http://studentresponsenetwork.com/ During the extended Christmas holiday due to the bad weather, while browsing I came across an interesting ICT initiative in New South Wales. The federal government is investing in putting a compact lightweight laptop in the hands of every Year 9 school pupil in 571 schools over the next four years. Installed on each […]
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At the Learning and Technology World Forum (LATWF) in London last week, we were struck by how far ahead many western countries are moving when it comes to fully integrating ICT throughout their education systems. As an indication of how far things are moving regarding opening up access to technology in education, the UK Prime
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Taoiseach Brian Cowan announced €150 million funding over three years a fortnight ago in a new Department of Education and Science plan for “Smart Schools”. €22 million was promised for primary schools before the end of the year. The first details of these very welcome ICT grants for primary schools began to emerge in the
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Silicon Republic journalist John Kennedy published a very interesting article on October 29th entitled, Talent & Education, where they issued a “Call for Action” in relation to the current poor state of ICT integration in our schools. The article contains the views of notable captains of Irish industry Jim O’Hara (Intel), Martin Murpy (HP), Dermot
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Our good friends at CESI are busy organising the CESI National Conference which will take place on 12th and 13th February 2010. The conference entitled “Creative Technology in Challenging Times” will highlight the varied and creative ways teachers are using ICT to enhance teaching and learning at primary and post primary level. To do this,
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In November 2008 the Minister for Education and Science launched a €1 million grant scheme for DEIS band 1 schools to help them acquire the Digital Schools Award. A great idea but with typical hamfistnedess only 100 of the 179 schools in this category were invited to apply. The social inclusion unit of the DES
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While reflecting on the recent pronouncements on the Smart Economy, I went back to the Building Ireland’s Smart Economy – A Framework for Sustainable Economic Renewal to look at the specific mention of ICT in schools. Basically, it mentions that the DES Strategy Report from last year “provides a clear direction to inform actions to
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We have been busy putting the finishing touches to our online summer courses for primary teachers which kick off on July 1st. A lot of effort has been put into making these courses as interactive and as interesting as possible for teachers. Thanks to the TeachNet mentors who developed the course tutorials, we are delighted
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So as the school year draws to a close what were the highs and lows for ICT in learning? I think we should all take stock of what has been a disappointing year for schools wanting to improve their integration of technology into the classroom. We are all aware of the lack of funding, policy
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The Coalition of School Networks (CoSN) published a video, “Learning to Change, Changing to Learn” a number of years ago. The video was published in response to a US Department of Commerce survey of 55 industrial sectors in relation to their ICT intensiveness. This survey found that education ranked 55, the lowest, below coal mining.
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