Two mentor digital schools Braes High School, Falkirk Scotland and Blackrock College, Dublin Ireland lead this webinar on Leadership and Empowering Learners in Schools. Second in series of webinars held by Digital Schools Awards.
Webinar hosted by Digital Schools Awards on Digital Teaching and Learning presented by mentor schools St Mungo’s High School and St Aloysius College. Learn from experienced educators who are successfully using technology in the classroom.
Awarded mentor school, Gryffe High School in Scotland showcase how digital technology is being developed to enrich learning & teaching. This is a practical session exploring how one school is managing and supporting their digital environment.
Cedarbank Primary School, West Lothian, Scotland share examples of good practice from their school’s digital journey.
Houston Primary School in Renfrewshire, Scotland share the many ways their school is using technology to enhance teaching, learning and assessment.
Julie Menzies of Glendelvine Primary School, a small rural school in Scotland shares her story and experience applying for the Digital Schools Awards Scotland. Julie is in conversation with Jacqueline Black in Perth & Kinross Local Authority, Scotland.
St Joseph’s Primary School is located on the outskirts of Belfast in the small town of Carryduff. Although the area was historically semi-rural, it’s expanded in recent years and today St Josephs has 18 teachers and around 470 pupils, aged from four up, with two classes of each age group. A new school building opened in September 2010 and children are educated in state of the art modern classrooms with full access to interactive whiteboards and a range of other ICT hardware. Each classroom cluster opens out onto a specially designed Resource Area which is fully equipped with computers and play equipment for the younger children. Dominic Donnelly is the principal here and the school’s IT strategy stretches back to 2010. “It’s a significant advantage to us to have the hardware and software available to us, but then of course it’s what you do with it that counts,” said Donnelly. “It’s absolutely essential in 2016 that kids have access to ICT skills. Looking into the future, the ability to use ICT effectively to support your studies and work will be as important as being literate and numerate is today. In fact, if you’re illiterate in ICT it’s hard to see how anyone will be able to carve out a future role for themselves in terms of employment.” “We treat it as a core area – literacy, numeracy and ICT are three core educational areas for us,” he said. St Joseph’s uses the Northern Ireland curriculum with an ICT focus on what Donnelly calls the five Es – Explore, Exchange, Exhibit, Express and Evaluate. “We try to make sure that the lessons offered to the children across each of the year groups, address those Es. They are given opportunities to explore and do research on the internet, exchanging information with friends or the teacher, use desktop publishing or Powerpoint to exhibit their findings in a presentation. With older children, we teach them how to evaluate information,” he said. St Joseph’s ICT infrastructure was funded using a core provision of cash from C2K, a northern Irish project set up to provide services to support the enhanced use of ICT in schools in Northern Ireland. Extra funds were then raised through various fund raising activities as well as sponsorship in the local community by local businesses. “This allows us to have computers in every classroom, as well as a computer suite that is excellent for working with larger groups at the same time, or for running evaluations of ICT skills. There are also interactive whiteboards – a teaching wall powered by each teacher’s own laptop. We also have a set of eight iPads available in each class, something we invested in ourselves, so that children would have the opportunity to try out all the different kinds of hardware and software that’s out there.” “A lot of the success of a system such as ours comes down to the people we have working with us, and internally in the school a lot of that comes down to Nuala Knowles, our ICT coordinator. She is the driving force behind a lot of this and together with her colleagues, it’s been a group effort.”
St Brigid’s is a small three-teacher national school on the outskirts of Redhills village, in county Cavan, with a current enrolment of 72 children. The school’s student population is divided up into 29 in the school’s infant room, 20 in its middle room and 23 in the senior room. Catering for such a broad range of ages represents a massive challenge for the school’s teaching staff, with individual teachers handling multiple age groups at the same time. As such, St Brigid’s might seem like an unlikely candidate for a technology-savvy case study. However, looks can be deceptive and, in fact, it is the only school in Cavan to be recognised with the Digital School of Distinction award from the Department of Education. Kenneth Kerins has been the principal here since September 2014. At that time, he sat down with the board of management and put together a plan whereby they would get laptops into some classrooms and also future proof the school by implementing a Wi-Fi system. “A very prudent and curriculum integration based strategy was set out by school management. All avenues were researched, including the benefits of purchasing tablets. Although popular, we didn’t see that we had a use for them. Today, every child has access to a laptop in the ratio of one machine between two children. Internet access is available throughout the building via an Aruba Wi-Fi network.” he said. “I don’t think it would have happened without the financial support of our proactive parents’ association, as well as a very supportive board of management. Their funding also enables us to share activities on our recently renovated school website – www.stbrigidsns.ie. Meanwhile, over the course of a year, the school also went through the process of meeting the requirements for the Digital Schools of Distinction Award under the headings leadership and vision, ICT in the curriculum, school ICT culture, professional development and resources and infrastructure. The school was awarded this status in May 2015. The implementation of any plan is central to its success. At St. Brigid’s NS, our staff has embraced the use of technology and invested a lot of time and effort into preparing lessons digitally because the templates weren’t there previously. ” All of the school’s laptops are used on a daily basis. In particular, the technology has made it significantly easier for teachers to teach a differentiated curriculum to pupils in the same classroom. “For example, in the senior room, fifth and sixth class may be working on doing an online maths problem set by the class teacher in advance, while simultaneously the teacher is working with fourth class. All our laptops are installed along a beam at the side of the classroom. There is also the option of taking the laptops to group work stations or to a pupil’s desk for individual assignments. The extensive curriculum in Ireland makes it very difficult to schedule designated computer times. Therefore, we aimed to make the use of technology attractive and user friendly for everyone.” The reception of the scheme by parents and children alike has been universally popular. “The children are absolutely delighted – it’s a really exciting way to deliver the curriculum and it’s what they understand. It’s the way of the future and what we’re trying to do is generate a template here in the school whereby we prepare our pupils for life after primary school. I believe the opportunities and exposure to technology they are presented with at St. Brigid’s NS will benefit them as they progress through the education system.”
