Summertime… and the training is easy

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Classroom: Latest news

The INTO’s professional development programme for primary teachers, is in full swing again this summer, with lots to offer the technology enthusiast.

Practical Projects with ICT in the Classroom — a course designed in collaboration with and funded by the NCTE — promises to empower teachers to create practical resources and materials with IT for use in the classroom. Participants will have the opportunity to examine how IT can enhance learning right across the revised primary curriculum. The course, designed and delivered by practicing primary teachers, includes modules on Working with pictures; data handling; multimedia project work; online publishing and the Internet as a learning resource. Teachers will be provided with opportunities to build on skills introduced in earlier courses using a vast range of applications including Paint Shop Pro, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, Hyperstudio and Netscape Composer. The ‘Practical Projects’ course will be available in 34 venues across the country from Buncrana to New Ross and it is expected that over 700 teachers will participate.

A new addition to the Professional Development Programme this summer is ‘ICT: A Tool for School Leaders’. This course designed in collaboration with the NCTE, acknowledges the central role played by school principals in promoting and developing the integral use of IT throughout school life. Integrating IT across the curriculum, IT as an administrative tool and development of school policies on Internet usage, software licensing, technical support and website development will all be explored.

Following consultation with ICT tutors and Advisors around the country and feedback from course participants, The National Centre for Technology in Education (NCTE) has announced a long overdue revamp of the original courses in the ‘Teaching Skills Initiative’. To start with, two of its professional development courses will be redesigned. Design teams of practising teachers, with years of classroom experience of the educational use of ICT, are currently working on each course.

The new ‘Internet’ course will provide participants with an overview of the Internet. It will examine how teachers can use the Internet as a resource to assist with their teaching and contribute to learning. The course will address topical issues such as sourcing relevant information, evaluating information, strategies for managing information and safe use of the Internet. The course will also look at educational applications for e-mail and other Internet services such as chat, FTP and blogging.

As a companion to the Internet course, the second course ‘Developing a Website as an Educational Resource’, will focus on creating a school website. Using available tools for Web page creation, this course will require the participants to build a simple website. It will look at how this website can be regularly updated, and will explore ways in which this website can be used to share resources and showcase examples of student work.

In the autumn, these courses will be available to first and second level teachers nationally through the network of Education Centres. They are part of a suite of courses available free of charge to teachers, through the Education Centre network. Details of courses are available by contacting the ICT Advisor in the local Education Centre. Alternatively an online schedule of courses, providing information on IT courses in the Education Centres, is updated monthly on the NCTE website (www.ncte.ie).

Classroom: Review

Maths Circus
‘If John can paint a room in four hours and Jack can do the same job in six. If they both worked together how long it would take?’ Remember problems like these in primary school? Most teachers would agree that developing clear and rational problem solving skills among their pupils is a difficult feat to achieve.

Maths Circus and its sequel Maths Circus 2 offer a variety of challenges, which help children to develop problem-solving strategies and are among the most popular educational software titles in Irish primary schools. There are twelve puzzles in each, loosely based around a circus theme, each with five levels of difficulty that range from very simple to very challenging. The sheer diversity and ingenuity of the puzzles offered have made Maths Circus a sure hit with teachers and children alike.

Maths Circus 3, the most recent version builds on the successful elements of its predecessors and offers twelve further puzzles, but this time there are two degrees of challenge (Basic and Advanced). There are five Basic levels of each puzzle. These are particularly aimed at children in the early years of schooling, but also serve as an introduction for older children. Then there are five Advanced levels, aimed at middle and senior classes. The most difficult of these levels will challenge children of any age. Also available are printable worksheets for extension activities and a manual offering hints and solutions for each puzzle, in PDF format on the CD.

Maths Circus Act 3 contains 120 individual tasks, twice the number in each of the earlier packages. Topics include arithmetic, spatial awareness, angles and compass bearings, directed numbers and many more, with pupils challenged to use deduction, logical reasoning, prediction, sequencing and heuristics in order to discover the solution. Between them, a vast range of age and ability are catered for, from those who find maths challenging and who need a confidence boost, right through to those who need a really tricky challenge as an extension activity.

The program’s interface and navigation system are well structured, consistent and user friendly. Children can easily change levels, turn off sound, check progress and save or load games. Each child’s progress records are saved, so that they can continue with the program over an extended period of time. The programme also has a teacher options screen, where individual children can be allocated different puzzles at different levels, allowing an entire class to use Maths Circus 3 simultaneously, with each child given problems appropriate to their abilities.

