Post 2- Reading 2: The partners programme in Northern Ireland

Designed to promote community cohesion and assessing the role ICT can play to encourage collaboration, the report based in Northern Ireland discussed a project that could work for many schools. The geo-political issues that Northern Ireland faces brings the question up of how children can interact with each other in light of their pre determined differences. A common curriculum for all schools of different faiths in Northern Ireland seems an obvious way to promote cohesion, although one teachers comment about education not being the sole responsibility of schools is an important point to note. If children are taught with encouragement of cohesion in schools, then this attitude needs to be replicated outside of school, however this is not always the case.

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It is interesting that the project’s theme of collaboration is based around food, meals and cooking, something we all share a connection to and where Northern Ireland’s and in deed Ireland’s differences seem to fade away. A collaboration of pupils their teachers and university students,  FRONTER was brought into the classrooms, interestingly time was allocated for the project, it was not an after school experience or squeezed in between other lessons but treated as a solid learning experience.

Through the use of this Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) the children started to engage with other pupils from other schools. Have a look at the video below to understand more about VLE’s

It is interesting that the VLE designed for business’s can be thought of as an educational tool. The pupils were clearly enthused by the project and surely this is key to children’s learning. Although as practictioners this environment clearly brings a whole new aspect of behaviour management into practice, this has been evident during my placements so far especially within the context of shared resources. Although it is highlighted that pupils using the web collaboratively showed more tolerance for other pupils of different backgrounds, the wider implications of the exercise are much more profound. Children were collaborating together with their work, there was opportunity to assess each others work remotely, ideas were transferred and bounced around without the peer pressure of the classroom environment which can often stifle children’s participation. The importance of real life activity within learning is paramount, the skills needed to participate in the project are all life skills that children will need to possess in their adult lives, collaboration with people we have differences with, working remotely from each other and being able to collectively produce work for a meaning.  Yes the children were learning about food, but embedded  within this was their learning about time management, general computer skills and how they could use the ICT to develop.

Another side to this all is the learning experience of the teachers and university students. Without the students specialism knowledge would the teachers have been successful other own? Again social contructivism is at the heart of the projects, more knowledgeable others helping teachers to understand how ICT can be set up, ideas and structure of lessons etc. A great learning event for the university students    to understand the frustration and lack of knowledge most teachers and schools actually have ICT.  As trainee practitioners we will be taking our ideas to a school to show them what is possible with VLE’s and you can read about this in my later blogs.

As for the problems Northern Ireland face with their education, I hope that this has helped to enable change for the better, there certainly is an appetite for it as shown in the article from the Belfast Times in 2013. 

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