DISC Update

	Projects Update Integrating the use of innovative technology in education _________________________________________ * December 2009 *
Welcome

We would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Peaceful Christmas and a Happy New Year.

In this month's Update we have news on:

iFestival 2010

Christmas Link

Podcasting

ICT Coordinators Meeting

SCRATCH Workshop

Digital Creator

Managed Learning Environment

A short Christmas Greeting made using Crazy Talk 6

We don't normally have ads but our sister programme, The Ballymun Music Programme, have produced a great CD which would make a nice Christmas gift. It is available from iTunes and in all good record shops.

iFestival 2010

The closing date for the Digital Painter competition was Friday 18th December. If you are having problems getting entries together please contact us.

The official "iFestival" website can be seen at www.ifestival.ie

We would like to thank those companies that have kindly agreed to sponsor a number of prizes. These include:

SMART Technologies

Go Interactive

Hall Cameras

Byrne's World of Wonder

Arnotts

A short Photo Story showing some of the Digital Painter entries from George's Hill Senior Infants.

Christmas Link

Thank to Johnny McCaw from St. Paul's CBS Primary school for letting us know about http://portablenorthpole.tv/home The site creates a personalized video message from Santa Claus himself! You could use it with your junior class before the holidays.

Podcasting

The girls from 3rd and 4th Class Ringsend GNS have produced a couple of podcasts this month. Their work is great as usual and demonstrates how useful podcasting can be in engaging pupils in the classroom. You don't need very expensive equipment to get positive results.
Click on the picture above to hear a cool rap on the water cycle and on the picture on the right to hear the girls' interviews about the Stone Age which they are studying at the moment.
ICT Coordinators Meeeting
Our ICT Coordinators meeting took place on Friday 13th November. The theme of the meeting was "Using ICT to teach Literacy". Ken Wikstone from DISKOVERY was our guest and he spoke about the development of educational software in Ireland and demonstrated some relevant programs. Our next meeting takes place on Wednesday February 10th. If there is anything you would like to discuss at the meeting, please contact us.

SCRATCH Workshop
	We have organised a SCRATCH workshop day for Thursday 21st January. The workshop will take place from 9:30 to 2:30 at the Dublin West Education Centre. Funding for substitute teachers will be available under certain conditions. Contact us for details. There are only 10 places available and initially we are restricting them to one per school. Please fill in the form if you'd like to attend.

Digital Creator
The Storytelling with Animation module will be starting on the 11th January.
This is a 10 hour course that is one of the modules in the Digital Creator Certificate Programme. An outline of the module can be seen here. Should you be interested in attending the course and taking the first step on the road to receiving a Digital Creator Certificate please contact us.

Managed Learning Environment

The MLE Project �Learning Together� is making great progress. All of the schools have been communicating with each other via the discussion boards and each pupil has shared their pupil profile with their partnered class. Pupils have got to know each other using the discussion
boards and two of our schools have already met each other in a virtual setting using the virtual classroom which is a link up via webcam and the online whiteboard.

Each class is currently collecting resources such as digital images, video, podcasts, information, interviews etc. about their subject area. Scoil Mhuire Iosaf has chosen local history and has gone on a day trip around Dublin to take lots of pictures and some video. Once all the resources have been collected the pupils will then upload them to LNI to share with their partnered school. The partnered school will then take these resources and create a project/presentation/story about what they have learned from their partnered school and present their findings via the Virtual Classroom. We are looking forward to the next stage of the project after Christmas.

Photos from St. Mary's in Fairview during their Video Conference with Bush Primary School in Coleraine.

Multimedia

We have a great selection of multimedia presentations for you to view this month. Rutland School, Gardiner Street NS, St. Vincent's JBNS, St. Paul's CBS Primary and St. Laurence O'Toole's CBS have been working hard and producing some excellent material.

Getting into Christmas spirit here is a short Photo Story of paintings made by the boys from St. Vincent's JBNS

Another Christmas Photo Story. This time the children from George's Hill produced some digital Christmas pictures.

St. Laurence O'Toole's CBS 4th Class have produced this Photo Story. Using the program helps make the learning of Irish fun.

This video from St. Paul's CBS Primary combines Photo Story, Crazy Talk and stop motion animation.

This is a great little Photo Story from Gardiner Street NS.

Integrating ICT and Photo Story needn't be a challenge. 2nd class Rutland School explain the process their presentation.

One more from St. Paul's CBS Primary School combining Crazy Talk with Photo Story.

Competition

Congratulations to Brenda Whyte from St. Gabriel's who won a 20 euro voucher in last month's competition. Brenda nominated Wordshark as the literacy software she finds most useful.

ICT Challenge

This month we have a challenge for a secondary teacher.

The Livescribe Pulse Smartpen is a computer in a pen that helps you record everything you hear, say and write, and links your audio recordings to your notes. These can then be uploaded onto the internet and your students can use them for revision. The challenge is to produce a dozen pencasts between now and the end of the academic year and and write a short report on your experience. We will provide the Smartpen until May 2010.

Useful Links

Rather than giving you a couple of websites each month that will get lost in the archives of updates we are going to provide a Google doc spreadsheet with a list of links which we invite all of you to contribute towards. You can do this anonymously if you wish but if you add your contact details we will keep your name hidden on the spreadsheet but enter it in a draw for some small prize at the end of the academic year. So this is an invitation to share your favourite educational websites with your colleagues, children and parents from other schools in Dublin inner city. Click here to see the current list. Use the form below to contribute.

Future Updates

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DISC project partners include: Dublin Institute of Technology National Centre for Technology Education Dublin Inner City Partnership	Hewlett Packard SMART Technologies