Initially, one of the challenges we faced as part of this project was the upskilling required by the teaching staff in certain aspects of digital technology. While our pupils may be digital natives many of the school staff would describe themselves as digital immigrants.

While we had previously used mainly laptops in our school, we were now introducing iPads, to which the staff had to become accustomed. We then had to familiarise ourselves with using Seesaw as a platform for creating digital portfolios where our pupils could store and access recordings that they had made. The next step was to learn about editing, using tools like iMovies.

The biggest challenge of all, however, was caused by something outside of our control; school closures during lockdown and the restrictions imposed by the mitigation measures put in place in schools on their reopening were very disruptive to the project and were detrimental to the momentum which had been built up.

Scoil Íosa, Carracastle NS.