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Shake a Phrase App Competition

by admin on 14/05/2013

Shake a Phrase AppShake a Phrase is a language app for the development of reading, vocabulary, grammar and writing. The app presents the content under five different themes – Animals, Fairytale, Monsters, Sports and Shake Starter. Using these themes, there are three sections to the app – Shake It, Story Starter and Quiz Me.

I have previously reviewed the app HERE on this site, which also includes a demo video. Artgig Apps, the developers of the Shake a Phrase app based in New York, have kindly given me five free Promo Codes for the app [click to continue…]

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Century Ireland

by admin on 13/05/2013

Century IrelandThe Century Ireland project is an online historical newspaper that tells the story of the events of Irish life a century ago. Century Ireland is published on a fortnightly basis, beginning in May 2013, and is the main online portal for the Irish decade of commemorations, 1912-23. [click to continue…]

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The Sleeping Baobab TreeTo coincide with the publication on this website of the Study Guide for “The Sleeping Baobab Tree” by Paula Leyden, the author and her publisher, Walker Books, have given us four copies of the book to give away on the site. “The Sleeping Baobab Tree”, like its predecessor The Butterfly Heart, is set in Zambia. One morning twelve-year-old Fred wakes up with an unaccountable sense of foreboding, which his friend Bul-Boo, one of the twins from next door, insists is just his imagination. [click to continue…]

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Ailfí agus an VaimpírIs buachaill óg é Ailfí. Oibríonn a athair sa phictiúrlann agus tá a mháthair i dteach altranais , an-thinn. Is í Lindsí feiglhí an tí agus tugann sí aire do Ailfí. Tagann Ailfí ar Mharius sa scioból don chéad uair agus faigheann sé amach gur vaimpír é. Tá Ailfí chun cabhair a thabhairt do Mharius cónra a fháil agus a mhuintir a aimsiú mar tá siad áit éigin i dTrasalváin. Deireann Ailfí le Lindsí go bhfuil Marius chun fanacht leis agus cuireann siad bréagriocht air. [click to continue…]

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Guest Post: Capturing Creativity

by admin on 14/04/2013

Future Classroom LabAs a teacher, I am passionate about integrating ICT in educational settings. In particular, I am interested in how digital tools can really bring teaching and learning to life in creative, dynamic ways. Over the last few years, I’ve experimented with lots of ICT tools, some more challenging than others, leaving me keen to learn more! So I was delighted to recently join 17 European teachers at the Future Classroom Lab (FCL) in Brussels for a 2-day course on the Creative Use of Multi-Media and Devices in the Classroom. [click to continue…]

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Weave Silk Art

April 11, 2013

Twitter is great! Last night Bianca Ní Ghrógáin (@groganbee) Tweeted a link to this visual art website called Weave Silk. As next week is Digital Art Week, I decided to let my pupils have a go at creating some digital art using the site. They’ve had great fun using the site for homework and posting [...]

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Digital Art Week

April 9, 2013

Next week sees the arrival of our 3rd annual Digital Art Week. This gives primary school children around Ireland the opportunity to share their digital art with other children around the country and complete some fun visual arts activities. As it’s digital, over the course of the week, schools will use digital tools such as Twitter [...]

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Section 30, Teaching Council Act to Commence in November

April 2, 2013

The Minister for Education and Skills, Ruairí Quinn T.D., took the opportunity during his speech at the INTO Annual Congress in Cork this morning to announce that Section 30 of the Teaching Council Act 2001 will be fully implemented from November 1st 2013. Seomra Ranga reported last July that the Education Amendment Act 2012 had [...]

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Droichead Pilot Project for Induction and Probation

April 1, 2013

The Teaching Council has proposed to commence a new pilot project over the next two years to develop a new model of induction and probation of new entrants into the profession. The pilot project will cover both primary and post-primary teachers. Named Droichead, the Irish for “bridge”, the pilot project aims to build on the [...]

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Making Blog Comments

March 29, 2013

Getting pupils blogging is a great dimension to add to the class dynamic. It is most rewarding for both the pupils and the teacher. I have written a previous post about commencing a class blog with my 6th class this year. It has been well received by pupils and parents alike. The pupils quite like [...]

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Garda Vetting

March 27, 2013

Through the course of a conversation with educators on Twitter on Tuesday night, I was amazed to discover that if people belong to different organisations through which they come into contact with children or vulnerable adults, they must get separate Garda vetting for each individual one. One would have thought that once Garda vetting has [...]

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EdBlogsIE

March 26, 2013

The Irish Teacher Blogs website has recently been re-branded as EdBlogsIE. Featuring a brand new logo and name, the idea behind the site has not changed. It’s an aggregate site that gathers together blog posts written about educational issues by Irish teachers from primary, secondary and third level backgrounds. At present more than sixty different [...]

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Quality Assurance in Schools

March 22, 2013

Tomás Ó Ruairc, Director of the Teaching Council, yesterday delivered a presentation to the annual Conference of the Inspectorate entitled “The Role of the Teaching Council in Ensuring Quality of Teaching in Schools“. In a wide-ranging presentation Tomás focused particularly on the notion of “quality assurance” in schools. As can be seen from the accompanying [...]

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The Irish in Stories iBook

March 17, 2013

The Irish in Stories is a new interactive iBook just released in the last couple of days. It is a 60 page book for the iPad which opens in the iBooks application. It aims to bring to readers the rich and varied history and mythology of ancient Ireland. It is full of beautiful illustrations, interactive [...]

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Inside Education/CESI Podcast

March 17, 2013

Inside Education is a weekly radio programme on 103.2 Dublin City FM in the Dublin area with live streaming on Dublin City FM. You can hear it every Sunday live at 19:30 (Dublin time). It is repeated at 15:30 on Mondays. The programme is presented and produced by Seán Delaney, Registrar at Marino Institute of [...]

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