Empowering Schools Project St. Brigid’s College St. Columb’s College St. Joseph’s Boys’ High School St. Patrick’s College St. Peter’s High School

“to explore an ‘online collaborative community’ approach to developing the ICT competence of staff and to embedding ICT into the life and work of the school development planning and whole school improvement.”

Targets to be achieved Where do we want to go? % of teachers, librarians and support staff participate in the empowering schools pilot Minimum 1 twilight course provided by each school: ECDL, Spider, Openmind, Mediator, Digital Technologies, Learning Resources- Teachers will use VLE to enhance teaching and learning within the classroom CPD/PRSD 5 GCSE ICT teachers preparing homework sessions and Openmind activity- Minimum of 1 identified teacher to share examples of good practice with cluster schools online Principal and SMT continue to invest inset time for ICT developments All registered members use the discussion forum in teachandlearn.net and/or LNI

Consolidating and extending pupils’ ICT skills   Baseline Year 8 ICT skills using an online test   Year 8 induction will include an ‘ICT Movie Making Day’   Each department will specialise in the delivery of a particular package, skill area and new hardware technologies   Introduce and train ALL pupils in VLE and movie making   All pupils will gain experience in VLEs and on- line assessment for learning

Supporting the digital classroom   All classrooms will be digital and have stereo sound with ‘real time’ and ‘movie maker’ installed   A movie making suite created   All departments will partake in a sharing of good practice initiative in ICT   Provide training for teachers in VLE, podcasting, web design, movie making and a range of other software as demand requires   SEN will embrace new software to enhance learning

Why did this work?  Clear goals at beginning  Good working relationships  Support from management  Time out to work on project  Support from our local education board

What was next for our school?  Beacon for other schools – sharing good practice  Pupils design a Virtual Reality Tour/game of the school using Blender  Digital Literacy Week – including movies and podcasting  Computer based training  Year 8 timetabled for 1 period of an English/storyboarding/movie making