Big Announcement..

Digital Youth Council!

I am delighted to announce that I am on the 'Digital Youth Coucil of Ireland', the first of it's kind in Europe. All twelve of us on the council have achieved awards or milestones in terms of technology/ digital media. I am very excited to work with these very well established people as well as minister Ciaran Cannon. I am co-social media manager with Ciara. Here is a description of what we are/will do from the website:

'The Digital Youth Council is made up of the Top 12 young people in Tech in Ireland and is set to Launch in late August 2014. The Council will be given the job of gathering young people's views and opinions on Technology, ICT, EU Digital Agenda and more. The Council will work alongside key figures in the Irish Government, EU Commission, Education and other various places to make sure that the views of Young people are listened to.'

We will be meeting in the Science Gallery, Dublin in late August, so I will fill you in on what we decide. After visiting google and loving it, I am very excited to visit the science gallery make sure to:
Follow us on Twitter: @dyc2014
Like our facebook page: 'Digital Youth Coucil'
Follow us on instagram too! : @digitalyouthcouncil
To stay updated on all the things we get up to, and also, to paryake and have YOUR say. We want to hear from you!

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That's all for now, but watch this space guys!

Lauren :)

A Message For Future TYs

Now that we are into the month of August, I figured that those of you lucky boys and girls who will be going into Transition Year next Year have started looking for Work Experience and into extra-curricular activities. So, based on my own experience of TY, here's some advice.

**disclaimer: I do not claim to be an expert I just want you all to get the most out of your Transition Year.

'Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.'

Thomas A. Edison

1. Get Involved - Get into the spirit of TY and sign up for anything that interests you and stick with it. Try something new, something out of your comfort zone. Isn't it better to have tried and failed than not to have tried at all? Do some sports, join the choir, there are plenty of after-school activities to keep you busy that won't cost a penny. 

2. Be Prepared - Fail to prepare, prepare to fail. Okay that's a bit harsh but still make sure to get all of your work placements sorted early. It makes it more likely that you will be doing something you want to do and will get the best work experience. I managed to get a work placement in TV3, which I thoroughly enjoyed but I applied very early which I really think helped.

3. Participate - In class, in projects, in whatever TY throws at you. As some of you may know, I was heavily involved in our school musical, Calamity Jane, (played Calamity) and this was a fantastic extra-cirricular activity for me. It helped boost my confidence, improve my performance skills, and I met a lot of fantastic people because of it. Do something special this year, you'll be glad you did.

4. Don't Procrastinate - Do yourself a favour and do things as soon as they are assigned. Seriously. It's for your own good, I swear. Things get very messy when you leave them to last minute.

5. ENJOY IT! - I have fantastic memories from TY and I hope you will too. Make new friends, try new hobbies and enjoy learning new things. 

I hope this has inspired you all to be active and participate, whether you're going into TY or not. Blog about your experiences while you're at it. ;)

I have a very exciting project coming up that I'm involved in.. Watch this space for more!!

Lauren :)

Excited?

"We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future".

Franklin D. Roosevelt 

"What excites you most about 'Excited?'" 

This is one of the questions we asked people when some of the Radio TY team visited Dublin Castle to  attend the 'Excited' Digital Learning Conference 2014. This conference was about listening to, and learning from students. There were several primary schools there who took part in a junior dragons den. We had the privilege of interviewing them. This was part of a behind the scenes footage project we worked on from early morning until the afternoon and hen showed after Junior dragons den. I found it strange hearing and seeing myself on television but really enjoyed interviewing.

Here are some of the pictures from the exciting day in Dublin castle:

All The St Wolstan's RTY represenattives on the day with our new friend ;)

RTY selfie!

Interviewer and producer ;)

I would like to thank everyone involved in excited and to the Youth Media Team for letting us join them, we really enjoyed ourselves and we all learnt a lot from each other. It was a wonderful learning experience for all and I hope to go on more innovative adventures with RTY in the future. 

