ICT Projects
Literacy & ICT
Project Description - This project ‘ICT and Literacy’ is a developmental project which aims to explore how a targeted intervention using ICT can support literacy in Irish classrooms. The project will run over two school years from September 2005 to 2007 in ten schools. A particular feature of the project will be the coordinated support for schools using the joint expertise of a number of agencies, National Centre for Technology in Education (NCTE), National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA), and the Primary Curriculum Support Programme (PCSP). A project co-ordinator will facilitate the day to day running and administration of the project.The project will be both developmental and research based in that participant teachers will be engaged in trying out and testing models of practice and materials based on identified needs and priorities in literacy and recording their experiences and successes in exploring the use of ICT to support these. The experiences of teachers and children will also be gathered through the engagement with the cuiditheoir and the ICT Advisor. The project will be evaluated by an independent evaluator.
Project Themes - A number of broad themes were highlighted in the NCCA and DES research reports which will be examined in this project. The broad themes will focus on methods and approaches using ICT in;
- teaching and developing the writing process
- broadening the range of writing genres used, and including opportunities for expressive writing
- developing a culture of reading through a variety of strategies including group work, developing responses to reading, reviews and reports
- developing oral language
- supporting discrete language skills such as grammar, spelling, and phonics
- supporting differentiation in different classroom contexts, for example in multi-class situations, children with English as second language, children in Irish medium schools
- developing children’s research skills
- developing children’s abilities in creating and maintaining portfolios of work
Schools will be able to select the most appropriate of these areas for their own identified needs for support in literacy development. The following local schools have been selected to participate in this project.
Oram NS, Castleblayney and Scoil Phádraig, Corracrin, Emyvale.
FÍS - The Film Project For Primary Schools
Project Description - FÍS is an initiative of the Department of Education and Science. The original pilot project was designed to introduce the medium of film as a support to the Revised Primary School Curriculum. Initially it ran over a period of three years from March 2000 to March 2003 and involved 28 primary schools in the greater Dublin and Cork areas. Subsequently this pilot was extended to 10 Education Centres in 2005 and is now being extended to an additional 5 education Centres in 2006 including Monaghan Education Centre. FÍS is supported by AIB Group through its Better Ireland Programme. The National Centre for Technology in Education (NCTE), in collaboration with Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art Design and Technology is working with local Education Centres to extend the FÍS project to schools nationwide. Five schools have been selected from the Monaghan Education Centre ICT Advisor’s catchment area to participate in the expanded FÍS project. They are;
| MONAGHAN EDUCATION CENTRE FÍS SCHOOL | SCHOOL FÍS COORDINATOR |
| Annyalla NS, Castleblayney, Co. Monaghan. | Kevin Maloney |
| Gaelscoil Ultain, Muineacháin, Co. Mhuineacháin. | Ronán Ó Conghaile |
| Holy Family School, Cootehill, Co. Cavan | Isabel Lord |
| Scoil Phádraig Naofa, Cill an Churraigh, Dún Dealgan. | Frank Short |
| St. Joseph's NS, Dundalk, Co. Louth. | Aidan Brady |
Schould your school wish to explore the use of Film in Schools as a separate initiative from the Fis Projects visit www.fis.ie
Cross Border Digital Creativity Project Phase 1
View our Cross Border Digital Creativity Truck Videos. These videos are best viewed over broadband with Windows Media Player or any player that reads wmv files.
| View The Creativity Truck Promotional Video! (5mb file size - broadband required) |
The Truck at Monaghan Education Centre (3.67mb file size - broadband required) |
Description of CBDCP Phase1 - This new and highly innovative cross border project collaboration between the North Eastern Education Library Board (NEELB) and Monaghan Education Centre will provide high-end multimedia training for students in TV, film and music production. This cross border project is funded by the European Union Interreg IIIA Programme Ireland/Northern Ireland through the Irish Central Border Area Interreg IIIA Partnership (ICBAN). Nine schools from counties Cavan and Monaghan have been selected to participate with nine schools from the NEELB region of Northern Ireland. This project offers ten students from each participating school the opportunity to receive and experience multimedia training on industry standard equipment coupled with industry standard professional training. The project training will initially involve on site school based training in film production with a moving image technician and support staff from NEELB. Stage two involves on site training for the schools in the Digital Creativity Truck that will be based at Monaghan Education Centre for up to three days at a time. Students from both sides of the border are being trained in media production techniques and utilize the new “Digital Creativity Truck” valued at over €200,000. “The Truck” was launched on Tuesday the 28th of February at NEELB in Antrim town and arrived for its first training day at Monaghan Education Centre on March the 27th.
