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I love the idea of visiting a historic site such as Birr Castle with the objective of showing this using the technology where it’s children themselves who create what they learned from the trip. That’s the essence of contructivism for me.
Constructivism in teaching is a learner-centred approach that sees knowledge as actively constructed rather than passively absorbed. Rooted in the principles of active learning, it encourages students to create, experiment, and reflect, often through the use of technology such as tablets or computers. Collaboration is key—students work in groups on meaningful, real-world tasks that are tailored to individual learning needs. This social dimension not only fosters communication skills but also deepens understanding through peer feedback and discussion. Language plays a crucial role in helping learners organise and express their thoughts, enhancing metacognition—awareness of how they learn, not just what they learn. By focusing on the process of learning and promoting critical thinking, constructivism prepares students to become more independent, reflective, and capable problem-solvers in a complex world.
Identify a way an AI tool could be used to support school leadership and management in your context. Use the RASE framework to assist you in creating an effective prompt for your chosen AI tool.
Goblin Tools could help us break large tasks into clear, manageable steps thus supporting efficient project planning, better delegation among staff, reduced overwhelm and greater clarity on priorities
RASE Framework
Role – I am a planning assistant supporting school leaders
Ask – Help me break down a complex school-wide project into smaller, actionable steps.
Specific – The project is the implementation of a digital literacy strategy for all classes in a primary school. This includes:
Auditing current digital practiceSourcing CPD for teachers
Selecting appropriate tools/apps
Planning pupil skill progression
Supporting pupils with additional needs
Engaging with parents
Evaluating the impact
Experiment – Once the AI returns the breakdown, I can:
Refine the prompt further to ask for greater detail in certain areas (e.g., how to support inclusion)Ask follow-up questions (e.g., “Can you sequence these steps over a school year?” or “Which of these can be delegated to a digital lead?”)
Re-run the prompt with a different focus (e.g., timeline or resources needed)
This iterative approach makes AI support more dynamic and tailored.
Response from Goblin Tools:
Magic ToDo
Breaking things down so you don’t
You are an expert school planning assistant. Help me break down the task of implementing a digital literacy strategy across a primary school. Include steps such as staff training, tool selection, lesson integration, support for diverse learners, parent communication, and evaluation📚
Identify the goals and objectives for the digital literacy strategy
5 minutes
Assess the current technology infrastructure and resources available in the school
4 hours and 50 minutes
Research and select appropriate digital tools and platforms aligned with the curriculum
30 minutes
Develop a staff training plan to ensure teachers are confident and capable in using new technologies
4 hours
Organize professional development sessions focused on integrating digital literacy into lessons
2 hours
Create guidelines and resources for lesson planning that incorporate digital literacy skills
2 hours
Design support mechanisms for diverse learners to ensure equitable access and inclusion
2 hours
Communicate the digital literacy strategy to parents through meetings, newsletters, or digital platforms
30 minutes
Implement the strategy across classrooms with ongoing supervision and support
4 hours
Collect feedback from teachers, students, and parents to identify successes and areas for improvement
2 hours
Evaluate the effectiveness of the strategy through assessments, observations, and surveys
4 hours
Refine and adjust the digital literacy plan based on evaluation results to improve outcomes
30 minutes
Example Prompt Entered into Goblin Tools:
“You are an expert school planning assistant. Help me break down the task of implementing a digital literacy strategy across a primary school. Include steps such as staff training, tool selection, lesson integration, support for diverse learners, parent communication, and evaluation.”Reflection
Goblin Tools transformed an overwhelming concept into an ordered, concrete list. It helped me:Clarify the scope of the project
Spot dependencies (what needs to happen before something else)
Make the project feel achievable
Identify areas where others could take ownership
The RASE framework made the prompt much more effective. Without it, the AI might return something vague or surface-level. The “Experiment” stage was crucial — I had to refine my prompt a few times to get more useful detail, especially around inclusion and timelines.
I use AI to generate a fake story, back story and image about a fictitious saint called St. Pranken, the supposed patron saint of April’s Fools Day on April 1st this year. This was after I did a lesson on spotting AI generated content online that my special class of high functioning ASD boys found all old hat and easy to spot – mar dhea. They still fell for St. Pranken and found the irony hard to spot also.
In Gaelscoil Dhroichead na Banndan, the Webwise Primary Teachers’ Toolkit – particularly the HTML Heroes programme for 3rd to 6th class (www.webwise.ie) is an ideal resource to promote digital citizenship across the senior classes. This free Irish curriculum-aligned programme offers a series of interactive, age-appropriate lessons in both English and Irish, making it especially suitable for our Gaelscoil setting.
I would embed HTML Heroes into SPHE and Digital Learning lessons, using the bilingual videos, lesson plans, and discussion prompts to explore topics such as respectful online behaviour, managing digital footprints, dealing with cyberbullying, and evaluating online content.
Each class would complete the lessons in sequence, building knowledge and skills gradually. Students would participate in role-plays, digital safety charters, and reflective exercises. I would also link the content to Safer Internet Day, encouraging classes to create posters, pledges, and peer presentations based on what they’ve learned.
Finally, I would share the parent information packs provided by Webwise to strengthen the home-school link and ensure that the message of responsible digital citizenship extends beyond the classroom.
AI could benefit me in my school leadership journey by helping become a leader in the first place! I’ve already tried Goblin Tools to plan my principal teacher preparation and it gives me a detailed breakdown with a satisfying tickbox when completed. By sharing clear guidance for teaching staff on the ethical use of AI, everyone has confidence in the integrity of the system. The use of a digital assistant for shy students or using a chatbot to interrogate a virtual Leonardo da Vinci and then comparing ‘his’ answers to a reputable source is an excellent lesson structure that could be replicated across the school.
The use of Twee’s pros and cons tool could be used in debates or to assess a decision and feed into a whole school decision such as hot lunch provision, the third language to trial or potential new school uniform. The proliferation of different types of AI tools for example those that generative content as opposed to images as opposed to particular types of teacher support such as Immersive Reader to help SEN/EAL readers is informative that’s there more to AI than ChatGPT. Would that all schools could have one of Debbie Woodward’s robots to teach a foreign language or even a native one!
The use of AI in identifying learning gaps is an interesting point and how this could be done. How do we ultimately know what students have learned – there are many assessments tools but the challenge of oversight of actual learning is a huge one, especially is a large school. As that’s the ultimate goals of teaching, I see AI having a role in making assessment easier and teaching more ‘accountable’ going forward.
