Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Teaching News

Teaching News

Brilliant Blogger of the Week: Seomra Ranga

Posted: 07 Jan 2013 10:00 AM PST

Following last year’s popular series of ‘Resource Site of the Week‘ posts, I am now starting a new set of posts here on Teaching News about teachers who run brilliant blogs. There are lots of wonderful teacher blogs online, so this series aims to highlight some of the best. Don’t forget to let me know if you have any suggestions!

Our first Brilliant Blogger is Damien Quinn, who runs the blog Seomra Ranga. Damien teaches 6th class (11/12 year olds) in a rural primary school in Sligo, North-West Ireland. Seomra Ranga (meaning "classroom" in the Irish language) provides free downloadable classroom resources for primary teachers. It also provides news on other sites that share resources, matters of general educational interest and articles on educational technology. From time to time, there are also interviews, guest posts and competitions on the site.

Seomra Ranga

I asked Damien when and why he started the site…

‘The site was originally started in 2007 purely providing downloadable resources. There was no other site at the time providing this service in Ireland so I saw a gap there and decided to launch the site. Sometime later I introduced a blog parallel to the site and began writing some articles on resources and education. When the site was re-developed in 2010, it was decided to merge the site and the blog together into a totally blog-based website. The new format of the site then enabled me to develop the blog part of the site and integrate it more into the site itself.’

The site has grown to the extent that it is well-known by practically all primary teachers and student teachers in Ireland and it’s popularity is increasing in the UK and other countries around the world. Just before Christmas, the site won the "Best Individual Blog" at the Edublog Awards.

You can also follow Seomra Ranga on Facebook and Twitter. Damien also has a separate blog that shares Christmas resources – subscribe to it now and get lots of free resources for next Christmas!