Not readily. We made a conscious decision not to include the option to browse by subject/level — as was possible in the old Scoilnet website (pre-2014) — as our user research indicated that teachers are quite focussed when they are looking for resources and they want to get to a resource quickly and efficiently. Keyword search better supports this. For example, a teacher might be planning lessons on ‘3D shapes’ and in their preparations they are looking for a resource that might be suitable for use on the IWB in class. A keyword search for ‘3D shapes’ that delivers meaningful results is the most satisfactory process for that teacher.

However, if you really want to browse by a subject and/or level, you can do it in a roundabout way. Leave the search box empty, click on the search icon (or press enter on your keyboard) and then filter the results on the left-hand side by subject and/or level. Be warned, you will see 100s of resources in each subject, so you might want to filter further by Strand or Strand Unit!

“Strand/Section” refers to the sub-sections of a curriculum subject. In the primary curriculum the terms “strand” and “strand unit” are consistently used across all subjects. There is no consistency in the post-primary curriculum, however. Section, topic, unit, strand, general theme are some examples of curriculum sub-sections at post-primary and as a result, we have opted to stick with an all-encompassing phrase “Strand / Section”.

All the resources in the old Scoilnet website (pre-2014) were reviewed and rated by a practising teacher. We’ve taken those ratings across to the new website, so all resources included in Scoilnet at launch (May 2014) have one rating. Going forward, users will be able to add their own rating of a resource to this. In fact, it would be great if you did log-in and rate resources you’ve used as this kind of information is invaluable in helping other users to narrow down their options.

Although we recommend using only one resource type, it can be difficult to define a very comprehensive resource or website in this way. As a result, you have the option of assigning a resource to multiple resource types during the ‘Add a resource’ process. For example, your resource might contain several pages of explanatory information for students, a printable quiz and a video of an expert critiquing a performance. So, in theory, your resource could be classified as “Guide/Notes” for the explanatory information, “Assessment” for the quiz and “Audio/Video” for the embedded video. But only do this if you think it’s really necessary!

Different people have different perspectives when it comes to this topic and different countries follow different “standards”. The bottom line is that it’s important to use a “standard” for how you define a resource type. Hence, Scoilnet is following the lead of European Schoolnet (a network of 30 European Ministries of Education based in Brussels) who have considerable experience working with digital resources for the primary and post-primary sectors and we’re using their vocabulary (or list of terms) for describing resources. You won’t always agree with it, but your resources will be findable and shareable in this way.