School Digital Champion

The Schools Digital Champions Project aims to promote the use of technology by students, it is part of the National Digital Strategy. Templemichael College entered a team of Digital Champions for the first time in 2019. The students involved were Bartek, David, Kurtis and Darren from first year and they were mentored by Mr Quinn. Together, they worked on a project with the aim of improving digital skills in our school community. There were two main parts. A website with information, tutorials, links and advice, and taster lessons on Coding for national school students.

The team met frequently to discuss the project, and there were three educational visits. The Digital Champions traveled to a training day in Sligo’s Clayton Hotel to learn about good website content and how to film and edit video clips.

In February we visited The Dock at Accenture. This was a really interesting day as we learned about innovation and problem solving through the use of technology. We also had talks on careers from some Accenture employees.

Having completed the project, the team were invited to the Foundry at Google headquarters to showcase their work along with 40 other schools from around the country.

Our team of Digital Champions were presented with certificates by Seán Canney TD, the Minister of State for Community Development, Natural Resources and Digital Development. There were also fascinating talks by representatives from YouTube, Samsung and Google.

This was an unforgettable experience for Bartek, David, Kurtis and Darren and they would highly recommend participating in the Schools Digital Champion initiative.