Computers were first introduced into Edmund Rice Primary School in 1986 when one BBC Master was introduced to the senior pupils. In 1991 Acorn machines were introduced and two years later saw a computer room set up, with seven Acorn 3000 machines and two dot matrix printers. Three years later the computers returned to the classrooms, as there was demands on space in the school.
PC'c have been introduced into the school over the past few years so now the school works on both platforms.
In 1996 the school obtained its first PC, with full Internet access. The third
class were national winners of the "Surf the Net" competition sponsored by Tayto
Irl. As a prize the school received a state of the art Pentium machine, with a years free
with Indigo Internet provider. Each of the boys in the class received a Sony playstation
each and a free game.Through using the Internet the school has gone from strength to
strength. Most of the work on the "net" involves e-mail projects, through the
World Wide Classroom.
Most
recently the sixth class pupils have been involved in the Stellar Schools Project linking
schools in the Waterford area with schools in Newfoundland. Canada. Each of the seven
Waterford schools involved in this Internet project are twinned with
http://www.stemnet.nf.ca/ireland.
a school in Newfoundland and the
work can be viewed on the Stellar web site at
We have also recently made a short video of the school and featured in a recent
"Nation-wide" programme on RTE television on the Stellar School Ireland launch.
We also featured, as "School of the Month" in PCLive August edition of Ireland's
only computer magazine.
In
1997, a 4th. Class pupil Jason Milner was National the Netd@ys
competition and won a digital camera for the school.Over the past few months various
groups have been busily working on our school web site. This work is nearing completition
and will include items of school and local interest. The site can be viewed at
http://homepage.tinet.ie/~edrice
With the Dept. of Education grant money recently made available to the school we have added to our computer stock and long term hope to provide all classes with up -to -date computers. At present five of the classrooms have Pentium machines, with full Internet access provided through the use of an external modem. Thanks mainly to local business interests we have a number of 386 and 486 computers, which are very useful, especially for classes involved in e-mail projects.
A
scanner has recently been purchased and is proving to be of enormous benefit with work on
the web site work. We have also purchased a zip drive to enable large files to be
transferred from one machine to another.
We also have three inkjet colour printers, but with demand high we need more.We have recently acquired an Apple laptop thanks to the generosity of Tesco.
Our next project will be to network the school.
