Sir, – In response to Ted Mooney’s letter (November 29th), I would like to report on the success and voluntary uptake of a technology initiative outside the curriculum, in particular a programming initiative in schools. The Scratch initiative (www.scratch.ie) teaches students mathematical and computational concepts and computational thinking.
The teachers I work with on the Scratch initiative are incredibly enthusiastic, hard-working and eager to take on something new outside the curriculum to make their computer classes engaging and challenging for their students. Since June this year, 150 teachers located all around the country have completed two days of Scratch training outside school hours during the summer holidays and more recently on two Saturdays in October. – Yours, etc,