A few weeks ago, some of our Irish teachers came together to create and share resources on Edcite for Edcite Teacher Night! The event drew about ten teachers to KC Peaches for the evening. After signing in, our teachers created accounts, checked out the resource library, and made resources they could use in their classrooms.
Although some terms for Irish teachers differ from those used by American teachers (e.g. “Grade” vs. “Class” and “Math” vs. “Maths”), a good resource is a good resource regardless of where you are. Some of our teachers found assignments created by American teachers that were tagged with Common Core standards, and added their own learning objectives to them to meet the needs of their curriculum and lesson.
Sarah O’Donnell, a third class teacher at Our Lady Of Lourdes found an eighth grade resource on poetry and adapted it to use in her class. She added her own questions and used the resource to address a learning objective about relating to others. You can find her adapted assignment here.
Ollie ODonoghue, a primary school teacher in Dublin, also created resources for his Irish students. When I went through and looked at them, I was very impressed! But, one thing stood out to me…I have always spelled kg as “kilogram” whereas over here in Ireland it’s spelled “kilogramme”. Then I looked through one of his resources on units of measure further and found other subtle differences…liter vs. litre, meter vs. metre. At first glance I noticed the differences, and thought about how we could “overcome” them when it came to the global sharing. I wanted to remind teachers that they could change questions before they sent them to students. However, the more I think about it, the more I think my initial reaction was wrong. The use of regionally created resources on a global scale does not need to be overcome, but rather celebrated. The world is more globalized every day, and our kids should know that. Why not use a units of measure assignment as an opportunity to practice that specific skill, but also teach diversity and that the world has many different ways of seeing things?
Another Dublin Primary School Teacher, Graeme Higgins, created money questions for his students. As you can probably guess, the money lesson was not made using dollars, quarters, dimes, etc. He created a Euros lesson for young students. Any Irish teacher will be able to use that assignment to go over money with their students, but so can any American teacher. Imagine a classroom where our students are experts at the norms in their country, but are exposed and aware of what happens in other countries. We stop just teaching about other countries in history class, and incorporate the global perspective into other lessons, like in this case global money into a math lesson. Check out his Euros lesson here.
Many resources came out of Edcite Teacher Night, you can find them by searching our Edcite Library for “NCCA” as a tag. We hope to continue having Teacher Nights and encouraging collaboration.
Some of our teachers enjoying a nice Irish pint afterwards to celebrate our collaboration!
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Julia Sweeney, although currently working for Edcite in Ireland, is originally from Roseville, CA and went to University of the Pacific. She joined the Teach For America Delta Corps in 2011, where she taught middle school English and American History. She has a passion for education and exploring the vast potential technology offers education systems, worldwide.
Note to any Irish Teachers: Reach out if you’d like to sit down and go through the site, give any feedback, or brainstorm ways you can use Edcite in your class! You can reach her via email at julia@edcite.com or on Twitter @juliasween.
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