Phonic dictation-a task based approach is a series of four books that intend to help children’s ability to transfer phonic and spelling skills to reading and writing task.
These books begin at senior infant level and work up to 3/4th class level. They are written by a speech pathologist( a speech therapist, to me and you!) but have received input from Occupational Therapists and teachers as well.
The nice things about these books or programs is that they include an assessment or placement test for the class. This way you can find out exactly what “phonic” level the children are on. Once, the teacher has placed the child, they are set up on an individual programme. With this, we tick the differentiation and the assessment box in one go!
Each phonic dictation passage( photocopiable) involves 5 parts of tasks. These are made up of a reading practice, reading comprehension, error identification and correction, copying and handwriting and finally the dictation.
The programme is highly structured and isolates the learning to read system into a purely phonic(sound to letter/group of letter based) teaching methodology. It is entirely focussed on the child receiving teacher instruction as well.
This programme would suit a certain type of school, teacher and child. Some children will enjoy and learn reading in this way. Some teachers may like this extremely structured approach. If you think of the PAT programme of CVC reading training, then, this set of books would fit in well there. These books could be used extremely well in a Learning Support withdrawal setting as the Learning Support teacher could hone in on the errors the child was making. Also, the dictation would be more difficult in a class of 30 children who might very well be on totally different programmes.
Because, learning to read is so wide ranging, this set of books is only using one approach. They would be useful for a school who are looking to find ways to assess, structure and steamline their approach.
Each book costs €29.95 and are available as digital download as wel from the prim-Ed website at www.prim-ed.com

I decided to create some helpful guides to classroom technology for schools. The idea was to keep them to one page and to provide enough information for schools to help them understand the various advantages and disadvantages of particular hardware and software. So far, I’ve created three guides and they are on the topics of: Visualisers, Tablet Computers and Operating Systems. You can download them by clicking on the links below. If you have any suggestions for future help sheets, please add a comment and I’ll see what I can come up with.

• Anseo Guide to Tablet Computers - iPads, Androids and all that
• Anseo Guide to Visualisers - two types of visualiser and how to use them
• Anseo Guide to Operating Systems - From iOS to Linux and all the new tablet systems, it’s not all about Windows anymore!

A few years ago I was asked an interesting question about whether it would be acceptable to host an interview a candidate for a job via Skype as she was on holidays at the time. Back then I refused as I wasn’t sure whether it would be an acceptable way of interviewing. The question, however, comes up from time to time still and I am in several minds about it. On the one hand, it seems like a really good way to be able to open up interviews to people who cannot travel to my school but on the other hand, isn’t that exactly what I’d like them to do to get the job? While I believe that interviewing via video-conference is done in certain sectors, I have a number of concerns around it. Apart from the obvious question of whether it would legally make the interview invalid, there are other factors.

One concern that make me sound like a luddite, is the element of trust. When I’m speaking to someone via video-conference, the camera they are using is pointing at their face and I cannot see anything else around them. What is to stop a friend from prompting in the background? What about the candidate having notes to refer to during the interview? Perhaps the latter is ok but it does add an extra dimension to proceedings. Another aspect, which might be important is how the candidate dresses and the lack of real eye contact and we’re all looking into a camera rather than faces.

There are practical concerns. A very real one in schools is a bad Internet connection. Worse, what if a connection is lost? The maximum bandwidth that primary schools have right now is 7Mb, which is only just about ok for a video-conference. I have yet to have a video conference where something doesn’t go slightly wrong at some point with a connection in school.

Other less concerning possibilities might be whether an interview could be swayed if, let’s say, there’s a baby is crying in the background or a someone walks into the candidate’s room while the interview is going on. There are lots of potential problems when the interviewers and interviewees are not physically in the same room with the outside world shut off.

While I believe they are a good idea in principle, because of all the potential pitfalls, I’m not sure if I’m ready to step into the foray of online interviewing until there is some solid advice from patron or government level about it.

The 8th annual ICT in Education Conference will take place in Thurles on the 19th May. Prefaced with the wonderful CESI-Meet on the evening of the 18th May, this event is one of the key conferences on the education calendar. This year’s theme is “Learning Spaces”, a timely and relevant theme as the whole question of what a school should be in the 21st century? Isn’t it time we moved away from the current model and what should that model now look like?

Limerick Institute of Technology, (LIT), reports that the conference takes a broad view of both the physical and virtual spaces where we learn. Keynote speakers and workshop presenters explore space, time, technology, and the curriculum in front of first, second and third level students.  “If you expect to teach effectively in the 21st century, you need to be aware of how to create interesting learning spaces for students,” says Bernard Goldbach, one of the organisers.