Maths Circus 3 comes on CD ROM, in dual format (PC and Mac). Limited use is made of multimedia elements such as sound effects or animation, allowing the program to run effectively on any Pentium based machine. Installation of the program is simple and uncomplicated and runs from your hard disk. It costs EUR79 (single-user) and EUR158 for a site license.

Maths Circus 3 is every bit as good as its successful predecessors, if not better, providing invaluable and enjoyable experience of problem-solving activities. Who said problem solving was boring? (For details, visit:  www.diskovery.ie.)

Classroom: Web watch

Tobar
In Irish classrooms, the teaching of Gaeilge has not, to this point, been supported adequately by technology. This is mainly is down to the severe lack of indigenous Irish language software due to insufficient funding and support from the Department of Education & Science.

Tobar, an excellent Web resource for the revised Gaeilge Curriculum, goes some way to addressing this neglect, promoting and supporting the teaching of Irish in our schools. Available online are a wealth of teaching resources, work samples, games, discussion forums, classroom projects, a free resource CD, and many other sorely needed supports for teachers teaching Irish or teaching through Irish.

The website was designed by Seaghan Moriarty to act as a central online hub where teachers could share and utilise resources. Funded initially by Údarás na Gaeltachta (www.udaras.ie) and managed by Muintearas (www.muintearas.com) the site gets over 3,000 hits per month and boasts over 800 resources which are free to use.

Tobar’s future plans include helping teachers around the country to exploit the website fully, as well as provision of professional development to encourage and enable teachers to develop their own digital resources.

For ongoing news and updates, join the Tobar mailing list by visiting the site at: www.tobar.ie.

Classroom: Best practice

A new way of learning
Holy Spirit Boys National School, Ballymun has 390 pupils from infants to 6th class. Currently, the school has a computer lab with 16 networked PCs, a data projector, a digital camera and DV camcorder in addition to PCs in each classroom.

The teachers at Holy Spirit pursue a child-centred approach to the integration of IT with children actively engaged in the learning process, learning with technology and not about it. In May 2000, Holy Spirit was selected for inclusion in the Empowering Minds project, an NCTE Schools Integration Project (www.sip.ie) in association with St. Patrick’s College, Drumcondra and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Empowering Minds explores the use of control technology in a collaborative learning environment using Lego Mindstorms kits. These kits include an RCX Brick (a programmable Lego brick that can be built into Lego models), motors, touch sensors and light sensors, Lego building blocks, and additional pieces like gears, beams, axles and other mechanical components.

The children use these materials to construct robotic models. Once constructed, children create programs to control how these models will behave, using the RCX code software. These programmes are then downloaded from the computer to the RCX brick via an infra- red transmitter. The programs are then activated by pressing buttons on the RCX brick.

After just two months of working with Lego Mindstorms, the boys at Holy Spirit were asked to exhibit their work at the Young Scientist Exhibition in 2001, (and have exhibited annually since). Models for display included a playground with moving swings, seesaws, and carousels, a construction crane, and a model of one of the Ballymun towers which, unlike the real towers, has a fully working lift!

John Kelly, whose special needs class have become LEGO robotics experts, describes his initial involvement: ‘I found my new teaching role as a guide and facilitator quite humbling and challenging initially. I was now a member of the team and was learning along with the children’. However this new approach to learning has reaped great rewards, John explains: ‘the pupils have gained a great sense of achievement and enjoyment from making LEGO Robotic Models. This sense of achievement was usually absent from their other experiences at school’.

The project has gathered great momentum over the last three years, with more teachers and pupils joining this learning community. This year, pupils and teachers collaboratively designed and converted a disused storeroom into an Empowering Minds workshop, where models can be displayed and small groups can gather to work and share ideas.

Twelve other schools, both urban and rural are also engaged in the Empowering Minds project and collaborative projects are ongoing. Currently, Holy Spirit is working with two other schools on a shared project based around the mythological story of Diarmuid and Grainne. In addition, both teachers and pupils use the project’s website (Empoweringminds.mle.ie) to upload photos, stories, accounts of projects, reflections, pictures and video clips.

Holy Spirit BNS
Sillogue Road,     
Ballymun,
Dublin 11.
Web:  www.holyspiritbns.com
E-mail: info@holyspiritbns.com
ICT Co-ordinator: Cathal O’Connell
Principal: Patrick Fitzgerald

12/09/2003

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