Young and Irish Voices
David spoke with Sean, Paul and Sarah from Café Connect in Portumna. They set up this initiative with the help of their teacher to give people who didn’t grow up with technology a chance to learn how to use the things they take for granted. It also helped to solve the problem of rural isolation in their area, which they felt was a huge issue.
Youth Media Team
David
Caitlin and Finn interviewed Father Peter McVerry who set up the Peter McVerry Trust in the 1970’s. The trust works with young homeless people in inner city Dublin. In his interview he spoke to us about the different centres which includes short term one day beds, 6 month beds,addiction and counseling centres and finally 150 permanent beds/flats which can permanently home people in need. The centres combined serve over 4000 homeless people each year. Peter spoke in his keynote about the rapidly changing world around us and also the rapidly changing homeless landscape, with families instead of individuals becoming homeless. Fr McVerry also spoke about how he believes Muslims and Christians need to connect more to end the negativity towards the religion, which has come about due to recent events.
Youth Media Team,
Caitlin and Finn.
“It’s a special moment” – that moment when a child who has worked on a project for several hours is ready to share it with people they care about. Ken Whelan, a volunteer with the CoderDojo movement describes the transformative educational experiences that children have every week. For Ken this is learning by accident, it’s not a typical classroom situation; this is different. Children are challenged not spoon fed. They define the task; they find the solution – they learn by doing.
Clearly this is what children want. CoderDojo is now a movement involving 30,000 children in 700 centres around the world.
The technology, Arduino, is inexpensive and a perfect way to start the process whether it’s creating code to control Google Earth or a real-world drone – the Coder Dojo ethos is that cost should never be a barrier to learning.
I feel embarrassed as I have never heard of CoderDojo before. I also feel that I have not been in touch with the teaching of technology for my daughters sake.
I really like the idea that CoderDojo is not about the tech stuff but more about the understanding of learning and thinking. This is a great example example of ‘Learning by doing’ in a learning space that reflects the students needs.
Evelyn O’Connor and Donal O’Mahony spoke about Junior Cycle for Teachers, a support service for schools in the context of the implementation of the Junior Cycle Framework. Their also shared what enticed them out of the classroom.
Youth Media Team
Cormac Cahill shared his use of Book Creator on the iPad to create Social Stories to help students with Autism.
Dave
Youth Media Team
Check out our interviews wih some of the exhibitors at today’s conference.
John Davitt shared his views with us on alternative formats for learning environments. He also spoke about moving away from Twitter and towards blogging.
Dave and Finn
Youth Media Team
Pat Seaver is the Director of the Blackrock Education Centre. In this interview he shared some of the ways in which the Centre supports teachers.
Dave and Finn
Youth Media Team
Dr Frank Walsh is the Director of the Athlone Education Centre. He shared his thoughts on how Education Centres can support teachers with us.
Dave and Finn
Youth Media Team
One of the panel discussions at Féilte was on the topic of ‘Keeping the fires alive’ involving Marie Thérése Kilmartin, Beth Cooney and Anne White. Marie Thérése is principal of the Presentation Secondary Secondary School in Clondalkin, Beth is a French and History teacher in St Mary’s Secondary School in Nenagh and Anne is a primary teacher in Malahide. During our chat Marie Thérése, Beth and Anne shared their ideas on how they achieve this and their thoughts on Féilte.
Caitlin and Dave
Youth Media Team