Glow Scotland

August 25th, 2010

MR BIG – The tale of a literacy project!

Gail Cairns

Comments: 1 Comment Tags:  : Categories Angus, Development, Glow Meet, Literacy

“What can Glow do for my pupils?”

One teacher’s question led staff tutor Graeme Reid down some quite unexpected routes, developing a literacy project encompassing early reading skills, functional writing and regular use of a gorilla suit.

Over the last year,  Graeme Reid has been seconded out of school three days a week to be a staff tutor in Angus.  Graeme’s remit includes supporting schools to use Glow to enhance learning and teaching. On one of his school visits, Graeme was asked by the P1-P3 teacher how Glow could be used with, and by, young pupils.

As copies of the picture book “Mr Big” had recently been given to all P1 pupils by the Scottish Book Trust, Graeme decided to use the book as the focus of a literacy project. “Mr Big”, by Ed Vere, is the tale of an enormous gentle gorilla who finds it difficult to make friends, as his physical appearance scares people away.

The Mr Big project focussed on developing pupils’:

• Early reading skills
• Listening and talking skills
• Functional writing

Visit this cookbook to find out how Glow was used to support the project by:

• Providing a wider audience for pupils to share their learning
• Providing pupils with opportunities to communicate with pupils and adults beyond their own school.

August 23rd, 2010

National Glow Group launched to support Site Collection Administrators

Gail Cairns

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Development

We are delighted to announce the launch of a new National Glow Group, designed to provide an online training area for all Site Collection Administrators (SCAs) across Scotland.

The SCA Support Group hosts videos, user guides and a forum to assist in a SCA role. Questions can also be posted in the National Glow Help Forum linked within the Glow Group.

The SCA Glow Group welcomes suggestions with regards to areas you would like to see covered or specific training sessions you would like to undertake for the SCA role. Any suggestions can be posted within the forum area of the Group.

Access to the group can be found on the National Site Glow Groups page or by clicking here.

June 29th, 2010

The Daily What

pcurrie

Comments: 4 Comments » Tags: Tags: Glow, Glowscotland, Literacy, Literacy and English, news, Schools, Scotland, the daily what, the herald
 : Categories Curriculum for Excellence, Development, Literacy, Uncategorized

‘The Daily What’- the all new Glow schools’ news service- will be launched in August in association with our partners for the service, The Herald group and Tinopolis Interactive. In the meantime, we really need user feedback on initial designs for the news service. We are always keen to find out what Glow users think and we will try to recommend changes accordingly.

There is a working prototype (with limited functionality at this point) that will give you a good idea of page layout, content and navigation elements. Please remember that very few links will work at this stage, but you should get a good idea of how the service will look when it is launched.

The prototype can be accessed here: http://www.dailywhat.org.uk/prototype/index.html

We have created a National Glow group for the service, with a particular focus for the moment on collecting feedback. If you have time, we would very much appreciate feedback from Glow users. There are several forum posts which ask specific questions and invite voting from users.

These forum posts can be accessed individually from the main Noticeboard of the Glow group, or by going to the ‘Tell us what you think’ page. There is also an email link, if you would prefer to email your thoughts, and a document store, if you would prefer to create a document of feedback and upload it to Glow. The Glow group also contains images of the prototype page designs.

Whichever option you decide to use, we really do appreciate Glow users taking the time to share their views. Remember, if we find out what you think now, we can make changes before the August launch.

Click here to go straight to the Glow group

February 11th, 2010

Changes to the National Staffroom

Andrew Brown

Comments: 1 Comment Tags: Tags: cpd find, national staffroom, swap shop
 : Categories Development

Yesterday I spoke about changes to the National Site noticeboard in Glow, but at the same time we also changed the noticeboard of the national staffroom. You can see a screenshot of it here:

As you can see, the staffroom noticeboard gives direct links to a number of really useful areas – find CPD opportunities with CPD Find, access your very own collection of Experiences and Outcomes with a helpful tool, get involved with general discussions, update your profile, find out the latest from the Scottish Government Education Glow group or access a number of staff only groups.

There are a number of new features of the staffroom such as sharing work on charities or discussing what’s missing, but the biggest new feature is the ‘Swap Shop‘. A really simple idea, the swap shop is a place for staff to swap items with each other – maybe you have half a class set of books that you’ve never been able to complete that you can offer, and all you’re looking for in return is a set of computer speakers? Whatever you have to offer, or whatever you’re looking for, have a look in the national staffroom to see if someone elsewhere in the country can help you and your school out.

Just like the changes to the national site noticeboard, the biggest change is in how we can collaborate in the future. If you are a member of staff with access to Glow, then please log on and get involved in the conversation about what you would like to see in the national staffroom.

February 10th, 2010

A new look for the national site

Andrew Brown

Comments: 7 Comments » Tags: Tags: glowbetter, national site, noticeboard
 : Categories Development

If you go to the national site today, you’ll notice we’ve made some changes. Following on from the discussion in December, instead of the usual items on the noticeboard, you’ll find a more graphical user interface – pointing people to useful areas of Glow more easily. There’s also a text only version of this interface, to improve accessibility. There are links to the new Help group, and direct links to areas for staff, pupils and parents. You’ll find an easy way to access some national groups. There’s also the ability to find out what’s happening in Glow across the country with a calendar that people can add in items to. Here’s a screenshot of how it looks:

We think this makes it easier to find key areas of Glow, but the biggest change isn’t the interface – it’s in the underpinning philosophy. You see, Glow is a collaborative environment. On the noticeboard you’ll find a link to ‘help make Glow better’ – here you can let everyone else know what you’re doing with Glow, request a change, see what changes are in progress and better still, get involved in the discussion or development of Glow yourself.