It is essentially an outside broadcast unit such as the ones used by RTE, BBC and UTV. It can cater for up to 20 pupils at one time, eight on board operating the editing and sound mixing equipment and the rest outside the vehicle managing up to eight cameras and sound equipment when covering an event. Outside broadcasts can be mounted back to schools and to the community including live interviews, news items, concerts, seminars and drama productions. The truck provides local students with a unique training experience that will prepare many of them for careers in television, radio, film making and music production etc. The man at the wheel of the truck is Moving Image Technician Shay Sweetnam who is being sponsored by the Northern Ireland Film and Television Commission (NIFTC). American company Camplex is sponsoring some of the equipment.
Pictured on the left is Peter Simpson (NEELB), Michael Troy (DES Dublin), Jim Mc Gee & Seamus Mc Dermott (Monaghan Education Centre) at the launch day. Pictured on the right is the inside of "The Truck".
CBDCP1 Participant Schools - The Monaghan Education Centre catchment area schools involved are Bailieborough Community School, Loreto College in Cavan, Castleblayney College, Largy College Clones, Monaghan Collegiate School, Our Lady’s Secondary Castleblayney, Patrician High School Carrickmacross, St Louis Secondary and St Macartan’s College Monaghan. The NEELB regional schools involved are Glengormely High, Monkstown Community, Ballee Community High, St Joseph’s College Coleraine, St Pius X College Magherafelt, St Mary’s College, Clady, Sperrin Integrated College Magherafelt, Slemish College Ballymena and Ulidia Integrated College Carrickfergus.
Project Sponsors - This Cross Border Digital Creativity Project is funded by the European Union Interreg IIIA Programme Ireland/Northern Ireland through the Irish Central Border Area Interreg IIIA Partnership (ICBAN) and is also supported and coordinated by the North Eastern Education Library Board and Monaghan Education Centre.
Exciting times lie ahead for this cross border project which might produce the future camera men/women, film directors, production managers etc of the future. For more information visit http://www.thetruck.org.uk/
Cross Border Digital Creativity Project Phase 2
Description of CBDCP Phase2 - The second and current phase of this project, CBDCP2, commenced in September 2007 and is funded by the Teacher Education Section of the Department of Education & Science in the south and by NEELB and by the Department of Education in the north.
The project has two main objectives in the south; to record best practice in primary classrooms as delivered by advisors (Cuiditheoirí) of the Primary Curriculum Support Service (PCSP); and secondly to provide industry standard training for transition year students who will operate the cameras and work with the professional crew during the “live” recordings. This will also provide aspiring transition year students with an insight into a career as a primary school teacher. The project is also being replicated in NEELB schools in the north with the Curriculum Advisory Support Service (CASS).
The prodcution crews will be selected from four local post-primary schools and trained accordingly. The schools selected to participate are Castleblayney College, Our Lady’s Secondary School, Castleblayney, Monaghan Collegiate and St Macartan’s College, Monaghan. Ten transition year students from each participating school are being provided with the opportunity to receive and experience multimedia training on industry standard equipment coupled with industry standard professional training. The project training will initially involve training in film production with a moving image technician and support staff from NEELB at Monaghan Education Centre. Stage two in spring 2008 involves student crews travelling to primary schools to work as crew members on live recordings of the Primary Curriculum Support Service at work with local primary teachers and schools.
