How can I use video to improve teacher engagement with my school’s abundant ICT equipment?

This paper examines how video can be used to enhance teacher engagement with ICT as a teaching tool. The Connect School Project, South Dublin County Council’s ubiquitous computing initiative, equipped St. Aidan’s with a vast amount of information and communication technologies (ICT). A review of appropriate literature indicated that the use of such technologies in class could lead to effective teaching and learning environments, increase student self-esteem and could bridge the ‘digital-divide’ that might exist between students in disadvantaged areas and those in more affluent communities. Through two cycles of enquiry, I planned and produced a video which modelled how the laptops and associated hard and software could be used effectively in class. The video aimed to represent all stakeholders in the school: management, teachers and students. In this way a top-down endorsement of the use of ICT as a teaching and learning tool was communicated. I feel that if teachers are to embrace the use of technology in class, pedagogical as well as technical support must be provided. Using video to model effective practice could be an ideal way to provide such support

Growth of single and multilayer sesquioxide crystal films for lasing applications via pulsed laser deposition

Sesquioxides, materials of the form RE2O3 (RE: rare earth), are of great interest for lasing applications. These materials offer high thermal conductivities, are mechanically stable, can easily be doped with various rare earth ions and are optically isotropic. Members of the sesquioxide family have the same crystal structure but differing refractive indices, and hence are ideal candidates for multilayer as well as single film growth. Sesquioxides can be challenging to grow from the melt, however, due to their high melting points (>2400 °C)

Book Review: \u27A Theology of Election\u27 by Jakob Jocz

Gerard S. Sloyan reviews Jakob Jocz\u27s book, A Theology of Election, which was published in 1958 by S.P.C.K

Laser operation of a Tm:Y₂O₃ planar waveguide

We demonstrate the first Tm-doped yttria planar waveguide laser to our knowledge, grown by pulsed laser deposition. A maximum output power of 35 mW at 1.95 µm with 9% slope efficiency was achieved from a 12 µm-thick film grown on a Y3Al5O12 substrate

Creating an innovative, online resource to support teachers in integrating digital literacy skills into the Junior Cycle English Curriculum

The proliferation of digital tools into all facets of society in recent years has had no small impact on the field of post-primary education. The Irish government’s Digital Strategy for Schools (DSS) (2022, 2015) emphasises the importance of seamlessly integrating digital literacy skills into subject curricula. However, this is a new frontier for Irish post-primary teachers. As a practising teacher I identified a need for teachers to be supported in embedding digital literacy skills into their teaching practice through the provision of relevant, practical and quality resources that met the learning objectives of the subject and through access to continuous professional development (CPD) in this area. Through this Ph.D. research I created an innovative, online resource to assist post-primary English teachers in integrating digital literacy skills into the Junior Cycle curriculum. Taking a methodologically inventive approach (Dadds and Hart, 2001) I used an Educational Entrepreneurial Approach to Action Research (Crotty, 2014) to explore my passions, skills, values, work culture and the literature around digital literacy, digital inequality and digital natives. This exploratory process led me to a greater understanding of issues of inequality in my own work practice as a teacher in a DEIS school; namely that students weren’t as digitally literate as we might assume and that teachers, whose digital literacy also exists on a spectrum, may not have the time, money or motivation to upskill. I worked with students to create an animated, digital documentary and drew on these experiences to create an innovative, online, curriculum for Junior Cycle English teachers with an accompanying online, asynchronous CPD course. This dissertation presents a detailed explanation of this collaborative creative process and draws out the variety of media used to create online digital resources as a means of creating a pluralistic representation of the process. In line with Crotty’s (2014) EEA the creation of these digital resources proved transformative to me personally, to my school’s digital culture and continues to impact the wider education sphere

Overview of a born-digital archives access workshop held at Wellcome Collection

This report outlines the findings of a workshop organised by the Collections Information Team at Wellcome Collection and the Department of History at the University of Sussex, to bring together researchers and archival professionals to explore methods for providing access to born-digital archives

Sensitivity of Antarctic Bottom Water to changes in Surface Buoyancy Fluxes

The influence of freshwater and heat flux changes on Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) properties are investigated within a realistic bathymetry coupled ocean–ice sector model of the Atlantic Ocean. The model simulations are conducted at eddy-permitting resolution where dense shelf water production dominates over open ocean convection in forming AABW. Freshwater and heat flux perturbations are applied independently and have contradictory surface responses, with increased upper-ocean temperature and reduced ice formation under heating and the opposite under increased freshwater fluxes. AABW transport into the abyssal ocean reduces under both flux changes, with the reduction in transport being proportional to the net buoyancy flux anomaly south of 60°S. Through inclusion of shelf-sourced AABW, a process absent from most current generation climate models, cooling and freshening of dense source water is facilitated via reduced on-shelf/off-shelf exchange flow. Such cooling is propagated to the abyssal ocean, while compensating warming in the deep ocean under heating introduces a decadal-scale variability of the abyssal water masses. This study emphasizes the fundamental role buoyancy plays in controlling AABW, as well as the importance of the inclusion of shelf-sourced AABW within climate models in order to attain the complete spectrum of possible climate change responses