Projects Update
Integrating the use of innovative technologies in education
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*      July 2009     *

Welcome

This will be our final update for this academic year. We would like to thank all the principals, teachers, SNAs and pupils who worked on ICT projects during 08-09. It has been a good year with numbers of children who participated in DISC projects up on last year. We hope you all have a very enjoyable and relaxing summer break. Our next update will be in September.

iFestival

Star Site

Summer Course

Video Conference

Podcasting

Multimedia

Summer Course

Campus Engage

iFestival 2009

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the teachers who submitted material for iFestival 2009 and also thank those who attended the celebratory meal in Louie's Bistro. Draws for teachers prizes were held on the day and the following were the winners:
 

Star Site

Congratulations to all the staff in St. Vincent's GNS www.stvincentsgns.ie whose hard work has earned them a Star Site Award from Scoilnet. The website was initially designed using Website X5 and then Wordpress was used for the news section.

Podcasting

Pupils from four schools were involved in making podcasts for iFestival 2009. St. Laurence O'Tooles CBS got the opportunity to link up with the community radio station Near FM and broadcast interviews conducted by three of the boys. You can hear the full segment here. It starts with the Principal, Mark Candon, being interviewed about the school's ICT initiatives. The boys interviews are at the end of the segment.

Video Conference

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On Friday 26th June we were kindly invited to St. Columba's National School www.stcolumbasns.com to watch a video conference they were having with their twin school in Vuyani, Cape Town, South Africa. St. Columba's has been working with Amawele www.amawele.org, an organisation that facilitates partnerships between schools in Ireland and South Africa, to promote cultural and educational exchanges between the two countries. Each school is twinned with one other, and the students and teachers exchange information to gain insight into some of the practical realities facing their counterparts.

DISC provided the video and audio equipment for the conference. Skype was used for the link. The children in South Africa had received letters from the the boys and girls in St. Columba's and knew a little about Ireland. The video conference allowed the children to ask questions directly of each other and discover important statistics such as how many supported Manchester United.  It proved to be a very enjoyable and educational event for everyone involved.

Summer Course

Our summer course took place from Wednesday 1st  to Tuesday 7th July in St. Paul's Primary School. It proved to be a very enjoyable five days. Thanks to Johnny McCaw for all his hard work running the course. A great deal of material was covered and we have a sample of the teachers' work.

Campus Engage

?Campus Engage? is a network for the promotion of civic engagement activities in Irish higher education. On Friday June 5th, DISC and the Ballymun Music Programme entertained the   delegates at the Campus Engage International Conference in Croke Park with a multimedia presentation.  Pupils from St. Laurence O'Tooles CBS created a video to support soundtracks played live by pupils from the Ballymun Music Programme. Play Video