The NCCA launched their new report templates last week providing schools with a nice new web site, http://www.reportcard.ncca.ie/, which allows schools to generate their own personalised report cards based on the new rules and regulations from the government. The web site gives schools the option of having various combinations of narrative-style and tick-the-box style templates and a variety of smiley faces and descriptive words to rate a child’s progress from a very happy face to a less impressed one, (there are no sad faces or words like “cuíosach” or “weak”). Once you’ve filled out the seven simple steps, you have the option of downloading the template to fill in or there is an option to download a program called NitroPDF, which allows the teacher to type into the template. (see below)

I’m aware of two companies so far that have their own flavour of the new NCCA report cards. CJ Fallon have launched their annual report books, which have been changed to follow the NCCA guidelines. I’m sure other companies will follow suit in the next couple of weeks. Aladdin Schools, the online Management Information System, has also integrated the NCCA report templates into their suite of options. They have developed 9 versions of the NCCA report cards, which can be filled out online. These reports are then stored on their servers and can be printed out for sending to families. My school used their report cards last year to great success and we’ll be using these new templates this year too.

While I was initially skeptical about having standardised report cards across the country, I feel the NCCA have done a very good job with this. There is enough flexibility for schools to choose whether they like narrative style or the box-ticking style reports. The reports allow for schools to personalise with different symbols, logos and even wording in places. It’s also heartening to see that companies can take these guidelines and improve on them. The NCCA are doing some great work in line with the government’s new measures and should be congratulated for their efforts.

Rí Rá is a new Irish language comic for children. It is a bright glossy affair with lots of short punchy scripts with mainly manga-style characters providing the storylines. I must admit before I opened the comic in a café that I was not expecting much but by the time I had put down the first sample, my coffee had gone cold. I was deeply impressed with the quality and humour of the storyline. While my level of Irish would not be considered “go fluirseach” anymore, I had no problem grasping the stories. In fact, I would go as far as saying that even someone without Irish would have a good chance of enjoying the comics as the visuals are excellent.

The humour in the stories is the sort of child-friendly stuff you see in kids’ movies. My favourite is of the two main characters having a farting contest in a tent before both are carted away in an ambulance. However, there are other stories that might suit the more mature reader, such as the child detective story. There is great variety within the comics so if there’s a story that doesn’t interest the reader, there’s loads more to engage the reader.

Another feature of the comics is a fóclóir at the end of the comic, which translates some of the more complex vocabulary. Each comic costs €2.50 per issue so I’m not sure how cost effective this would be for schools but it is certainly a good options for houses where Gaeilge is spoken or encouraged. I’m sure a budding teacher could come up with some serious lesson plans to go with the comics, which would make them even more attractive to schools.

As with anything in the Irish language, the market is very small so it relies on support from Foras na Gaeilge. In order for it to succeed, I believe it will need the support of schools. Gaelscoileanna, I’m sure, will be delighted to have some new exciting content for their children to read but other schools should certainly have a look at ordering a few copies to see how they work in their classrooms. Rí Rá is a nice change from the stuffy, traditional myths and legends or clunky translations that often appear on the shelves. It’s good to see that there’s an attempt to keep the Irish language fresh.

It was famously said in 2008 that technology in schools has been funded by Tesco tokens and cake sales. When schools invest in technology, they are often using money that has been fundraised rather than from the Irish government. The only source of funding from the government for ICT comes in the form of one-off grants when a school gets a new classroom and this funding must be used in a certain way, with several restrictions. Up until a couple of years ago, schools could only buy laptops from a framework that included only 6 companies who had tendered to win this right.  Over the following months, restrictions were slowly lifted, including the right to purchase locally under certain circumstances. Another option that was eventually allowed was the right to buy refurbished laptops.

Businesses often change their laptops every few years and when a company has finished their cycle, it seems to make financial sense to donate them to be wiped, cleaned and repackaged to be sent to schools and charities. While I’m not sure why it makes financial sense to do this, I presume these companies would simply toss them in skips if it didn’t! A refurbished laptop is generally less powerful than more modern equivalents. For example, a typical refurbished laptop runs Windows XP and has 1GB RAM, about the same as a Netbook. Battery life is usually about 2 hours. Comparing this to a modern laptop running Windows 7, 3-4GB RAM and 3-4 hours of battery life, one might think that it’s a no-brainer to go for the latter.

However, for me, it all comes down to the following:

• Firstly cost: How many children can I get access to a computer per Euro spent?
• Secondly quality: How good does a laptop have to be today to be usable?

Refurbished laptops cost about a third of the price of new laptops. Therefore I can have three times the number of children accessing the devices. That’s simple. It’s the second criterion that cements my decision. When I asked myself, what do children actually do on school laptops, I realised very quickly that they don’t actually need the latest computers. In fact, many titles that are used in schools don’t work on modern computers. A refurbished computer is good enough for almost all the work that children do on computers in schools.

