Minister launches new Irish language maths resource

Foras na Gaeilge funds ‘Izak9 as Gaeilge’ teaching and learning tool

 

Minister for Education and Skills Joe McHugh T.D. launches resource in Dublin

 

Minister for Education and Skills Joe McHugh T.D. has officially launched a new Irish medium resource which improves children’s engagement in mathematics.

 

Izak9 - a set of 27 colourful cubes for use from third class to second year - is combined with extensive online support material to stimulate mathematical thinking, creativity and interaction while increasing confidence with numbers and calculations. It was designed primarily to assist pupil transition between the primary and secondary phases and has proven popular with pupils, teachers and education professionals.

 

Izak9 is being used in almost 1,000 schools on the island of Ireland.

 

Supported by Foras na Gaeilge, the all-new Izak9 support content encourages children to have fun learning maths through Irish.

 

‘Izak9 as Gaeilge’ was officially launched on Wednesday, April 10 by Minister for Education and Skills Joe McHugh at Scoil Neasáin, a gaelscoil in Harmonstown, north Dublin.

 

Minister McHugh said: “I am very pleased to officially launch Izak9 as Gaeilge today. I’d like to congratulate Franz Schlindwein, his team at Qubizm and Foras na Gaeilge, for delivering a valuable maths teaching and learning resource that facilitates active learning through Irish.

 

“My own journey with the Irish language is well documented and I’m keen to see more and more resources, and innovative ideas like these that promote the language, make it more relevant and combine our language with other aspects of the curriculum.”

 

“I am also delighted to hear of the work that the Izak9 team has done on shared education, especially in the border areas, with a number of schools in Donegal benefitting from workshops.”

 

Edel Ní Chorráin, Deputy CEO/Director of Education Services at Foras na Gaeilge, said:

 

“We were delighted to provide funding for the development of the Irish medium content of Izak9. The resource will certainly compliment the teaching of mathematics through Irish in primary and post-primary schools throughout the island and will allow all schools to engage their students in active learning.

 

“Resources such as Izak9 fully support numeracy and literacy strategies north and south. We are extremely pleased that this innovative mathematics resource is now available to all schools in the IM sector.”

 

Franz Schlindwein, creator of Izak9, said: “This is an important day for our team as it marks the realisation of our goal to make the Izak9 shared learning environment available to all pupils in Ireland. Izak9 as Gaeilge is much more than an Irish language version of Izak9 – it is a completely new resource with its own bank of online support material.

 

“We are very grateful to Foras na Gaeilge for its generous support in making this extensive Irish language support material available for all Izak9 users. We are honoured that Minister McHugh, could join us in this celebration which has been kindly hosted today by Scoil Neasáin National School.

 

Principal at Scoil Neasáin NS, Deirble Nic Conghamhna, who approached Qubizm in 2016 regarding the provision of Izak9 in Irish, said:

 

“We were very taken with the concept and the potential Izak9offered to develop the language of mathematics, the skills of problem-solving and the opportunities for group-work. The online resources were excellent, but they were only available in English at that time, which placed our children at a disadvantage.  

 

“Children in our schools can now enjoy, experience and interact with the resource in the language of instruction of the school, enhancing the entire learner experience and facilitating the teaching opportunities in the classroom.”