Publication on ICT in the classroom a first

Posted on: 22 May 2002

Ireland’s first major evaluation of the concentrated use of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the schools of an Information Age Town was officially launched Wednesday 22 May 2002 by Dr Danny O’Hare, Chairperson, Information Society Commission. The publication, by Trinity’s Centre for Research IT in Education (CRITE), evaluated the Kilkenny Schools IT 2000 Project, which focused on the integration of ICT into the classroom.

The CRITE team was commissioned by Kilkenny Information Age Schools Steering Committee to coordinate the project and enable the teachers involved to reflect on both the process of ICT integration and the learning outcomes. Nineteen schools participated over an 18-month period and the report is a comprehensive account of the teachers’ reflections.

The publication – Reflections on Kilkenny Schools IT 2000 – is the result of a partnership between Kilkenny Information Age, the National Centre for Technology in Education (NCTE) and Kilkenny City Schools.

Coincidentally, the winners of the 2002 Spin A Web competition, coordinated by TCD’s Department of Computer Science, are CBS Kilkenny, one of the participants in Kilkenny Schools IT 2000 Projects. Spin A Web is the longest running web design competition in the country and aims to help both primary and post-primary students to integrate ICT into their learning by collaboratively building a website on the topic of their choice. The winners from CBS Kilkenny are Kevin Mooney, Tadhg O’Dwyer and Liam Lenihan and their teacher is Fergal Canton.