St. Senan’s Primary School is committed to furthering ICT skills amongst the whole staff. All teachers show a keen interest in learning more about ICT and all it entails. Whole school training was provided as a summer course in July 2006 for twenty teaching staff in a variety of ICT teaching methodologies and techniques. In addition to this the staff of St. Senan’s have partaken in Interactive Whiteboard training following the installation of the Interactive Whiteboard. Staff were shown how to use the Interactive Whiteboard and given the opportunity to explore all aspects of the Interactive Whiteboard. We also designed child friendly tasks and resources which we saved onto our network for future use. In 2008 teachers attended 20 hours of whole school ICT training after school in areas such as digital photography, excel, powerpoint, animation and a refresher course on the Interactive Whiteboard.

Fís Training – Film Making in the Classroom

The school played host to training for the Wexford Education Centre in March and April 2007, with several staff participating in training for Fís – Film Making in the Classroom. The staff members participated in six evenings of film making which resulted in a film called “The Bread Roll”.

Animation in the Classroom Training

One of the ways of furthering I.C.T. within a school is to keep the teachers up to date with what is available and how easily it can be used to promote learning for children. The Staff of St. Senan’s took part in a training course which demonstrated how animation could be used as a beneficial teaching tool throughout the school. This method of teaching was demonstrated to us, by showing a completed animation video. It was clear from the content that the desired learning effect was achieved, the video contained relevant information about the subject area being researched, thus showing the knowledge the children had acquired during the process of making the video. Staff were then given the opportunity to make their own animated film. We decided upon what subject area we wanted to explore, then with the use of characters and the I.C.T. equipment (video camera, laptop) we were shown haw to make our own animated video. It was a very simple process which led to a great sense of achievement upon seeing the completed version. After taking part in the training, teachers were excited about using the technology available to promote children getting involved in their own learning. We hope to use this method of teaching a lot more throughout the school now that we have the knowledge.

Resources & Infrastructure