early evangelism
After I posted about interactive whiteboards James Colbert told me about a TG4 documnetary on an e-learning gaeilscoil. Its online at - http://tg4.ie/Webt/webt.htm On the left choose ‘Clar Eile - Cartlann’ and then the first An Tuath Nua from 22/2/08 (19 minutes into the clip). This school has won European awards for its use of technology and they set-up they have is first class.
The principal doesn’t hold back on the lack of funding they received from the Irish government. According to the OECD Ireland is languishing when it comes to technology in the classrooms of primary schools. It has one of the worst computer to pupil ratios at 1:13, putting us on a par with Mexico.
Its not the stats though. You have to watch these kids in action to be sold the idea of computers and interactive whiteboards in classrooms. It’s technology evangelism in action.
As James says, he was sceptical first but “watching the kids drawn on the whiteboards with the fingers is quite amazing“. That’s the point. You need to see kids using technology. Fund us or the kid gets it. Fund schools or its chalk n’ talk.
I use a clip of Tim Falhberg’s three and a half year old daughter, create a mathematics screencast when giving workshops on developing educational video with Camtasia
Thanks for following up Eamon. Just wondering though if you’re getting the same “Access Denied” message as I’m getting when clicking on your link to the documentary above. Apparently you can only view the stream when accessed via the TG4 website? Do you know if there’s any way to download/save the video?
thanks James. I should have checked that. I gave the instructions on how to access instead the link instead. For Christmas I want a youTube-style “blog this” button on the TG4 site. We could fund this by cutting some of Pat Kenny’s wages and diverting the money to TG4.
We will also need to update Kenny’s operating system:
(credit to Brian Greene for this joke)