Step 2: Technology

Learning Online: Starting January 2021: 

Students and teachers developed their ICT and technology skills throughout the online learning period in January - March 2021.
Apps and online platforms used: 
- Loom (2nd class)
- Zoom (SET teaching) 
- Weebly blog pages: 3rd and 4th class; 6th class. 
- Students used ICT and technology for recording their work and completing some work also. 
- Pupils recorded, typed submitted work in Google Classroom. 

For research pruposes (project work and debate research): 
5th and 6th class: 

Having taken part in Cavan Monaghan Science Festival 5th and 6th class were inspired to further investigate what they had seen on the Webinars- one from Dublin Zoo on Invertebrates and another from Belfast Zoo on Zoology. The boys were absolutely fascinated by the various species that were shown and discussed. It really caught their attention and they were full of questions about these amazing creatures. This led to the boys choosing an animal or insect they wished to explore further from tarantula, frogs,  stick insects etc. They used tablets and laptops to research the topic and atlases to find the place these animals were from. This in turn led to discussions on tropical rainforests, deforestation,  loss of habitat, wild fires and many more related topics.  It also gave rise to a very lively debate on whether it is justifiable to have animals in captivity. Congratulations to Cavan Monaghan Science Festival organisers who have organised such excellent and relevant webinars and streamed them into our classrooms at a time when we are unable to attend workshops or have guest speakers in our schools.

Using technology to present learning and activities: 
3rd and 4th class: 

When online learning was taking place in January - March, boys were asked to present their work using video format for their 'class gallery'. Some boys got very creative and researched and developed their technology skills to create a video with the InShot video editing app. 
​See two examples of the productions below: 

Lego Animation video creation: (to present work)

One boy in 4th class decided to create a stop motion video using both stop motion studio and in Shot app (both video creating and editing apps) to present his engineering work in that online learning period. See video below: 

Making crystals video: 2 brothers in 2nd class and 6th class
Using the ''Inshot'' technology. 

Developing ICT skills 

2nd class are continuing to develop the basic and core ICT skills, using the school laptops. 
Our learning objectives for our lessons were:
- to open and start the laptop
- to locate and use the 'start' button 
- to open a Microsoft Word document 
- To save their Word Doc. to the desktop, creating a new 'file name' 
- Practice their typing skills (capital letters, using backspace, space bar, shift + ___) 
- To edit the font size in Mocrosoft Word 
- to use and understand a bank of words for using the laptops e.g. desktop, pointer, mouse, left click, right click, shift, file, folder, start menu, home screen etc.