All of these live recordings will be directed and coordinated by an onsite outside broadcast vehicle know as the Digital Creativity Truck valued at over €400,000. “The Truck” was launched on Tuesday the 28th of February 2006 at NEELB in Antrim town and arrived for its first training day at Monaghan Education Centre on March the 27th, 2006. It is essentially an outside broadcast unit similar to those operated by RTE, BBC and UTV, but it is unique as it will be the first of its kind to be run exclusively for Education in the island of Ireland. The truck’s video facilities are based around a Broadcast Pix vision mixer offering 8 widescreen video inputs. This mixer is fed from 6 Sony Z1 camcorders and 2 Sony PD150’s. Audio is centred round an Allen and Heath GL4800 audio mixer. It can cater for up eight cameras and sound equipment when covering an event. Outside broadcasts can be mounted back to schools and to the community including live interviews, news items, concerts, seminars and drama productions.
CBDCP2 provides local students with a unique training experience that will prepare many of them for careers in television, radio, film making and music production and primary teaching. However it also provides students with many key team skills that are an important part of any work experience.
The project is coordinated by Jimmy Mc Geough & Jim Mc Gee (Monaghan Education Centre) and Ray Gilbert & Peter Simpson (NEELB). They also receive the invaluable assistance of Marie Mc Loughlin & Fiona Rushe (PCSP) and Siobháin Mc Killop & Lorna Gardiner (CASS).
Patrick Kavanagh Multimedia Schools' Project
This project was short listed for the eLearning Awards 2005 from over 800 European entrants. It has also been nominated for an Eircom Golden Spider Award 2006 for best education website.
Project Description - 2004 commemorates the centenary of the birth of Patrick Kavanagh, the renowned Irish poet and writer. This project proposes to involve four primary and three post primary schools from “Kavanagh Country”, the south Monaghan area, in developing a unique multimedia resource for all Irish schools on the life and work of Patrick Kavanagh. This will lead to the production of a project booklet, web site and multimedia resource DVD. These outputs will provide a cross curricular interactive resource for all students and teachers in their exploration of Kavanagh’s work and world. The main project partners include the National Centre for Technology in Education (NCTE), Monaghan Education Centre and HITEC Carrickmacross.
Project Objectives
- To create a unique cross-curricular digital resource for the exploration of Kavanagh’s literature.
- To promote and facilitate inter-school collaboration on the development of indigenous digital content resource, through meeting, email
- To produce and digitally collate local Kavanagh resources thereby providing a lasting and tangible educational resource for the local and national educational community including formal and non formal education and lifelong learning. And to share and exchange this resource with the European education community through etwinning.
- To provide children and students globally with an insight into the social and physical landscape that shaped Kavanagh’s work.
- To explore Kavanagh’s work from different curriculum perspectives and provide a substantive and interactive educational resource.
- To utilize ICTs to develop unique resource materials from the different project strands and to combine them into one substantial and distinctive resource.
- To involve the local community and tourist authorities in a heightened awareness and promotion of the south Monaghan area.
Project Strands at Primary Level
Social History - ‘Kavanagh – Local Memories & Images’
St Daig's NS, Inniskeen.
Description: A multimedia cross-curricular recording of local images and oral memories of Kavanagh’s life and times.
Geography - ‘Changes in Agriculture from the Time of Patrick Kavanagh’
Scoil Rois, Carrickmacross.
Description: Cúrsaí feirmeoireachta in am Kavanagh I gcomparáid le na modhanna feirmeoireachta sa lá atá ann inniú.
History - ‘Transport in the Days of Patrick Kavanagh’
Blackstaff NS, Inniskeen.
Description: An in-depth study of the modes of transport prevalent in the days Patrick Kavanagh (1930s – 1960s) with particular attention to the role of the railway in the life of rural county Monaghan.
Environmental Studies - ‘Nature and Trees in Kavanagh’s Country’
Corcreagh National School, Carrickmacross.
Description: This strand will explore and document, using digital photography and video the life cycle of trees such as populars as referred to by Patrick Kavanagh in his poetry on south Monaghan.
