'Irish Times' article

Greetings to visitors who have arrived here prompted by Peter McGuire's Irish Times guide on online study aids. As the article says, for ten years this site has gathered resources for studying English at different levels, including our own revision podcasts, video analyses, pupil essays, book recommendations and more, such as articles of interest. We've also published our own books.

Sunday Business Post

Many thanks to Adrian Weckler and Tommy Collinson of the Sunday Business Post, who in their back-to-school technology feature in yesterday's paper (including lots of good advice about hard- and software for students) made generous comments about this site and our friends over at the Frog Blog:-

"SCC English: For students who want to engage in their English curriculum, this is a must-visit website. Maintained by the English department of St Columba’s College in Rathfarnham, Co Dublin, it provides notes, interpretations and even tutorial podcasts on curriculum texts. The award-winning website also has Twitter feeds and sections optimised for smartphones.

The Frog Blog: This is another superb website from St Columba’s College secondary school in Co Dublin. This contains downloadable material on preparing for Leaving Cert science exams. It also has a new story every day about different aspects of science or the environment from the outside world."
 
The other sites recommended were Skoool.ie, Scoilnet, Wikipedia and Education.ie.

Irish Independent article

SCC English features today in an article in the Irish Independent by Kim Bielenberg, 'How to teach English to the Facebook generation'; click here to read it online. The paper version includes photographs of the Library and the Cloisters.

For visitors who've arrived here from the Independent, you can read more about our Department here and here, see more about our Transition Year here, their Extended Essays here, and the Library here and here.

Twitter

Many thanks to Adrian Weckler, tech editor of the Sunday Business Post, for his kind complimentary remarks on Twitter recently about this site and our podcasts in particular.

'Teaching English', Summer 2009

The latest edition of the excellent Teaching English magazine, from the English Support Service, is now out and can be read via Issuu below. The Summer 2009 edition is mostly prompted by the February 2009 conference in Loughrea on 'The Art of Teaching English' which we reported on at the time.

If you're looking for our own presentation (printed on page 28 of the magazine), please click here and you can click through to the various services (the page is updated when we come across something new).

There's lots of meaty interesting material in the issue, including:-

• The text of Mary Gilbride's opening address to the conference,
• Editor Kevin McDermott on ten years of the 'new' Leaving Cert course,
  
• Lots of suggestions by Maureen Curran on encouraging children to write poetry,
• Frank Bredin on debating,
• Paul Murray on 'Introducing Shakespeare',
• and Jim McDonagh and Jeff Wilkinson from Sheffield Hallam University on 'Grammar Grief'.

Click on the magazine for a larger view, and scroll through the pages. Click again on a page for a full view:-

Open publication - Free publishing - More literature

'Irish Times' Noticeboard

Greetings to anyone who's visiting us as a result of reading today's 'Noticeboard' in the Irish Times. To access our Macbeth revision podcasts, go here.

So far there have been sessions on Macbeth's soliloquy in Act I scene vii, and on Lady Macbeth. We plan to put these weekly podcasts online each Sunday, leading up to the Leaving Cert. Future topics will include the idea of kingship and rule in Scotland, the scene set in England with Malcolm and Macduff, the 'Tomorrow...' speech in Act V scene v, and more.

You can also listen to our podcasts via the 'widget' on the sidebar to the right, or by visiting our podcast page here (if you have iTunes on your computer you can also subscribe by clicking here, and so download our episodes to your MP3 player, or by searching for 'SCC English' in the iTunes Store).

PC Live

SCC English features in this month's edition of PC Live, Ireland's top technology magazine, on pages 4 and 5, under the 'Blogger in Profile' slot.

Conference and Common Room

The summer 2008 issue of 'Conference and Common Room', which includes an article on this blog, can be seen below via Issuu. Click for a bigger view, and scroll using the arrows.

Get your own - Open publication

Conference and Common Room

The SCC English blog features in the new (Summer 2008) edition of 'Conference and Common Room', 'the magazine for leading independent schools', in an article called 'The importance of being bloggish'. PDF archives are put online here, though the current edition isn't yet archived. We'll link to it when it is. We've previously also featured in 'Teaching English' and 'PC Live' magazines.

'Teaching English' magazine

Hello to visitors who have been directed here by the Spring 2007 edition of Teaching English, published by the Second Level Support Service. The magazine features our Department, with an interview with department head John Fanagan by editor Kevin McDermott, a piece on this blog called 'Putting the English Department on the World Wide Web', and our Junior Certificate reading list. See the magazine below by clicking on the pages (and then again to zoom).

There are also interesting articles about Breege O'Brien of Scoil Damhnait in Achill ('In praise of the school library'), by Anton Floyd of Ashton in Cork on 'Creative writing in the English classroom' (he quotes the marvellous 'Japan' by Billy Collins, and the cover shows David Hockney's 'Mt Fuji and Flowers, 1972'), and a response by Kevin McDermott to 'Looking at English', the Department's report on English teaching (see here). He calls for 'vision and passion' in English teaching, and hopes that 'future publications will include the voices of teachers in all their individuality and uniqueness.'