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

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

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

The Southern Ocean and Its Climate in CCSM4

The new Community Climate System Model, version 4 (CCSM4), provides a powerful tool to understand and predict the earth's climate system. Several aspects of the Southern Ocean in the CCSM4 are explored, including the surface climatology and interannual variability, simulation of key climate water masses (Antarctic Bottom Water, Subantarctic Mode Water, and Antarctic Intermediate Water), the transport and structure of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, and interbasin exchange via the Agulhas and Tasman leakages and at the Brazil-Malvinas Confluence. It is found that the CCSM4 has varying degrees of accuracy in the simulation of the climate of the Southern Ocean when compared with observations. This study has identified aspects of the model that warrant further analysis that will result in a more comprehensive understanding of ocean-atmosphere-ice dynamics and interactions that control the earth's climate and its variability.National Science Foundation (NSF) [0908675]National Science Foundation (NSF)Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE-OoS)Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOEOoS)NSFOCENSF-OCE [0928473]Department of Climate Change and Energy EfficiencyDepartment of Climate Change and Energy EfficiencyCSIRO (BMS)CSIRO (BMS)CNPqMCT/INCTCNPq-MCT/INCTFAPESPFAPES