Project Strands at Post Primary Level
Geography - ‘A Digital Record of the Geology, Scenery and Landscape Formation of south Monaghan’
St Louis Secondary School, Carrickmacross.
Description: This strand will focus on examining the relevance of the Geology, Scenery, and landscape of south Monaghan in Kavanagh’s work.
English - ‘In the Footsteps of the Poet: A multimedia tour of Kavanagh Country’
St Louis Secondary School, Carrickmacross.
Description: This strand will develop a multimedia resource on Kavanagh’s work composed of digital recordings of poetry recitations in a local accent combined with digital footage of locations of importance in the work of Kavanagh. Interviews with locals who knew Kavanagh and maps will also be included.
Home Economics – ‘Food & Dress to Impress Patrick Kavanagh’
St Louis Convent, Carrickmacross.
Description: This strand will explorer and document the life which existed around the ‘old’ flour mill in Inniskeen in Kavanagh’s time, focusing on bread making. The strand will also research the craft of tailoring at that time. The project will make use of scanning and photo editing software to enhance photographs from the time and draw comparisons using digital photographs and video of production now.
Religious Studies - ‘The Influence of Religion on the Poetry of Patrick Kavanagh’
Inver College, Carrickmacross.
Description: An exploration of the spirituality of Kavanagh’s works focusing on the influence of religion, superstition, Celtic mythology and pagan customs.
Science - ‘An ecological study of Kavanagh's literature’
Inver College, Carrickmacross.
Description: A specific site referenced in Kavanagh’s work will be chosen and an in-depth ecological study will be carried out. This will consist of soil tests, qualitative and quantitative study of the flora and fauna, slope inclination etc.
English - ‘Kavanagh’s Poetry – A personal response’
Inver College, Carrickmacross.
Description: Pupils give a personal response to the poetry of Kavanagh, which is digitally videoed with site significant backdrops.
English - ‘Kavanagh - The man and his work’
Patrician High School, Carrickmacross.
Description: A personal profile of the life of Kavanagh focusing on an interview with his nephew and the collation of family digital images.
Project Coordinator - The project was coordinated on a part time basis by St. Louis Secondary teacher Kathleen Tinnelly. She has previous experience of ICT project work in education having been a finalist in the eSchola 2003 eLearning awards and having recently participated in and completed Monaghan Education Centre's / University of Ulster's Masters in ICT.
Visit the project web site at http://www.patrickkavanaghschoolproject.ie/ or contact his office for more information.
Dissolving Boundaries
Project Description - Dissolving Boundaries uses Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to facilitate cross-cultural educational linkages between schools in the North and South of Ireland.
The first phase of the Dissolving Boundaries project began in 1999 with a total of 52 schools in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. These schools were selected from the primary, post primary and special sectors. Each school in Northern Ireland was linked with a partner school in the Republic of Ireland. Schools communicated by means of computer conferencing and videoconferencing. The project grew out of the successful project entitled "This Island We Live On" which ran from 1998 - 1999. Initial funding was provided by governments north and south, with extra resources provided by Dell Computers and Eircom. Dell Computers donated 200 award-winning multimedia PCs while Eircom provided video conferencing solutions and internet connectivity to all the schools. The initial phase, 1999 - 2002, proved so successful that both governments agreed to extend funding for a further 60 schools in Phase 2, from 2002 - 2003 and another cohort of 60 schools in Phase 3, from 2003 - 2004. This means, that to date, some 172 schools have taken part in the project.
Project Activities - The students in the schools:
- Work together on educational projects
- Build mutual understanding and friendships that help to work towards good citizenship
- Develop ICT skills through valuable educational activities.
Local Participating Schools
| Killevan NS, Newbliss. | Knockconan NS, Emyvale. | St Michael's NS, Cootehill. |
| Castleblayney College, Castleblayney. | Monaghan Collegiate, Monaghan. | Patrician High School, Carrickmacross. |
For more information on this project visit the web site at http://www.dissolvingboundaries.org/ or contact the project coordinator Nigel Metcalf by clicking here.