Pop Words App
Popwords! is a free app for iPhone/iPod and iPad for practising vocabulary and spelling. There are four different ways to play the game – Classic, Practice, Puzzle and Daily Puzzle. It’s a good idea to start with the Practice section of the app so that the pupils can get used to the way the app works. You are given six rows of five letters on tiles. The aim of the game is to find as many words of at least three letters as you can. You make words by tapping or swiping letters in sequence. read more…
Dúisigh a Bhríd – Ceacht 34: Cois Farraige
Dúisigh a Bhríd – Ceacht 34: Cois Farraige; cuid de chúrsa comhrá Gaeilge le haghaidh Rang II, á chur le chéile ag an Roinn Oideachais blianta ó shin. Obair digiteach déanta ag Seomra Ranga i mbliana. B’fhéidir go bhfuil cuid den acmhainn seo “as dáta”, ach bain úsáid as in aon slí más mian leat. read more…
Dúisigh a Bhríd – Ceacht 37: Bronntanas Airgid
Dúisigh a Bhríd – Ceacht 37: Bronntanas Airgid; cuid de chúrsa comhrá Gaeilge le haghaidh Rang II, á chur le chéile ag an Roinn Oideachais blianta ó shin. Obair digiteach déanta ag Seomra Ranga i mbliana. B’fhéidir go bhfuil cuid den acmhainn seo “as dáta”, ach bain úsáid as in aon slí más mian leat. read more…
News Booth App
News Booth is an app which allows you to turn photographs or pictures into something which looks like a screen grab from Sky News or some other such news channel. I recently came across this app at the CESI conference in February and decided to try it out in the classroom. The app allows you to import a photograph and add a headline and sub-headline to it to give it that authentic “newsy” feel. Once I saw it, I knew that the app would make a great addition to a literacy lesson. read more…
Quality Assurance in Schools
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 Wordle which I created from the text of his presentation, the words “quality” and “assurance” dominated the presentation. read more…
The Irish in Stories iBook
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 maps and timelines and stories on audiocast. In this iBook you can hear and read stories about The Children of Lir, Setanta, Cuchulainn, read more…
Inside Education/CESI Podcast
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 Education. Podcasts of previous programmes are available on the Inside Education website. read more…
The Book of Kells App
The Book of Kells is one of the world’s most famous illustrated manuscripts and the most elaborate manuscript of its kind to survive from the early Middle Ages. A copy of the four gospels, it was written by Irish monks in the 9th Century on calf-skin, with spectacularly intricate designs. Today, it is on display in the Library of Trinity College Dublin and seen by 500,000 visitors each year. read more…
New Sea Life Resources on Seomra Ranga
The National Sea Life Centre is located on the sea front in Bray, Co. Wicklow. Sometimes described as an “aquatic zoo”, it is home to over 1,000 creatures including Black Tip Reef Sharks, Octopus, Seahorses, Stingrays and Red-Bellied Piranha. It is a regular destination for school tours where pupils can engage in, amongst other things, quizzes, touch starfish and crabs and listen to talks read more…
A History of Ireland in 100 Objects
To mark Ireland’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union and to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, a new free app/ebook has just been released called A History of Ireland in 100 Objects. The development of this app/ebook has been a collaboration between The Royal Irish Academy, the National Museum of Ireland, The Irish Times, the EU Presidency, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Adobe. It is available as an interactive app read more…