Aoife and I interviewed Dr Ruth Freeman, Director of Programmes, Enterprise and International Affairs at the Science Foundation of Ireland. Ruth spoke to us about gender expectations and how they affect the career path we want, just to fit in. I found Ruth to be a very inspirational lady and someone to look up to for her achievements and friendly personality.

listen to ‘Interview with Dr Ruth Freeman’ on Audioboo

Thanks for reading/listening/visiting,

That's all for now,

Lauren :)

Swim a mile with a smile

This Wednesday I was really excited and slightly nervous about the Ian Daly Swim a Mile for Barretstown. I hadn't trained for it so that was why I was nervous as I planned on doing the full mile by myself. When we got there we were pretty much straight into the pool once we had sorted out who was going in what lane. All the people doing the mile by themselves were put into two lanes and then all the teams were together in 6 other lanes. We had to swim 64 lengths of a 25 meter pool in order to swim a mile. getting past about 20 was the hard part because there were so many left but after that I had got into a nice rhythm and it wasn't too bad. I can happily say that I swam the mile along with several other girls and I'm so proud of us all. It just shows what determination can do! It was such a great sense of accomplishment and I did 12 more lengths for the craic afterwards to add to our grand total of 38 lengths between our year group. We got squares bars and fruit and a drink afterwards and I was ecstatic after swimming.

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However the adrenaline soon wore off when we went to Blanchardstown for a while for lunch due to tiredness :p but overall it was a fantastic experience and I would love to do it again next year and would recommend it to anyone who can swim and even if you're not too comfortable with swimming do a few lengths with some friends for a great cause! Well done to everyone who took part and thanks to the girls who counted our lengths! We raised over 2200 euro for charity which is fantastic!

That's all for now,

Thanks,

Lauren x

Junior Spider Awards!

As you may have noticed, my blog has been shortlisted for an Eircom Junior Spider award! It is shortlisted under Best Project. This means I get to go to Google's  European Headquarters in Dublin on the 29th of April! Im sure there will plenty of exciting things happening there so I'll be sure to keep you posted on that. I will be going with Eilis, who's blog was also nominated under best concept and also Mrs L and some of the girls from Radio TY, as we have also been nominated for an award for our TY Radio blog: www.radioty.blogspot.ie. I was so happy to be shortlisted and to have another classmate shortlisted also is fantastic! (Go Tabei! :p) And then to have Radio TY up for an award is great too as I have been involved with that from the start and I think its a really great idea. Best of luck to everyone who is up for an award; check out the shortlist here for some really cool blogs.

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Seachtain na Gaeilge

Last week was 'Seachtain na Gaeilge' and for the past few weeks, my class, Tabei, has been practicing a play called 'Trúir Amadáin' which literally translates as the three idiots. We've had great fun practicing for it in class and were in tears laughing at the fabulous farmer outfits and hair do's. The first years and a TY class came down to watch it and seemed to enjoy it!

We had Lá Glas on Friday and we were all dressed up in green, and had the craic in the school hall while watching people parade along in their farmer and leprechaun costumes. We then had a lovely long weekend to finish off a fantastic week of gaeilge and craic.

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Slán libh a chairde,

Lauren :)

Barcelona

We are going on a school trip to Barcelona soon and I cannot wait to go. We're going over easter which will be really good. Some of my friends are going also. We will be going to Port Aventura, cathedrals, and many other tourist attractions and I cannot wait!!

Gymnastics!

Yesterday we did our first P.E. class of gymnastics in Excel Gymnastics for 2 hours. I did gymnastics for over 7 years there as a child so it brought back great memories. We warmed up with some exercises and did the splits and then did some  jumping and tumbling exercises. After that was the vault which was a lot of fun. I even flipped off the vault! (into mats of course). Then we did some balance work on the beam which was good and then chin ups and beats on the barres.

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How we looked doing our exercises ;)

Its the next day and my shoulders and arms are pretty stiff from the push ups and chin ups as I'm not used to that kinda work (#chickenarms ;p ) but it was so worth it I had a great time and cant wait for next week!