Mr. Con McMahon:

I thank the committee for inviting us. I am joined by Mr. Philip O'Callaghan and my presentation is on ICT and e-portfolios in schools. The name of our system is Schoolbag or An Mála Scoile. Some of the key principles on which the new junior certificate is built include the idea that people learn best when they work collaboratively with others, take greater responsibility for their learning, deepen learning by embedding key concepts through active engagement in their learning and can reflect on their portfolios of work. It is recognised that limited assessment techniques undermine the goal of achieving collaborative learning and the objective of embedding student learning. The priority today is repeating information and, to a more limited extent, applying and analysing information on examination day. The current assessment techniques are built around working out the right answer. Individual achievement is generally only valued for assessment purposes and collaborative effort, in most cases, is considered a form of cheating.

Therefore, central to the success of the new junior certificate is to broaden not just the modes of learning but also the modes of assessment. The need for a change in assessment is accompanied by a need for a means for schools, teachers and students to create and store work. The current tools available to teachers to record evidence of learning, which are all paper-based, are unlikely to meet the needs of schools or the needs of the economy. Schoolbag looks to meet the challenge of a change in assessment. It was built to create a digital workspace where students can create and store work and teachers can provide feedback. It is a cloud-based solution and students' work will never get lost. Schoolbag provides a technology infrastructure which facilitates the broadening assessment modes of the new junior certificate. With further development, it can allow for greater external moderation of student work.

Schoolbag is a 100% Irish-owned company which was founded by me in 2011. The platform is now being used by more than 20 schools. An Irish language version of the system, An Mála Scoile, is also in operation. The Schoolbag software solution provides particular features. Schoolbag is an online e-portfolio in which students can place their online work and present it for feedback or correction by teachers. Teachers can post questions or projects online. The input of all students can be seen and this encourages and directs collaboration. It works to provide a better understanding of individual contributions in group work. It improves and speeds up communication with parents as they can receive e-mails directly from teachers about issues concerning their children. The teacher can automatically assign homework to students or groups of students. If students are absent, they will know what has been covered in class. Teachers can provide students with electronic notes that are permanently available and never get lost. This significantly reduces the cost of photocopying for schools.

Teachers can share resources and lesson plans with colleagues within their own school. Regarding monitoring of students, student attendances can be recorded online to facilitate the submitting of the October returns and the NEWB returns online.

This week, Peak Learning acquired Schoolbag. Philip O'Callaghan is the managing director of Peak Learning and he has been working in the education sector all his life. Peak Learning acquired Schoolbag as it sees it as an opportunity for schools and learners. It will allow schools become more learner-centric and also allow them to develop courses and for students to do projects and assignments which reflect their individual interests. This is a very positive development for education in Ireland and Schoolbag is a platform which can facilitate students showcasing their achievements.

E-portfolios are flexible and will allow students to create multiple portfolios to showcase their skills and achievements to different audiences. There will be an assessment portfolio section of Schoolbag where users can share the projects and work which is assessed as part of the State assessments. Students can use the career portfolio section to make available certain projects for future employers to see. Students will be able to set, review and revise goals related to their education. There is strong evidence that when students set their own goals and are committed to them, their performance improves. We hope to build on the work of The Super Generation and embed the principles of goal setting into the planning software.

On external assessment and moderation, Schoolbag will facilitate the online moderation of assessment. There will be further development of the resource-sharing capability so that teachers can share resources with teachers in other schools. On monitoring learning, the reporting functions of Schoolbag will be significantly enhanced to provide the school, and parents and guardians with a unified view of the young person's performance on a real-time basis. This will allow the school and parents or guardians to monitor the progress of the young person in a non-intrusive manner but to intervene, where performance is suggesting there are issues which need addressing.

We hope to build an e-portfolio solution to meet the needs of Irish schools and in particular the broadening assessment needs of the new junior certificate and other courses. We can only do this by working collaboratively with the designers of the new junior certificate assessment models so that we understand fully the needs of these models. We can then build a technology framework around these needs. We hope the committee can help further with this collaborative work.

I founded and have been managing director of Schoolbag since 2011. I have eight years' teaching experience and hold a degree in business studies, H. Dip Ed from Trinity College, diplomas in special education and so on.