Mary Moran (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for missing the start of the meeting. I was held up at another meeting. I welcome the witnesses and thank them for attending. I have several questions and observations. My background is in secondary teaching. I taught until I was appointed to the Seanad in May 2011. I have had more years than I care to remember in the classroom. Digital literacy is something for which I have strongly advocated for many years.

I was a teacher of music, which was the only subject that offered technology as part of a leaving certificate course. I have advocated digital literacy since it was introduced in 1999 but have had one problem after another in trying to implement it. When I left school in 2011, I did not have the Internet in my classroom. I am sure that is replicated all over the country. There were one or two computers available which were hand-me-downs someone else had finished with. That is what one used to try to teach. I have always felt strongly that in a subject in which 50% of the overall mark could be in respect of music technology, we were left behind. Unless a teacher has an interest in the technology, it is abandoned, rightly or wrongly. I understand that younger teachers are more willing to take it on, whereas someone with more experience would tend to shy away from it. That is not true in all cases, of course. I was one of those older teachers. I examined it from 1999 when it was introduced as part of the new course. I appreciate that Internet access has been rolled out, but there is still an issue.

I undertook a masters in music technology a few years ago. As part of my thesis, I compared the use of technology in education in Northern Ireland with that in the South. We are 30 years behind. I visited a classroom in Newry, which is eight miles from where I live, and saw a full technology suite dedicated to music. Classes were not dependent on when a computer room was free. There was a complete music technology suite with every state-of-the-art piece of software. To install the software in the South was astronomically expensive. In the South, teachers rely on students bringing in laptops because one cannot have five students working on one computer. It is not feasible. As my colleague pointed out, many students did not have access to laptops. We also had problems trying to overcome the software issue. From speaking to teachers who were training in this area, I heard it was easier to not touch the technology end of it as it made things much more difficult. One really needed to be dedicated or to have a huge interest to get it across. The computer, digital and software facilities available in the North leave us reeling. More funding is definitely needed. While I acknowledge that the witnesses said change is a slow process, the pace here is drastically slow. Unless we sit up and take note of this, we will remain miles behind.

Another area I studied separately was assistive technology for people with a disability. Sometimes access to the assistive technology is very difficult to come by but, even where it exists, teachers are not trained to teach pupils how to use it. Reference was made to continuous professional development and the 33 hours provided for under the Croke Park agreement whereby time is set aside for teachers' meetings. Could provision be made under continuous professional development? A great deal of professional development in technology takes place at teachers' personal expense and during their own time. Every teacher taking this subject must have access to his or her own computer. It is pointless doing it with somebody looking over somebody else's shoulder in 2013.

The skills of the person delivering the skills must be checked to ensure that he or she understands and knows what he or she is doing. There are areas in which the teacher is only one or two steps ahead. Digital literacy is relatively new, but this should be considered. I campaigned to get an interactive whiteboard when they were first introduced. The first time there was a problem with it, I had a huge problem trying to get someone who understood what was wrong to fix it. That is very important. I have seen other teachers using my room who avoided using the interactive board because the blackboard was easier to use. While I appreciate the point that this is part of the training for national school teachers, is there any facility for secondary teachers? While younger teachers will do it, people who have been teaching for years are more reluctant. We are all a bit nervous of things we do not know.

I am a great advocate of tablet computers and their use by pupils. We have long had arguments over heavy schoolbags and lost books. It is an area we need to look at. The book rental scheme was mentioned and there is a possibility there.