It seems a long time ago now since then Principal Paddie Murphy and myself attended a meeting in Blackrock Education Centre to hear that the Department of Education was beginning to roll out schools broadband and was encouraging schools to invest in networking of their systems. It appeared to be a radical move since at the time we were still operating with one or two standalone pcs per class, and it seemed to have the potential to change our use of ICT in the school. We subsequently went to tender and our board of management chose a company to provide our new network server.
That was back in 2003 and we felt that we were really progressing in terms of ICT development in the school. We were now able to share files, save data centrally for use by all staff and children, and develop our store of digital resources. Over the next few years there were some department grants which provided more classroom pcs, and together with our own parental contributions, we became more innovative and installed a number of interactive whiteboards in the school. The pupils in these classes availed of a new way of interactive learning and it soon became obvious that this considerably increased ICT potential. Further grants and investment by our board of management increased our stock of hardware until we were equipped with one interactive whiteboard per class and a set of laptops for use throughout the school, but unfortunately the schools broadband infrastructure was not keeping pace with our hardware acquisition and internet speeds were a constant cause of frustration.
During the life of the present board we have seen investment in ICT become a priority and most recently we have been able to upgrade our entire system and now have a fully monitored system. Everything has been done to maximise the sharing of the broadband through installation of a number of wi-fi points, but it remains a source of frustration to this day as the primary school broadband speeds are not nearly fit for purpose. Notwithstanding this, our aim in recent years has been to maximise the use of the hardware that we are fortunate to have and all staff have used our ICT facilities to their utmost degree to aid teaching and learning.
Digital technologies and teaching.
A recent OECD report on the merits of using ICT in teaching and learning sparked off a debate in education circles by its apparent criticism of current use of new technologies in teaching, claiming that:
we have not yet become good enough at the kind of pedagogies that make the most of technology …adding 21st century technologies to 20th century teaching practices will just dilute the effectiveness of teaching.
Students, Computers and Learning – Making the Connection (OECD, 2015).
In many ways this argument is true. Technology has thrown up a need to re-assess our teaching practices and teachers need to embrace these new methodologies in their planning, delivery and assessment of learning. Technology invites more discovery-based learning, more collaborative learning involving opportunities for students to discuss and to evaluate what they are learning. Teachers need to be able to facilitate this learning and to provide carefully planned learning experiences by which discovery learning can happen. They need to be able to provide differentiated experiences for different learning abilities and enable students to be discerning in the way they use the wealth of information available to them.
With internet based learning there are pitfalls that teachers need to be mindful of. Students are often faced with ‘information overload’ and need to be taught how to navigate their way through the countless pages of information available to them, to extract what they need, assess its trustworthiness and evaluate its usefulness to them. We also need to teach them how to be safe in this online world.
In RETNS we have been committed to embrace a new way of thinking about education in the light of technological developments, rather than just embrace new technology. Two years ago we formed an ICT staff committee to oversee the development of ICT in our school, with the eventual aim of applying for ‘Digital School of Distinction’ status. We looked at what was already in place in the school and where we needed to improve. Last year we also formed a student ICT committee to give the students a voice in the development of ICT in the school, and they quickly took up the challenge by introducing a ‘Kids’ Blog’ onto the website. Children have had a leading role in developing ICT in that they are enthusiastic about new developments, highly skilled themselves and willing to pass on their skills to others. Teachers are committed to ensuring that children are given every opportunity to use ICT to enhance their learning experiences.
Recently we had a visit from a digital schools validator, who talked to teachers and children and looked at the type of ICT experiences being provided in the school and how these are being used in an integrated way to improve children’s learning. His report was overwhelmingly positive, with great praise given for the way in which ICT is integrated in the school, for our up-to-date and very informative website, and for the way in which the children engaged with ICT and were able to articulate so well what they were doing in terms of ICT work. There was also praise for our board of management for the considerable investment they have made in this area and, without the need for further visits, we were awarded the badge of ‘Digital School of Distinction’. This is a very proud honour for the school given the journey we have made, and we can only go from strength to strength as we embrace new technologies and find ways to incorporate them into the teaching-learning process so that our children are prepared for the opportunities and challenges of an increasingly digital society.
Our ceremony to unveil our Digital School Plaque will be held on Friday, November 6th at 9.15 am. Guest speakers will include those who have helped us along the road to digital distinction.
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