Glow Scotland

February 17th, 2009

Using Glow to Beat the Snow

Katie Barrowman

Comments: Comments OffTags: homework, Shetland, snow
 

Since the Shetland Learning Festival in October, I’ve been keeping in touch with Caroline Breyley, Head Teacher at Burravoe Primary School on Yell. Burravoe is a single teacher school with fourteen pupils from P1 to P7, and all the children love to get on Glow. They have a well-used school Glow site, including a tab for each of the class topics and a packed picture library. I’ve joined in a Glow Meet between the Burravoe children and a class in Dumfries and Galloway where everyone in the class had their own computer and contributed brilliantly, and I look forward to checking in on their site regularly to read the children’s stories and see who’s in the picture of the week.

This week Caroline let me know about the school’s ‘Snow Work’. Last week the school was closed for a few days after the heavy snow, but thanks to Glow the learning didn’t stop. The children were able to log in from home, see their tasks for the day and upload their work once it was finished. What a brilliant way of using Glow to keep in touch and keep learning going when the weather gets in the way!


Glow’s helping hand didn’t stop there though. When the school reopened, Elouise (P3) and her brother Jake (P1) were still unable to get into school, but managed to join in with the class through Glow Chat. While their dad helped Jake out with his contribution, Elouise chatted away with her friends and Ms Breyley easily and confidently, following everyone’s messages despite the speed of the conversation, and telling the story of how she had managed to cut herself – it was all Jake’s fault apparently!

Burravoe is a lovely example of a school where Glow has become part of everyday life for the children and the teacher, and it’s particularly lovely that even the primary one children are on and happily working with the Glow tools. While it’s true that this is a small school, which might make it easier to integrate Glow into whole-school life, the Burravoe model would work equally well with individual primary or secondary classes anywhere. It’s clear that it appeals to the children too, if their eagerness to work on a snow day is anything to go by!

Categories Shetland Islands