ICTeens Project Brings Ancient and New Technologies Together for Learning
“ICTeens Project Brings Ancient and New Technologies Together for Learning”
Last Thursday, February 22nd, 2018, at The Hunt Museum participants from Youthreach, Limerick Community Education Network and Hunt Museum Docents gathered for the first of ten ICTeens project workshops. This is an exciting and innovative intergenerational project which will facilitate the exchange of skills and knowledge as well as collaboration between participants.
During ICTeens younger participants will train adult learners in the use of social media and in return they will offer up their knowledge of The Hunt’s prehistoric collections and local sites of relevance, including Lough Gur and Shannon Heritage’s Craggaunowen Prehistoric Open Air Museum. They will also work together to create digital content linking these collections to these sites while examining the role archaeology plays in understanding the prehistoric past, including how our ancestors lived, worked and died. This content will then be harnessed by the museum’s team of three Technical Communication & E-Learning MA students at the University of Limerick, who will deliver an innovative and interactive eLearning resource for the Junior Cycle.
Over the course of this project great emphasise will be placed on digital skill development and using hands-on activities for learning. Site visits are another key strand of this project. Session two will see participants enjoy a handling session with prehistoric collections at Limerick City Museum. After Easter, they will take part in a technologies day at Craggaunowen and with the help of UCC based archaeologist Rose Cleary, they will participate in a field trip to Lough Gur, where they will interprete key prehistoric features in this landscape.
For the Hunt Museum, this project is important for a number of reasons; it is supporting engagement with collections, the building of intergenerational relationships and the development of digital skills, however, it is also enabling them to highlight the important role John Hunt played locally in relation to Lough Gur, where he excavated extensively and Craggaunowen where he led the team that built the reconstructed crannog and was also instrumental in setting up this site. The Hunt family also lived here for a time.
ICTeens has been made possible with funding from a number of sources including; KBC Bright Ideas, The Ireland Funds and the Friends of The Hunt Museum. For further details on ICTeens contact Maria Cagney, Curator of Education and Outreach at The Hunt Museum on 061 312833.
- The digital E-learning resource created at the end of ICTeens Phase I will be used in conjunction with an existing Prehistoric Times loan box created by the museum. This is part of a family of loan boxes owned by the museum. Teachers frequently borrow these for use the classroom.
- Phase II ICTeens will take place in 2019 subject to funding being secured.
- The Hunt Museum is working on an ongoing basis to strengthen its relationship with the University of Limerick. MA students in E learning (School of Culture and Communication) and Education Technologies Centre staff
are supporting delivery of the ICTeens project but the museum also frequently collaborates with others, including the History Department in the Faculty of Arts & Humanities and MA students in Interactive Design who will be displaying their Pocket Museum exhibition at The Hunt Museum from early May.