Registration through the PDST website.

 Coding in the Classroom

Course Duration: 5 one-hour sessions. There are also video tutorials available to complement the lessons.

Prerequisite: The only prerequisite for this course is an interest in learning about computer coding.

Equipment: You must have access to a computer with an internet connection to participate.

Learning Outcome: At the end of this course, the participant will have the basic coding skills and resources to enable them to teach Coding to a Junior Cycle class.

Course Outline

Week 1/2 January 11th & 18th 7p.m. 

·       Introduce basic coding concepts through Scratch coding

o   Variables, operators, loops, decisions

o   Assignment, arithmetic, comparison, Boolean combinations  - arrays, lists

o   Functions / Procedures

·       Design a simple ‘Lotto’ computer game in Scratch

Week 3 January 25th 7p.m. 

·       Algorithms and Flowcharts

·       Creating Apps with Javascript and AppLab

Week  4 February 1st 7p.m. 

·       Coding using Minecraft for Education

·       Designing a website with HTML

·       Components of a computer system – Hardware/Software  - CPU, memory, main storage, I/O Devices

·       How the internet works / protocols for communication

Week 5 February 8th 7p.m. 

·       Binary/Octal/Hexadecimal Number Systems – Bits/Bytes/Switches/Pixels

·       Machine Code / Assembly Language

·       Sequential / Parallel flow of control

·       Python Coding

·       Coding the Raspberry Pi single-board computer

Safer Internet Day: Resources and Activities for Primary Schools

Safer Internet Day: Resources and Activities for Post Primary Schools
Safer Internet Day is an annual event to promote safe and responsible use of the Internet and digital technologies. This year Safer Internet Day will take place on Tuesday February 7th. If you want to learn more about this event and how to get involved then this webinar is for you.

 During the webinar we will:

 Identify internet safety’s place in departmental policy guidance documents and school policies

• Examine the rationale for Safer Internet Day and the world wide campaign
• Explore resources available to schools for Safer Internet Day

Thursday, 2nd February at 4:15pm via Zoom

Register - tiny.cc/PP-SID-Webinar

Athlone Education Support Centre will be hosting a DEIS Community of Practice (CoP) for the academic year 2022/23 for Post Primary DEIS schools. 

This CoP will offer an opportunity to engage in the DEIS Action Planning process through the 8 themes of DEIS. It will focus on how to effectively gather relevant baseline data and subsequently set SMART targets.

·      Participants will examine the difference between targets and actions and how to link both. This will be examined with a particular focus on effective approaches to teaching and learning contained in the actions identified by the school to benefit student attainment and inclusion.

·      Consideration will be given to acknowledging effective Teaching, Learning and Assessment as the core activity for engineering change in schools.

·      Participants will consider how effective Teaching & Learning supports the implementation of actions under the three areas of classroom practice, subject department and whole school level.

·      Monitoring and evaluating the impact of these targets and actions will be explored. Communicating a summarised DEIS report to the community and the Board of management will be reviewed.

Throughout the year, the facilitator will use key slides to focus in on the basics of DEIS action planning for all, asking principals and DEIS co-ordinators to share good practice. It is envisaged that new to DEIS participants will learn from listening to peers and gaining valuable insights as to what is happening in the different schools, bridging the theory-to-practice divide.