Dream Space team flying high

Children from the Dream Space team and the student council at Presentation Senior School have met their local minister to brief him on the progress of their projects.

Minister Peter Burke was at the school to meet the young people and to view and taste samples of the free hot meals being provided to pupils, thanks to new government funding (see separate articles on these pages).

The pupils and staff had gathered in the school gym, and parents were also invited to hear the updates and to taste the dinners.

Dream Space is a Microsoft Ireland programme that provides research-based STEM experiences for students, teachers and communities. Its aim is to enhance their STEM skills and other skills such as empathy, creativity, ethical decision making and collaboration.

Third class teacher at Presentation Senior, Ciara Nally, who is working with the Dream Space team there, explained that classes used to go to the Microsoft facility in Dublin for a day, but now, there are teams of ambassadors in each school who receive monthly training in Zoom sessions, after which they go to each classroom to pass on those lessons to their fellow pupils.

One of their recent tasks was making a video for Internet Safety Day in early February, which Webwise picked up on, they asked Presentation to participate in an online event for an interview which was seen by schools all around Ireland.

This month, they’re having a tea and tech day for grandparents, who will be invited in for a cuppa and to learn about online scams and modern facilities such as Alexa.

Speaking on behalf of the Dream Space ambassadors, Talia Nour said they are “tech support for our school and students and teachers”, which means “we help with any technology issues there are”.

They meet every two weeks or so, Talia said, and they have recently finished a video and are awaiting a direction from their teacher for what their next project will be.