[Rioghnach Mhic Ginnea]

<p class=”MsoNormal”><span lang=”EN-IE” style=”mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;”>I have thoroughly enjoyed this course and found it hugely beneficial. I felt that I wasn’t completely computer illiterate, but I have learnt a lot of handy, quick, and easy to use tricks which will hugely benefit my teaching and the students learning. As I have mentioned before I teach in a Gaelscoil, and I find it very hard to get topic specific resources at times especially perhaps in the correct dialect. These Google tools will make it much faster and simpler to create interactive and learner friendly resources. I especially love how it all saves automatically and can be shared easily with other colleagues. I have been using PowerPoint, Active Inspire and Word mostly over the last number of years however I feel after doing this course that the Google apps will be much more beneficial for future practice. The main aspect for me is how accessible it is if you are not working from your own computer, or you are working remotely everything it still organised and readily available to edit. </span></p>
<p class=”MsoNormal”><span lang=”EN-IE” style=”mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;”>I work in an expanding primary school and even though I am not an administrative member of the staff I feel that apps like Google Meets would be extremely useful to us. Even to simple create calender events to remind staff of things like Science or Maths week or guest speakers coming to the school. The collaboration benefits I feel will be extremely efficient in terms of even sharing a self-assessment feedback form from a child to a learning support teacher, or the class teacher and the learning support teacher to create or adapt a plan together. </span></p>
<p class=”MsoNormal”><span lang=”EN-IE” style=”mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;”>I found that I was making use of ICT regularly with games, slides etc within my classroom however I was slow to move to other programmes as our school was bit by bit installing new interactive screens. Now that we have come to that stage that the school has developed and expanded having everything in one space like Google workspace will make moving to a room or a new class level a lot more streamline and efficient instead of having particular items on desktops or external drives. </span></p>
<p class=”MsoNormal”><span lang=”EN-IE” style=”mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;”>I have created a simple interactive slide based on the topic of An Aimsir suitable for junior classes. These slides are great as links to games or class book work can be added to extend the learning and the lesson. </span></p>
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/11nvYUCuvLAByyYzOhfqkVupdadRzFRWUYymQD3phcFA/edit?usp=sharing

 

[Rioghnach Mhic Ginnea]

I really liked your quiz Deirdre, by added pictures and videos it not only allowed for differentiation but for stimulation for the students when they are working through the questions.

[Rioghnach Mhic Ginnea]

I agree with Jen here it is very difficult to find resources and assessment methods in Irish to suit certain langauge levels and class grades. These quizes could easily be differentiated with pictures to allow different learners to access the questions but equally gather data on the material.

[Rioghnach Mhic Ginnea]

<p style=”background: white; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0cm 0cm 19.2pt 0cm;”><span style=”font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: ‘Hind Madurai’; color: #163c42;”>I have created a Google Forms quiz based on my reading assignment for 1st class. I have created the quiz based on the story Orla Uan. Here the students will answer questions based on the text they have read to gauge understanding.</span></p>
<p style=”margin: 0cm; background: white; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: inherit; outline: 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; word-spacing: 0px;”><span style=”font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: ‘Hind Madurai’; color: #163c42;”><span style=”color: #107197; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;”>https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe0CND_JmMslikCDneXUoInlebF_gncytaB1btZf-J5FokoOw/viewform?usp=sharing</span&gt;</span></p>
<p style=”background: white; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: inherit; outline: 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; word-spacing: 0px; margin: 0cm 0cm 19.2pt 0cm;”><span style=”font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: ‘Hind Madurai’; color: #163c42;”>I found this tool incredibly easy to use and will definitely benefit from using this as I work in a Gaelscoil and Irish resources that are age and ability appropriate can be very hard to find.  The fact that you can set each question at required makes it much easier for the student as they can’t submit until they have completed all the questions, so they don’t submit half the quiz by mistake. I also loved that you could add images and videos to the question to help with understanding and differentiation. This is a tool that I will be using a lot in my classroom in terms of both assessment and feedback. It could easily be sent out as a form to parents to see how students are getting on with the homework or language to keep track of progress. </span></p>

• This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by Rioghnach Mhic Ginnea.

