MindRising Awards Ceremony

‘Mindblowing’ digital projects from across Ireland awarded at The MindRising
Games Schools’ Competition - 18th June 2016

The first year of ‘The MindRising Games’, (which is a collaboration between MindRising, Micorsoft and DCU’s Institute of Education) is an island of Ireland schools’ initiative to enable schools and youth groups to develop and harness their digital skills saw stunning projects emerge from schools from North and South at the 2016 Awards Ceremony in Dublin on Saturday.

This year’s theme asked participants to tell the stories of the island of Ireland, looking back to 1916 and projecting forward to 2116. Aiming to transform the teaching of history in schools using digital storytelling, design thinking and games based learning, the games saw teachers enrich the learning experience for their students using MineCraft. Over 450 groups and individuals participated and the typical teacher/student relationship has been turned on its head as teachers let students take the lead and experience inclusive learning in their groups as they created unique digital stories.

CBS Mitchelstown received the ‘Best Overall Junior MindRising Junior Award’ for their 1916 Grace O’Malley music medley.

http://www.mindrising.ie/mindrising-2016-entries/2016/5/3/1916-a-minecraft-music-medley-cbs-primary-mitchelstown-cork

Best Overall Senior MindRising Award went to St. Joseph’s Boys’ Derry 1916 project who developed a comic book and video role plays of The Rising, and The Battle of the Somme.

http://www.mindrising.ie/mindrising-2016-entries/2016/5/3/st-josephs-boys-derry-1916-project-st-josephs-boys-school-derry-derry

Both schools also received a €5000 digital upgrade by Microsoft.

MindRising was also awarded the Tech Excellence award for best use of technology in Education, featured photo above.

To view some stunning submissions from schools across the country and watch for Autumn 2016 competition themes see www.mindrising.ie

The next stage of MindRising starts in September with future themes of citizenship, health and smart cities.