The Digital Strategy for Schools 2015-2020 is the latest attempt by the government to come up with a strategy for the use of technology in education. Its timing is more interesting than the last few because it is accompanied by money. This article aims to summarise what’s on offer and how it’s all going to … Read more
One of the criticisms that teachers had of Scoilnet’s services such as the World Map, the Britannica Encyclopaedia and the Irish Times Archive was that we could only access them at school. Furthermore, schools could only access these services if they had a decent Broadband connection from the NCTE. The good news is that the … Read more
The NCTE have changed their filtering for broadband connections. This means that schools will now be able to access essential web sites such as YouTube and blogs. This will be welcome news to teachers who have had to download good YouTube clips to USB keys before showing them to their class. The new filtering now … Read more
I received an email from a company offering me a complete package to fulfil the NCTE’s procurement framework. The company are called IT Systems and they are a HP partner. This means that because HP were one of the chosen few companies that we are allowed to buy from under this restrictive scheme, we can … Read more
The NCTE have released the procurement procedures on short throw projectors. This spells an end to companies who were offering alternatives to the chosen six projectors on the list. The companies selected are: DCB, Dell, Image Supply Systems, Imex Instruments, Meritec and Promethean. The projectors are: 3M SCP716, EPSON EB-410We, NEC NP610S EDU, Sanyo WXE46, … Read more
There’s a really interesting conversation going on on the CESI mailing list right now. It started off with the incredible news that the Irish government is spending almost half a million euro in licencing fees for products available to all Irish schools through the Broadband scheme. These products are two encyclopaedia – the World Book … Read more
The CESI mailing list is a great source of information. All this snow is keeping us inside so I’m getting loads of information. Today a contributor informed us of a potential way of supporting local business by working around the purchasing framework. I’ll paste a response he got from the ICT Policy Unit in the … Read more
Today I attended a seminar for primary school principals, which was given by the National Council for Technology in Education, (NCTE), in Kilkenny. I was very interested in this seminar as I believed that I would be hearing all about the €150m grant that was recently announced. Although this was indeed the case, the NCTE … Read more
Following the announcement by the Department of Education that all schools will share a grant of €1,700 + €34 per pupil, I’ve been asking primary school teachers and principals how they are going to spend their money. Well, to be honest, several primary school principals are asking me about how to spend their grant. These … Read more
According to a principal colleague of mine, it appears that every school will get €1700 plus €34 per pupil (based on last year’s numbers) from this new ICT grant announced last week. This principal rang the Department of Education to find out about this grant. Big schools are going to get a lot of money! … Read more