Whether you are a student looking for a relevant website to help you with your homework
or a teacher planning a lesson, start by using the Resource Finder. This is a database
of almost 11,500 curricular resources which have been reviewed by teachers.
Try the following exercise to get you started: (You are a teacher looking for a
good learning activity on Environmental Care for 1st and 2nd class Geography)
- On the homepage select the teachers drop down menu
- Choose "First Level Teachers"
- Select 1st & 2nd class, SESE Geography and Environmental Care
- Scan through the results/descriptions and choose one. The Tour of the EekoHouse is pretty good
- Click on the "More info" button to get a description, learning outcomes and extension
activities
or
Check out the following
video clip which demonstrates how to use the Primary Teacher's Resource
Finder. (2.37 mins duration - high speed broadband necessary)
Type a keyword into the search and view the results. You will be able to choose
from resources produced by Scoilnet, resources from the Internet which have been
reviewed by teachers, results from Britannica's online encyclopaedia, images
and other resources that are part of a European-wide project called the Learning
Resource Exchange. The relevance of the resource to the curriculum is specified
in the results.
Scoilnet has a homepage for everyone and then one for each of its target audiences
i.e., one for teachers, students and parents. News, events, competitions, special
needs factsheets and the best subject resources are highlighted for each homepage
on a daily/weekly basis.
Each week a new site is given "site of the week" status. Featured in the top left
corner of Scoilnet's homepage, these are usually some of the best there is on the
Internet. Sites are reviewed in detail according to their relevance to the curriculum
and how they are used as educational resources. A full list of all previous sites
can also be found in the
Archive.
If you are a teacher or parent alert your students to the students
primary page and ask them to submit a story. You pick the theme. Remind
them to come back to see if their story has been published or awarded story of the
week.
The
primary themepages,
post primary themepages,
primary quizzes,
post primary quizzes and
interactives
are all extremely popular. They link to some of the best Scoilnet resources and
resources on the Internet and cover all subject areas. The themepages take a thematic
approach and are often cross-curricular at primary level, whereas the quizzes are
great for testing knowledge of a particular topic and can be used for revision and
reinforcement learning.The interactives consist of flash-based activities such as
timelines, drag and drop activities and image explorers.
Worldbook Online and
Encyclopaedia Britannica
are now available for educational use through Scoilnet and the Schools Broadband
Programme. These are both worldwide leaders in reference, learning and educational
content and will benefit schools hugely as a trusted source of information. Access
it now (from school only) via the Scoilnet homepage
.
Scoilnet has two fortnightly newsletters for teachers, one for primary and one for
post-primary. These will keep you up-to-date with resources, events, competitions
and more.
Each week Scoilnet highlights the four best educational tv programmes and companion
sites.