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YMT on Tour … part 1 Getting there!

This is the story of four YMT-ers and three proud (well we hope you are proud!) mammies on a whistle-stop tour of Brussels, Waterloo and Bruges!

How did we come to be here? Well … during Easter our long-suffering mentor Pam O’ Brien received an interesting email from Ireland South MEP Seán Kelly which offered an exciting opportunity to participate in a trip to Brussels. He was emailing Pam to recognise the great work done by YMT- Seán is familar with our work as we had interviewed him at previous events.

So… after much negotiating and discussion, flights to Brussels were booked and hotel rooms secured. It was official, YMT were becoming #YMTontour and our famous red t-shirts were going to grace the European Parliament.

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Our flight was an early one – 6.20am from Dublin, so there was a subdued silence when we met in Dublin Airport. Locked and loaded, we set out for Brussels on a packed Ryanair flight and arrived to the ‘another flight on time’ trumpet  (I secretly decided that this fanfare was in fact to welcome YMT to Brussels 😂) Bernie Carroll was waiting patiently in the airport with a sign saying ‘Seán Kelly MEP Group’ and we felt like celebrities. Once the group (16 in total) was gathered, we headed for our coach for the short journey into Brussels city centre.

img_2801Home for the 2 nights was the stylish and uber eco-friendly Hotel Thon Europe in the European district. This hotel was buzzing with business people and the staff were really friendly.  What was very interesting was all the eco stuff in the hotel- they had a 1st floor garden, a bike in the foyer to generate electricity and also give their left-over toiletries to charity. Nice!

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Caitlin, Lorcan, Roisin & Amy

Youth Media Team

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Interview with Jonny Cooper

Jack and Roisin interviewed Jonny Cooper at #WeAreExcited. He spoke about the importance of failure and how to deal with it. He also told us about how he uses technology and his favourite device.

Jack and Roisin
Youth Media Team

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Interview with Professor Brian MacCraith

Anna and Roisin interviewed DCU President Professor Brian MacCraith at #WeAreExcited. Brian spoke to us about how he chaired the review of STEM education in Ireland the results of which were published last November by the Minister for Education and Skills, Richard Bruton. He also spoke about being involved in competitions such as CoderDojo’s Coolest Projects and SciFest. He left us with some tips for teenagers in the online space.

Roisin and Anna
Youth Media Team

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Interviews with Digital Schools Champions

Jack and Denis interviewed some of the schools who took part in School Digital Champion. They asked them about their projects and being involved in the initiative.

Click the links below to listen to our interviews.

Borrisokane Community College,

Glenamaddy Community School,

Colaiste Mhuire,

 

Jack and Denis

Youth Media Team

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Interview with Ciaran Cannon, Bernard Kirk and Frank Walsh

Roisin and Anna spoke to Ciaran Cannon TD, Bernard Kirk, Director of the Galway Education Centre and Frank Walsh, Director of the Athlone Education Centre at the Excited Digital Learning Festival. They originally came up with the ideabehind the Festival and shared their thoughts with us on the inspiration behind it, how it has eveolved and how they hope to develop it in the future.

It turns out that we are the first people to get an interview with all three of them together 🙂

Roisin and Anna
Youth Media Team

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Interview with Professor Sameer Hinduja

At the Excited Digital Learning Festival today, Jack and Denis interview Professor Sameer Hinduja, Professor in the school of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida Atlantic University.   Sameer delivered the keynote presentation at today’s event.  He spoke to us about cyberbullying and shared some advice for teenagers in the online space.

Jack and Denis

Youth Media Team

 

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Interview with Mark Finlay

Anna and Rosin interviewed Mark Finlay at #WeAreExcited today. Mark Finlay spoke about the workshop he was presenting about ongoing assessment using digital tools. He talked about making the classroom more interactive and involving more children into game based education. He also talked about having online folders could benefit children so they could show their work at home to family and friends easily by taking a photo and uploading it, as opposed to having a class folder. Mark also spoke about the importance of events like Excited.

Anna and Roisin
Youth Media Team

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Interview with Roy Mitchell

Roy Mitchell was at the Excited event in Dublin. He is a primary school teacher in Sligo. He gave a workshop on Embedding ICT in the classroom. The reason Roy was here today was to help teachers get online tools and resources, for example world book and schoolnet.ie are encyclopaedias online for children. They are a safe and reliable source of information for kids all around the country. He believed these events are very important for the teachers to come and learn new skills so that they can then pass them onto the children in the classroom.

Roisn and Anna
Youth Media Team