Digital Schools Week

The much anticipated Digital Schools Week has arrived! At last! Well, actually, nobody knew it was taking place at all! But it's here anyway. 

I believe it to be the brainchild of Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources Eamon Ryan and the idea is a fine one. This could be a great opportunity to highlight the work of certain schools around the country on how they have integrated smart technology into their teaching methods. It is also a great opportunity to organise events around the country demonstrating these smart technologies to teachers. It is also a brilliant chance to promote the use of ICT in schools and maybe even launch a new government initiative for the promotion of smart technologies. 

But unfortunately little of this seems to be happening. I only heard about it yesterday evening from Simon Lewis (from the brilliant Anseo.net) via Twitter, when he just found out about it. There is nothing in today's papers (correct me if I'm wrong) so I'm wondering what the purpose of the exercise is? One must also question the PR surrounding the non existent "event" as no one seems to know anything about it, especially teachers - who are undoubtedly the most significant factors in the incorporation of ICT in schools after state funding (I certainly hope no one got paid for it). However, Silicon Republic does have a website about the week long "event" with several articles on some of the schools that have successfully integrated smart technologies into their classrooms and quite a lot on government policy in the area. I've contacted Minister Ryan to find out more about the event and I await his reply. To be fair to him, he does seem passionate about the incorporation of such technologies into teaching and learning but this week seems to have been flung together last minute.

Innovative teaching and smart schools need more than just rhetoric - they need funding, support, training, hardware & software and this week could and should be focused on these, rather than the promotion of government policy.