The potential pitfalls of refurbished laptops can be pointed out. For example, what if you need to do something complex requiring faster computers? My answer to this is not to completely rely on refurbs. For more complex things such as multimedia, have a couple of Apple Macs handy. Another complaint is the fact that newer laptops come with better guarantees if anything goes wrong. PCs slow down after a year anyway no matter what guarantees are around. I don’t see this as a problem. Because school laptops change hands every year, we can simply wipe everything and start again and our refurbs are pretty much as good as new. If something goes terribly wrong, because the cost of refurbished laptops is generally cheaper than the cost of the after sales guarantee, we can replace the laptop.

Granted refurbished laptops don’t look as nice as newer ones but they are more than functional and they certainly fulfill the needs of primary schools.

There are a number of companies/charities that sell refurbished computers and laptops. GreenIT, Bluekop and Camara are three examples.

Note: Images from this article are from:

• http://www.ixibo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Refurbished-Computers-Laptops-and-Notebooks.jpg
• http://thebestmp3player.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/refurbished-laptops.jpg

I’m delighted to be able to announce the launch of a new web site designed by Nigel Lane (Inside Lane, Irish Teacher Blogs) and me – Seas Suas. Seas Suas is a dynamic ever-changing online newspaper for primary schools around the country. Once a school registers, whenever they update their blog, Seas Suas looks for keywords and decides what section of the newspaper it belongs in. Topics include sports, festivals, technology and lots more. The idea of the site is to promote all the great work happening in schools around the country in one place. With so much doom and gloom around the media about education, we thought it would be a good idea to celebrate the fantastic work of teachers around the country. Take a look at the site and see what’s been going on in our pilot over the last few months and then add your school to the mix.

It’s been about 3 years since projectors and Interactive Whiteboards exploded into Irish classrooms and almost 85% of them are now equipped with them. One of the more annoying things about technology is their relatively short life span. For example, laptops usually have a 3 to 5 year lifespan before they start slowing down. Unfortunately, projectors and Interactive Whiteboards are no different and an unattended projector can start losing its effectiveness after a couple of years.  I believe that next year will see a dramatic rise in projectors breaking down. Companies around Ireland are already starting to offer “packages” to maintain equipment. For example, our sponsors, Liosdoire Computers, are offering services for projectors and they’re even offering trade-ins for projectors that it’s too late to save.

In order to minimise expenses like this, it is recommended that projectors are cleared from dust every so often and that filters are cleaned. The video here shows how to clean the most common projector in Irish classrooms – the Sanyo PLC-XL50, which is attached to most Promethean Interactive Whiteboards.

Last week Google decided to turn Google Docs into Google Drive but was is merely a name change and if not, what are the implications for education? To be honest, not much has changed, yet.  Google Drive now allows users to not only write, share and store documents, spreadsheets and presentations, it allows one to store any type of file. Google have also increased the storage from 1GB data to 5GB, which is perfect timing for my growing list of documents. However, the biggest change of all is the new Google Drive software, which can be installed on any type of computer or tablet. This is important when one combines Google Drive with its offline mode as now, even without Internet access, one can find and edit files. When an Internet connection is back, it automatically syncs. To be honest, there isn’t much between this and Dropbox. Google Drive, however, opens up its native documents rather than relying on an Office program to do so.

Educationally, this gives students and teachers fantastic opportunities for sharing files even more easily than before. While I can see this being much more useful for secondary students for uploading projects, etc. at primary level, there are loads of opportunities.

Access to the same document no matter what computer you are on is a big plus for me. There is no more need for potentially virus-ridden USB keys, not to mention all the compatibility problems we have in Irish schools with computers still ranging from Windows ’98 upwards. I like the idea of lots of schools working together on the same document whatever that may be and combining together to make something special like a joint poem or story. How about children in different schools peer-assessing their counterparts in other schools? Because, we’re not limited to Google’s documents, spreadsheets, etc. schools can share resources easily, a bit like our sister site, Mash.ie, does right now.

Google Drive has yet to be rolled out to my school’s Google Apps account but I’m hoping that when it does, we’ll see even more power when Drive is combined with Google Sites. I can see lots of opportunities for creativity. One thing that I think might be possible is to create a Moodle style site that would be appealing for younger children. Being able to embed all sorts of files (Google Drive already can read over 30 types of file without extra software installation) in a Google Site through Drive gives fantastic opportunities. If the design is right, it could pave a nice way for primary schools to add a Learning Management System that doesn’t have the aesthetic problems that Moodle has at primary level.

I’m looking forward to seeing how Google Drive will affect other primary schools and what kinds of creative ideas will occur. Take a look at Google’s promotional video below to see what might whet your appetite.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKJ9KzGQq0w