Glow Scotland

This summer I have been working on the National Parks Glow group in the National Site.
This group is the product of discussions with the Cairngorm Natonal Parks Authority and Aberdeenshire ICT Project Officers. The potential for collaboration and partnership with Learning and Teaching Scotland (LTS) is growing, as this national group takes shape. Further talks will take place in August with the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CGNPA) and the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park (LL and TNPA).
The NPAs will eventually assist with the administration of this national group along with teachers who work in schools adjacent to the parks. The NPAs have started to provide resources for teachers who will be able to collaborate through the group and publish pupils work on the group’s pages.
Some pupils and teachers, in Aberdeenshire, are about to take part in an LTS funded project to promote learning in the CGNP.
This means that Glow will be used to promote learning in the outdoors. The National Park Glow group will, hopefully, model good partnerships in Glow and support the ideals of a Curriculum for Excellence by encouraging more outdoor learning, more intersubject collaboration and a better understanding of our rich natural and historical heritage.

A Glow Pathway brochure is now available on the Scottish Learning Festival website, with details of all Glow seminars at this year’s Scottish Learning Festival (24-25 September).

 Scottish Learning Festival: Pathway brochures

The Glow team have been focused on Mentor Training for teachers but some Local Authorities have moved on and are also looking at ways to provide support for their Education Service Managers.
Quality Improvement Officers very quickly realise the potential of Glow to take forward school planning and a Curriculum for Excellence. I have two recent examples of this. Firstly, I was asked to show the Glow portal and demonstrate Glow Meet in action at an ESM meeting in Perth and Kinross. Stuart Oliphant joined the meeting via Glow Meet from Optima. At the meeting I was asked what evidence there was to assess the impact of Glow on teaching and learning. It is a tough question and one that ESMs will ultimately answer for themselves as they begin to measure the progress of Glow with CfE in schools. I left the meeting pondering the question of how QIOs can begin to measure enhanced learning with Glow.
Secondly, I was recently asked by Aberdeen City to deliver training on Glow for fourteen ESMs. It was a critical day because of the increased demand in Aberdeen for Glow to deliver cost benefits for education services. The training focused on Glow tools and Glow Groups. I enjoyed showing how to design and create a Glow Group for Education Service Managers. All the participants designed very purposeful and role specific Glow Groups and in the afternoon our Key Contact took time for consultation with these managers about how Aberdeen City can get the best from Glow. The idea of a QIOs National Glow Group was put forward and I suggested this may be a question for the Key Contacts Glow group discussion page but it is a good idea – QIOs are well placed to influence teaching and learning with Glow and to collect examples of emerging practice.
At the end of the day we took time to answer the question I had been previously asked in Perth and Kinross – how can we measure the impact of Glow? After a session discussing the criteria that may be needed for measuring this impact, they left with some good ideas, and more questions about HGIOs 3, CfE, Uptake and Usage and their role in taking Glow forward.

Aberdeenshire is trailblazing a new approach to Glow training that gives pupils the skills to train their peers.

Currently busy training staff in six primary schools, Glow mentors in Aberdeenshire will soon turn their attention to training pupils. Aberdeenshire is the first local authority to create a detailed plan for training ‘Glow bugs’ – pupil Glow Mentors.

Since starting its Glow rollout, Aberdeenshire has invested in five technology support officers, who have gathered together a team of 40 mentors. After summer, the team will begin Glow’s rollout in two pilot academies. They will train up 160 pioneers from primary and secondary schools, who will continue their work.

Following the busy summer activities, Aberdeenshire will have amassed a team of five support officers, 40 mentors and 160 pioneers. With this impressive support team in place, they will turn their attention to providing training material for Glow bugs. These Glow bugs will have the knowledge and skills to train their classroom peers, creating real momentum at every level of pedagogy.

Find out more about Glow in Aberdeenshire.

Many educationalists will already be familiar with ICT Masterclass, an online community of ICT specialists set up to spread the word on how education can harness the benefits of emerging technologies.

Taking advantage of the opportunities for collaboration that Glow presents, the Masterclass has evolved to form an ICT National Glow Group. The Masterclass will still exist as an online community but is now also available through Glow.

‘The real benefit of being part of Glow is the presence of other online communities we can link into and the availability of excellent tools such as Glow Meet,’ said Jennifer McDougall. ‘It provides an opportunity to link together people with a shared interest in ICT and hear diverse views from throughout the country.’

The ICT National Glow Group held its first Glow Chat session on 17 June, where Joe Shaw of Stirling Council took to the hot seat to discuss moving image education. Each session will cover a topical ICT issue or an emerging technology that people would like to discover more about.

