This year we are placing a great emphasis on using Technology in our school. Whilst we have a bank of laptops, we felt that we were not making enough use of them. We particularly want the children to be able to use ICT technology in a child-friendly and portable way. In this regard, we have purchased new chromebooks for the children and the teachers have attended in-house training on the various apps that are available. We are hoping our parents will also appreciate the positive aspects of technology as sometimes it gets a lot of bad press!
The children in 1st and 2nd put on a STEM showcase for Junior and Senior Infants and then for their parents. There was great fun at the end of the showcase when the children tested their parents' knowledge using our new Chromebooks and Kahoot. See the STEM showcase tab for more pictures.
Great Peer Tutoring taking place as 5th/6th explain to Junior/Senior groups how to "code" Botley the Robot!
On 19th April 2023, 5th & 6th enjoyed their second visit to Microsoft's Dream Space. This linked wonderfully with our celebrations of Technology Week in school. They had great fun learning how to code. The whole experience at Dreamspace developed the children's computational thinking through unplugged activities (Bebras) and plugged activities (Movie maker and Coding with Sphero).
Coding with Microbits during Coding Club
An Easter Egg hunt using technology! The children had to photograph themselves undertaking various tasks in various parts of the school gardens and then create a powerpoint and present it to the class before they were rewarded with a delicious easter egg. The children demonstrated great creativity, originality, collaboration and also great presentation skills!
1st & 2nd learned all about 3D printing from Aidan the Engineer. He was so impressed with their interest and knowledge that he created a 3D World Cup especially for them!
On 7th February 2023, we began our celebration of Internet Safety Week. The children all received lessons on the importance of Internet Safety and they all got wristbands as reminders. The lessons from Webwise were used as well as the Myselfie programme and also some lessons from HTML heros. Parents were encouraged to talk to their children about the dos and don'ts of internet etiquette.
In February, the children from 5th & 6th attended a fantastic Robotics workshop in The Big Picture in Tallaght. It was an amazing workshop which really taught the children about the benefits of technology and how we can harness it for good.
5th & 6th enjoy their first trip to Microsoft's Dreamspace where they will learn all about Coding.
Working hard using our new Chromebooks
Such has been the interest in our new Chromebooks that we have set up a Coding Club. The children have developed their critical and computational thinking skills through the use of coding on the Make Code by Microsoft platform. They have developed their own code in Microsoft and built their own games on Make Code Arcade.
SPACE WEEK 2022
During Space Week the children learned about our Solar System. A physical representation of the size of the planets was displayed on our "Conversation Coaxer" Table. The learned about powerful telescopes and we received a unique photo of the night sky from the powerful telescope in Blackrock. Observatory. The juniors made little rockets. 5th & 6th class did projects and they produced their own Powerpoints using our new Chromebooks which they then had to present to the class. Lots of critical thinking, curiosity and communication in evidence!
3rd & 4th created beautiful planet scapes.
Junior & Senior Infants loved learning about rockets and "thrust" and astronauts. They also made fantastic representations of our Solar System and came up with some creative planets of their own!
Hmm - who knew we had astronauts in Edmondstown?