[Rioghnach Mhic Ginnea]

In reviewing the “Redesigning Education: Meeting the Challenges of the 21st Century” paper they discuss the need for new learning strategies and environments to evolve teaching methods and students learning to suit an ever growing technologically skilled culture. The paper helped to outlined what characteristics are needed to support this teaching and learning environment and what should be included in our teaching toolkits.

• Students are actively engaged with teachers in the learning experience.

• Guided and supported self-directed learning.

• Support differentiation.

• Support feedback.

The skill I have decided to focus on is the skill of thinking outside the box. I believe that this is an extremely important skill and can help students in all aspects of learning and life even further on in their life-long learning journey. The task I would present to my class is the task of working together to come up with an innovative way of housing particular animals together in the zoo and where to place them in terms of efficiency of the zoo and enjoyment of the visitor. The children would be given the task of designing the new zoo layout and placing animals together in a creative and entertaining way. The children could use a variety of the Google apps to present their work and to explain their planning process and final design.

The children can use Google Blogger to document each step of the plan and what they did to create the project.

https://measuringmaps.blogspot.com/2023/08/the-zoo-redesign-and-layout.html

The children can then use either Slides or Jam board to present the final project the new redesign and layout of the zoo and present this to the class.

https://jamboard.google.com/d/1-OjWZCG1a5XBxnk2GZVhOwD0pDxnjD2BCGMOCgF4pok/edit?usp=sharing

Each class grouping could then review and vote on their favourite redesign and give reasons for their answers.

 

[Rioghnach Mhic Ginnea]

https://classroom.google.com/c/NjE3OTM2Nzg0OTA4
<p class=”MsoNormal”><span lang=”EN-IE” style=”mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;”>I have yet to use Google classroom with an active class as this is my first encounter with the tool. We as a school are moving from Dropbox to Google Workspace therefore, I looked into this course to learn a bit more of what Google classroom could offer. We have been using Seesaw as an online learning platform during and after Covid. However, I do feel Google classroom allows a lot more scope and more in terms of interactions with and from students as Seesaw is limited in what can be done. Google classroom I feel will be a great platform for both myself and my class even though I teach a very young age I feel it will be very accessible for parents also. It will allow easy communication for parents, access to a more concrete model of what students are learning at school. Especially when I teach in a Gaelscoil links can be attached to Irish language platforms to improve vocab or YouTube or person clips to help with pronunciation. I feel it will greatly benefit differentiation in the classroom and will cover a range of learning abilities as many forms of a particular material can be accessed. For example, in my Irish reading assignment a flipchart with images explaining words can be attached, sound bites of the reading material, a flipchart of the material itself and much more. It also offers students a safe space to practice reading and other materials at their own pace and allows for feedback in many ways. I feel it would also be helpful for busy parents if an assignment can be scheduled for a certain date these may help them schedule a time that best suits them and their child within that window to complete the task. </span></p>

[Rioghnach Mhic Ginnea]

https://applieddigitalskills.withgoogle.com/c/middle-and-high-school/en/organize-files-in-drive/organize-files-in-drive/introduction-to-organize-files-in-drive.html

The lesson I have chosen to focus on is the organize files in drive lesson. I currently teach in a large primary Gaelscoil and we have been using Dropbox for a little while now. However, we have decided to move over to Google Workspace after the summer. Therefore, I found this lesson extremely helpful as our school email has been set up by a senior member of staff who has also set up folders for each class level, but we are then required to move whatever material we wish over to the Google platform from Dropbox. I also have a lot of material on USB keys and my home computer which I am now very much looking forward to organising in one space. Even though creating and names folders and documents isn’t altogether new to me the colour coding and short cuts were extremely useful. The most practical element I found was the sharing permissions aspects. I have received and shared some files before, but I hadn’t fully gaged all I could do and what to set these permissions to. I feel this will be hugely beneficial at school for creating collaborative documents, presentations, worksheets etc with my colleague in the other 1st class. We can now add and create resources to be used by both 1st class streams in both classrooms. I feel it was greatly add to ease of workload once I have organised everything as if you are on leave from school I won’t have to be copying and pasting documents or slides for the substitute teacher to access as they will all be available to access in one place. I also feel it will be extremely helpful if a teacher was perhaps on unexpected last minute leave a little folder of work or directions could be added from home from the substitute to access and see what needs to be covered that day.

 

[Author]

Posts