In addition to the ICT National Glow Group, there are also National Glow Groups covering the range of curricular areas in Curriculum for Excellence. These are open to all staff using Glow. You can access the National Groups by logging in to Glow.

As well as groups for curricular areas, there is a National staff room which already has sub-groups created for staff. If you would like to request a group at a National level, why not let us know at glowadmin@LTScotland.org.uk.

If you would like to sign up to the ICT National Glow Group, please contact Glow Development Officer Alan Yeoman at A.Yeoman@LTScotland.org.uk.

When educators in East Lothian first discovered the power of blogs as a communication tool, the medium had something of a bad press, creating a growing demand for blogging in a safe and professionally specific environment. Enter EduBuzz.

Edubuzz is a blogging group for teachers and educators in East Lothian. A number of educational blogs have sprung up across Scotland since EduBuzz first took off two years ago. These blogs provide an ideal forum for teachers to chat, exchange ideas and discuss CPD opportunities.

Most recently, Glow has been a hot topic for discussion, with teachers, educationalists and Glow Mentors exchanging opinions, information about events and more.

Now, the EduBuzz community is migrating into Glow. The blog group will merge intact, being made available through page viewer. This means not only will EduBuzz be available on the external internet, but it will also be accessible through the Glow intranet, parcelling educational resources together in one place.

‘When children publish a blog, the fact that it’s visible everywhere concentrates minds wonderfully,’ explained Martin Brown, Development Officer for Glow. ‘It makes the audience real and everything available just a click away.’

Read more about Glow in East Lothian.

Many pupils feel daunted by the prospect of making the move into primary or secondary school. Yet Glow can provide a useful support network during this period of change, as schools in Dundee are discovering

Glow Meet has the potential to strengthen collaboration between Dundee’s nurseries, primary schools and secondary schools. In one transition project, nursery pupils use blogs, discussion forums and Glow Chat to build a friendship with P6 ‘buddies’, who treat them to a virtual classroom tour. By the time these nursery pupils enter P1 they already have a friendly face to welcome them to their new school.

Meanwhile, a Modern Foreign Languages transition project is linking up primary and secondary schools. Barnhill Primary School has trialled a project which uses French café culture to promote foreign languages. Pupils upload their French speaking exercises as MP3 files and post them on the discussion forum, where secondary pupils provide advice and feedback.

‘We have a strong vision for supporting transition through Glow,’ said Louise Henderson, Education Support Officer for ICT in the Nursery/Primary sectors. ‘The resources available through Glow make it much easier to communicate across sectors and break down the barriers.’

A Primary 7 pupil from Barnhill Primary in Dundee said:

‘We have sent our work to other schools that have evaluated it and sent it back through Glow; we have then improved our presentations. The other school gave us more critical feedback than our peers at Barnhill, which was good because we then could make our work better.’

Find out more about Glow in Dundee.

As Glow rolls out across Renfrewshire, Johnstone High School, Glencoats Primary School and St James’s Primary School are emerging as Glowing schools.

Johnstone High School is pioneering the use of Glow Learn by issuing electronic homework exercises to S3 pupils. Pupils submit work through the virtual learning environment, and teachers record marks and leave feedback on Glow Learn. Pupils have responded very positively, and homework submission has increased.

John McGivern, Principal Teacher of Computing and Business Studies at Johnstone High School, said, ‘We’ve used Glow to create areas where pupils can access up-to-date teaching resources and discuss any aspect of the course. This has proved especially useful during exam leave when pupils can study at home but still get help from their teacher or other pupils without having to come into school.’

Glencoats Primary School has created Glow Groups to explore money and business, part of the Social Subjects learning outcomes. Every class joins in the learning topic through its Glow Group, and P7 pupils visit classrooms to gather content. The visits have raised awareness of Glow amongst teachers, and pupils are keen as ever to play their part.

St James’s Primary School has shown immense enthusiasm for Glow. It has created a Spanish Glow Group for P4-P7s, and the Barnaby Bear Glow Group has captured the imagination of pupils as young as 6. The helpful bear has been pictured preparing school dinners and even answering the phone! The school’s ‘Glow for Grown-ups’ area has also succeeded in engaging parents, who can access school information and comment on pupils’ artwork.

Councillor Lorraine Cameron, Convener of Renfrewshire Council’s Education and Leisure Services Committee, said,

‘Our society is driven by high technology and it is essential for young people to be computer literate. Glow is a practical application that turns the whole of Scotland into one big classroom where teachers and pupils from Renfrewshire can share lessons and ideas with colleagues in the Borders and the Orkney Islands.’

Find out more about Glow in Glow in Renfrewshire.