When did you first start thinking about creating your websites? Why?
“Both of my personal blogs ‘Using ICT in Further Education’ and ‘Free Resources for Education’ reflect my deep interest in using quality open source and free software in education.”
“The issue of ICT competence should be dealt with during initial teacher training so that newly qualified teachers will have gained the right ICT pedagogical knowledge and skills before they even reach the classroom.”
Shortly after completing my Masters in 2006, I attended an inspirational talk given by Ewan McIntosh (http://edu.blogs. com/edublogs/) who enthusiastically demonstrated just how relevant many of the new web2.0 technologies are for education. He advised us that the best way to discover what Web2.0 could offer was to become immersed in the new technology and so this led me to start blogging. Indeed, both of my personal blogs ‘Using ICT in Further Education’ and ‘Free Resources for Education’ reflect my deep interest in using quality open source and free software in education. At the same time, I began searching for other edubloggers who shared similar educational interests. I found that despite the availability of large general blog directories it was not easy to pick out other edubloggers with similar interests. The existing search engines, blog directories and the wonderful ‘Support Blogging’ website (http://supportblogging.com/ Links+to+School+Bloggers), by Steve Hargadon (http://www.stevehargadon. com/), did not help me narrow down my search results quickly and effectively. I decided to create a Directory specifically for edubloggers which would provide relevant search results quickly and easily. So, in January 2008, the International Edubloggers Directory was born! Since then, the International Edutwitters Directory has been added to the fold, reflecting the current popularity, with educators, of the Twitter micro blogging platform. (http://www.iol.ie/~inchvec/ edutwittersdir.html) You have been teaching ICT for more than twenty years now. Do you think teachers have developed a more positive view of ICT during this period?
http://tunisian-etforum.blogspot.com
I think overall, probably, yes. There has been more emphasis on providing relevant professional development in this area and that has certainly helped. It is great to see teachers embracing technology and using ICT in their classrooms in ways that they have not before. Although, having said that, it is still not uncommon to find teachers who are not comfortable using ICT even something quite straight forward as email, which has been around for a long time now. So long as teachers have the choice as whether to use ICT or not, some will and some won’t and I don’t see that changing. Personally, I think the issue of ICT competence should be dealt with during initial teacher training so that newly qualified teachers will have gained the right ICT pedagogical knowledge and skills before they even reach the classroom. From the IT 2000 initiative by the DES (Department of Education and Science) in 1997 to the recent report of the ICT in Schools Joint Advisory Group, there has been giant steps in terms of “investing ICT in schools” in Ireland. The European Commission’s 2006 survey found that all Irish schools use computers for teaching. Irish teachers who used computers in class “rank top in Europe” in many areas (using email, using text processors, students’ motivation, etc..). What factors, according to you, account for this success? I think there are a number of factors that have attributed to this success. Firstly, the funding that came with the IT2000 initiative, in the region of £55 million spread over the three years of the project. Obviously, this enabled schools to put the required ICT infrastructure in place. Secondly, the establishment of the National Centre for Technology in Education (NCTE), a specific body entrusted with implementing
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