Over 300 Longford students take part in Microsoft Dream Space Showcase

The collaboration saw Longford County Council teamed up with information and communications technology industry experts, Microsoft and Ericsson, for an exhibition of projects undertaken by the pupils.

Over 300 students from 12 Longford primary schools converged on Edgeworthstown for the coding based competition.

The event was described as groundbreaking by Longford County Council Chief Executive Paddy Mahon. “The council really wants to promote and encourage digital technology for all out schools across the county. We want to make sure that all of the young people in Longford have an opportunity where it counts. The digital space and computer science will provide a lot of opportunities for our people in the future.”

The Microsoft Dream Space Showcase is part of a raft of measures the local authorities are implementing for those future opportunities. Longford County Council will be the first county with Computer Science as a leaving cert option in all nine secondary schools.

The local authority is teaming up with Microsoft and Ericsson to upskill teachers in the county to create a learning network, as well as providing equipment and resources.

Last Friday's Microsoft Dream Space Showcase had the feel of a small Young Scientist competition with a specific emphasis on STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) subjects.

The move to introduce Computer Science to all Longford Secondary Schools is the latest in a range of STEM and ICT educational initiatives across the wider Midlands region.

Head of Information Systems with the local authority, Danny Lynch, was one of the drivers of the competition: “Pupils have been working with their teachers over the last number of weeks to prepare projects for judging, with a range of prizes on offer for participants,” he explained.

St Mary's Hall was laid out with stand after stand of STEAM projects designed by the pupils. Under the guidance of the teachers the pupils presented their projects and spoke to the judges of the learnings they acquired on the work.

“Microsoft has given us so much support to get to this point,” Danny said, “You have to have so much respect for the teachers. They have put in so much work to help the kids get to this point.”

Over a 10 week period Microsoft provided online tutorials and classes to Longford primary school teachers introducing them to STEAM and showing them how to use a Micro:bit (a small, cheap computing device).

The core goal of all projects is to introduce computational thinking, problem solving skills and critical thinking. The introduction of STEAM subjects encourages creativity and collaboration.

Sinead Pillion is head of programmes and operations at Ericsson in Athlone. One of Sinead's responsibilities is a program called INFUSE, which stands for investing in future software engineers.

The primary school pupils gathered in Edgeworthstown have a way to go before they take up jobs with the global telecommunications company, however Sinead says the Microsoft Dreamspace Competition has a real value. “This is the very earliest stepping stone you could possibly get. For the majority of them this is just a social gathering, but there will be individuals here that it will resonate with. That's the next step.”

Microsoft Dream Space STEM specialist, Michael Barrett, spoke of the goal of introducing science and technology subjects to early school students: “This project is all about one of Dreamspace's core goals, which is ensuring a diverse workforce. Opening up STEM to everyone, bridging digital divides,” he said.

“The creativity and collaboration is absolutely fantastic,” the Microsoft specialist said, particularly referencing the input of teachers, “What Dreamspace is all about is supporting teachers along that journey, to bring coding and bring STEM education into their classroom and allow them to showcase it to their students.”

Mr Barrett said this is the first stage of the Microsoft Dream Space Showcase. “This is an event for both of our pilot counties. This year we ran in Longford and Tipperary. We're going to have schools from both those counties join us in One Microsoft Place to showcase their projects, similar to how they're doing it today.”

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