ICT
The CASS ICT unit was set up in 1987 and continues to give high quality
ICT curriculum support and advice to schools of all types in the Board
area. Over the last 10 years, the unit has contributed to the success
of a number of large-scale initiatives including the Connecting Teachers
to ICT scheme, New Opportunities Fund ICT training for teachers and the
provision of the C2K managed ICT service.
In 1997 the Department of Education launched its Education Technology
Strategy for Northern Ireland and the ICT Unit was actively involved
in implementing this strategy in the schools in the Board. More recently
this was supplemented by ‘Empowering Schools’ the ICT component
of the ‘Entitled to Succeed’ strategy.
Currently the ICT Unit is heavily involved in the continued development
of ICT as one of the three cross-curricular skills identified in the
Northern Ireland Revised Curriculum. This work continues a long programme
to fully embed ICT into all areas of the curriculum in every school.
The unit has been supporting schools in the self-evaluation of their
provision of curriculum ICT since 2004. This work began as a way to link
existing self-review frameworks with the Education and Training Inspectorate’s ‘Together
Towards Improvement’ initiative, but this has since developed into
the province-wide ICT Mark scheme, which provides a nationally recognised
award for schools that are achieving best practice in ICT through structured
and monitored development.
E-learning empowers students and is seen as the way forward for providing
greater flexibility and wider choice in in-service provision. The unit
has a wealth of experience in the field and a number of CASS officers
have completed the Online Learning for Teachers and Educators (OLTE)
e-learning course provided by the Regional Training Unit.
The unit has made use of the LearningNI virtual learning environment
provided by C2K and is able to provide support to schools wishing to
develop their own on-line courses. LearningNI provides facilities such
as shared workspaces, discussion forums, homework boxes and learner tracking
for every school pupil in Northern Ireland.
As the Department of Education implements the ‘Every School a Good
School’ initiative over the next few years the role of ICT in monitoring
and evaluation will become crucial and the ICT Unit will be in a position
to assist schools make the best use of their curriculum ICT to maximise
student potential.
Post-primary Self-evaluation in ICT |
Special Education Access tools |
Primary Self-evaluation in ICT |
Nursery Support with integration of ICT into pre-school curriculum |
