2. South Dublin County Council
National Centre for Technology in Education
Dept Education and Science
St Aidan’s Community School
Institute of Technology Tallaght
Dublin West Education Centre
3. Founded in 1984,
is a co-educational post-primary school under the
trusteeship of the Loreto Sisters and County Dublin VEC. St
Aidan’s Community School principally serves Brookfield in
Tallaght.
In 2008/09 there were 445 registered students in the
school
60 teachers and seven Special Needs Assistants.
a significant body of Traveller and international students,
according to the 2006 DES report (7 per cent in each case).
St Aidan’s Community School provides the
◦ Junior Certificate
◦ Junior Certificate Schools Programme
◦ Leaving Certificate syllabus and the
◦ Leaving Cert Applied (LCA)
◦ Post-Leaving Certificate (PLC) course
4. Higher school attendance rates
Improved participations levels in class
Reduce numbers of early school leavers
Better educational outcomes for students
More progression to third level
5. access to shared ideas and lesson plans for
teachers;
development of e-learning resources;
adaptation of the curriculum to learners
needs and interests;
students receiving better feedback on their
progress;
support being given to teachers in
managing marking and assessment;
6. lessons becoming more exciting;
better engagement with „hard to reach‟ students
with more motivating ways of learning;
development of new teaching methodologies;
increased awareness and application of
information and communication technologies;
integration between home, school and the
community.
8. CONNECT Me: is a web-based facility that
aims to store, retrieve and display extensive
information about South Dublin
◦ aim of creating a location where people can easily
find accurate information available in the area;
CONNECT Web: This project enables local
community and voluntary groups to have a
web presence
9. CONNECT Centres: CONNECT Centres is the
creation of a network of Digital Learning Hubs
across local community centres and libraries
◦ aim of improving access and learning about technologies
within communities;
CONNECT School: is concerned with developing
student centred technology through an
innovative learning culture in order to improve
school attendance, participation in class and
educational outcomes for the students.
10. eChampion employed by SDCC brought
important ICT knowledge & playing a central
role in the project management & roll-out of
the project –Technical management role
rather than teacher
Core Group of ICT literate teachers (8/9) to
share knowledge and skills with peers
Roll-Out Logistics Team: 7 SENs who assist
students with logistics related to laptops each
day
12. The infrastructure acquired includes: over
300 standard laptops for use by students and
teachers, 10 tablet laptops for Maths and
Science teachers, two servers, 12 webcams,
12 microphone headsets, data projectors and
digital cameras. The remaining spend has
been accounted for by costs such as
consultancy, training and travel and
subsistence.
Cost to SDCC €418,000 (Capital costs only)
13. Windows Xp plan to migrate to Linux in 2010
MS Office and Google tools
Used open source software
◦ Mozilla,
◦ Firefox,
◦ Audacity
◦ Moodle
◦ Hot Potatoes ( SCROM compliant)
◦ Open Education Disc
14. initiative has had a positive learning impact upon the
student body although need to increase student
involvement in the use of ICT in the classroom setting.
In general, teachers noted improved student engagement
and in-class participation as a result of the VLE and ICT
usage within the school.
The interactive and multi-sensory nature of the project
was judged to be useful to students, especially among the
weaker and middle band students.
improved the ICT skills of the students and has fostered
independent learning
the level of independent learning is variable across classes
and individuals with the ACE students proving most
capable of independent learning.
15. First cohort of students to receive a laptop sat the
Junior Certificate in 2009 the school has witnessed a
significant improvement in results (particularly
among weaker students).
Proportion of students opting for Higher and Further
Education (i.e. University, Institute of Technology or a
PLC) after their Leaving Certificate has increased
significantly with a further 90 per cent choosing
these routes (since 2007).
As a direct result of these improvements, there is a
perception that the school is increasingly becoming a
“school of choice”
16. teachers using ICT commented positive effect
on their teaching and classroom practice
they have experienced a change in the
learning environment which is now multi-
sensory and technology-rich
added an enhanced level of motivation to the
learning setting for the majority of the
students concerned.
17. potential afforded by the initiative for the
development of enhanced teaching tools and
materials is not being optimised.
number of teachers do not fully avail of the
opportunity to develop interactive teaching
materials or to use the student assessment
tools available through the VLE
18. the non-collection of laptops by students can
undermine the efforts of teachers to teach
through ICT
number of teachers view the in-class
projectors, electronic blackboards and tablet
laptops – rather than the universal provision
of laptops to students – as being most
beneficial
19. focus of the CONNECT project on
◦ embedding technology within St Aidan’s CS &
◦ improve awareness and to up-skill the teaching
staff.
• Consequently, the project has essentially been a
technology-driven rather than a pedagogically-led
intervention to date.
20. pedagogy is a highly principled, coherent,
carefully structured approach to teaching and
learning that is understood and consistently
utilised throughout a school, and a realisation
that technology alone is a mode of delivery
and not a pedagogy.
pedagogical assumptions underpinning the
project as currently structured are under-
developed
CONNECT Project is not yet ready to be
scaled-up
21. Moodle
indicate a broadly upward trend in the level of
usage over time
10% increase from 2007/08 to 2008/09
higher levels of VLE usage were recorded
during busy school times such as September
to late December and late January to early
March before falling off by June.
22. The teaching staff has developed a variety of
interactive teaching materials for their classes
using the VLE and the Core Group has led the
way on this.
However, the quality and quantity of this
material varies within and across subject
areas on the VLE
several examples of good practice, notably in
ESS, French and History and these provide a
glimpse of the potential of the VLE
23. However many teachers will have started from
a low knowledge base
teaching with and through ICT has not a
central tenet of traditional teaching practice
24. Training and upskilling has been central to
the roll-out of CONNECT
training led by a Core Group of highly ICT
literate teachers who plan and deliver the
training to the remainder of the teaching
body on a voluntary basis
Starting with VLE and improving ICT skills
25. Core Group found it difficult to plan and
deliver “all-staff” training days
peer-to-peer approach of training
individually and by Subject Dept.
good practice both for the development of
technical ICT skills within the school and in
achieving buy-in and motivation from all staff
26. Although training is currently unaccredited,
this Community of Practice via VLE has the
potential to serve as the means of facilitating
the accreditation of this important strand of
the Continuing Professional Development
(CPD) of the staff.
EPICT and Digital Creator
27. One element of initiative relates to the usage
of the laptops in the evening time in the
student’s own home.
effort to develop a deeper connection
between the school, home and community
reflects the objective of developing a culture
of lifelong learning within the community by
means of fostering such a connection
