools without anyone catching it straight away. A line like “girls are no good at sport” might be thrown out casually, but it can stick with a child and shape whether they feel able to join in at all. What I like is that you’re not just going down the road of telling them it’s wrong; you’re giving them room to talk it through and work out for themselves why it’s unfair. A discussion or a bit of role play would work well there, especially if the children had to think about how being left out actually feels. Mixed teams and agreed rules around passing and including everyone is very practical too. Children often need those structures in place before the habit shifts at all. Bringing in female athletes is a great call as well. It gives them something real to hold up against the stereotype rather than it just being the teacher saying “that’s not true”.
You’re right, Shelly. The instinct is often to think we need new devices or expensive supports, when there’s plenty already sitting there built in. The Windows settings you mentioned could make a real difference for some pupils, particularly cursor size, contrast, and speech-to-text. Small changes, but they take away a lot of the frustration for a child who’s struggling to get at the work in the first place. I’m with you on Immersive Reader too. It’s very practical in SET because it can be tweaked to suit different children without any fuss being made of it. The text-to-speech and line focus are especially handy, and once pupils get the hang of it they can use it fairly independently. A good first step might be showing one or two of these to staff at a Croke Park hour. I’d say plenty of teachers have no idea they’re already there.
Vikings always seems to be one of the topics that grabs them, Sinéad, and it sounds like you got great mileage out of it across the curriculum. A Google Form quiz would work nicely there, especially with a mix of straight recall questions and a few pulled from the children’s own projects. That way it feels tied to what they actually did and shared rather than a test dropped in from nowhere.
The link you made between climate change and what is happening in your own schoolyard is interesting, Triona. The lack of green space is such a clear example for the children, and I’d imagine they can really see the impact after heavy rain. The GLOBE Ireland project sounds brilliant. It’s great when pupils are doing real data collection and not just learning about climate change in theory. Measuring rainfall and pH levels makes the science feel much more meaningful for them.
What you’ve taken from the article is the part that stood out to me too Patrick: that change can start with how we see ourselves and how we treat the people near us. It brings global citizenship back down to something children can actually get a hold of in their own day. The empathy point is important too. With your class, you are trying to highlight that it’s the small things that matter: how they speak to one another, whether they think to include someone, whether they notice when someone’s been left out.
I agree, Eimear. Development Education does feel more urgent now, particularly when children are already meeting so many different cultures and backgrounds in their own classroom. And it doesn’t have to be a standalone lesson either a lot of it comes through in how we talk about fairness, respect and looking out for one another. Your point about multicultural classrooms giving us real opportunities is one I’d agree with. There’s a lot children can learn from each other once there’s space for different stories, languages and traditions to come out. One small idea: rather than setting Irish Aid themes aside as their own thing, they can often be tied into something already happening a story you’re reading, a geography lesson, or even a class discussion that’s gone somewhere interesting.
Aoife, the practicality of this is what struck me. The buddy system especially — for a child walking into a new school, having one person who’ll show them where the toilets are, or sit beside them at yard time, can take the edge off those first few days more than any amount of planning at staff level. Your point about art, music, food and stories is well made too. They’re an easy way in, and they let children meet a culture as something ordinary rather than as a topic to be covered. Small, but it does a lot.
I love your honesty, Rose, about not knowing about Africa Day before doing the module. I’d say that is true for lots of us with local events. They are happening, but we don’t always hear about them in time. Sharing these events with parents, or linking them to SESE/SPHE work in class, would be a lovely way to bring the learning to life for children. The multicultural days you mentioned sound brilliant too. Food, music, dress, flags, and art can make diversity very visible and positive for pupils, especially when children see their own backgrounds represented in the school.
I think a lot of us felt the same way in this module Mary, there really are so many AI tools and websites out there now that it can feel a bit overwhelming at first. You make a good point about cost too. It’s great to see what is available, but realistically schools have to think about budgets, and value for money and whether a tool will actually be used enough to justify paying for it. I also agree with you that the teacher still needs to lead the learning. These tools can support us, but they shouldn’t take over from good teaching or from knowing the children in front of us.
The draggable images idea sounds great, Deirdre. It could give the child more control over their response and might make the comprehension piece feel more interactive and less like a question-and-answer task. Maybe one simple option would be to use Google Slides with a few movable pictures already prepared on the side of the slide. The child could drag the image that matches their spoken answer or use the pictures to build the answer before saying it aloud. It would keep the activity visual without needing too much extra setup.
I like what you’ve said here about pupils taking a more active role in their own learning John. I think that’s a big part of good formative assessment, and it’s something that can easily get lost when we’re busy trying to check understanding ourselves. You’re right too that a lot of formative assessment is already happening naturally in the classroom through questioning, observation and feedback. The digital tools don’t need to replace any of that, but they could make some parts of it a bit quicker or easier to track. Google Forms would be a nice one to start with, even just for a quick check-in at the end of a lesson. It could be as simple as asking pupils what they understood well, what they found tricky, or what they might need more help with. Paul