January 21st, 2010

Free Browsealoud 6 Trial

Jennifer McDougall

Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: accessibility, browsealoud, Dyslexia, learning difficulties, speech enabled, visual impairment
 : Categories Development, Local authorities

LTS is currently looking at how the accessibility of Glow can be improved, and a text-to-speech facility could be extremely useful. Help us to trial Browsealoud 6 within Glow. It will be ‘speech- enabled’ until the end of January 2010 so trial it for yourselves and let us know what you think.

Browsealoud is essentially a tool for reading web sites with text-to-speech software. It can help pupils with visual impairment, dyslexia, reading and learning difficulties or pupils who are not fluent English readers access information on web sites. It can speak using a number of different voices including Heather, the Scottish voice.

You can find out further information about this free trial and how to download the software for Mac and PC in our Browsealoud Discussion. Once you have evaluated it then please leave your comments in this discussion thread as well – we want to know all the plus and ‘not so good’ points of using it within a Glow environment.

December 10th, 2009

An Even Fresher Glow

Lorna Arbuckle

Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: glow themes, refresh, storage
 : Categories Benefits, Development, Uncategorized

I am delighted to announce that the next two improvements from the Glow Refresh project will be deployed to Glow this weekend.

The two new themes you voted for will be available from 18:00 on Sat 12 Dec. If you’d like to see a preview of what will be coming, check out the Glow Refresh Group

We’ll also be upgrading Glow Mail Storage. The amount of space given to Pupil Accounts will be increased to 20Mb, with all other accounts increased to 200Mb. The Glow Mail administration screens will be altered to allow these new mailbox sizes to be applied and also to allow the giving of more space to some users in a domain.

We do not anticipate any downtime as a result of implementing these changes, but as with any changes there is an increased risk of disruption to Glow during this period.

In addition, the Glow Mail admin screen will be unavailable from 18:00 on Fri 11 Dec until 08:00 on Mon 14 Dec.

November 29th, 2009

Reminder – Audio masterclass in English teachers’ national Glow group

Tina Stevens

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Curriculum for Excellence, Development, Events, Glow Groups, Glow Meet, Literacy, Uncategorized

Members of the national English teachers’ Glow group have a free CPD session available to them every month – and as these are delivered digitally through Glow Meet they can be watched from the comfort of a classroom or even from a front room – no cover needed!
This month’s session will be delivered on Monday 30th November between 4 and 5pm. In it David Noble – an expert in the field of using audio tools for education – will be giving participants practical advice on how to:
> Set-up a computer to create digital audio recordings
> Record, edit, save, and even publish recordings
> Use existing digital audio resources on the web
> Use mobile devices to capture to capture, distribute, and use voice recordings.
David will also be discussing Project Ideas and connecting digital audio to the Literacy Experiences and Outcomes. A list of useful links and a ‘How to get started’ guide will also be made available.

You do not have to be an English teacher to join the English teachers’ glow group. To participate simply click HERE or go to the English Teacher’s glow group (National site – National groups -Staffroom -Staffroom groups – English Teachers group), and request membership.

November 29th, 2009

Democratic Glow?

Andrew Brown

Comments: 1 Comment Tags: Tags: change, democracy, national site
 : Categories Development, National Groups

The National Site in Glow has been in need of a refresh for some time now. Last time we changed things there, we added additional information to the ‘noticeboard’, changed the way the events were displayed and presented the procured content in a different way, but little has been done with the National Site since then (aside from an ever growing list of national groups! – I’ll come back to that issue in another post)

I made one massive error in the work we did on the National Site – we didn’t ask all of you what you want to do there, or what you want to find there.

It’s time to rectify that mistake.

If you go to the National Site now in Glow, you’ll find the noticeboard changed – it simply asks one question – “if we were to redesign the National Site in Glow, what would you want to find here?” There’s a discussion board there for you to tell us all what you want the National Site to be.

The important word in the sentence on the noticeboard is ‘we’. Glow isn’t the product of selected individuals, or the product of one central organisation – the National Site in Glow needs to belong to all the users of Glow, and more importantly be shaped by us all collectively.

We’ve a great opportunity here – we can all chip in with our thoughts and talents, and turn the National Site in Glow into somewhere not that we ‘must visit’ (after all, how many things do you have on your ‘must do’ list?), but somewhere that we ‘need’ to visit.

I don’t often ask for favours. But if you’re reading this, and you’ve got access to Glow, please go and join the conversation. If you don’t have access to Glow but you’ve got ideas about what it should offer all its users then leave your comments here.

Together we’re greater than the sum of our parts.

November 18th, 2009

Listen – English Teachers’ November masterclass details

Tina Stevens

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Curriculum for Excellence, Development, Events, Fife, Glow Groups, Glow Meet, Literacy, National Groups, Uncategorized

The English teachers’ national Glow group presents another fantastic free masterclass. The November session will run on Monday, 30th November from 4-5pm and will focus on practical steps to help teachers become more confident in using audio devices and recordings in their classroom.
The masterclass will be delivered by David Noble, a Chartered Teacher at a residential school in Fife experienced in using ICT across the curriculum. David produces the fortnightly educational podcast, Booruch, and is a doctoral student at the University of Edinburgh. He also co-produces the EDUtalk website, (http://edutalk.cc/) a space for teachers and students to use mobile technology to create and share educational audio.

During the session participants will learn how to:

Set-up a computer to create digital audio recordings

Record, edit, save, and even publish recordings

Use existing digital audio resources on the web

Use mobile devices to capture, distribute, and use voice recordings

Project ideas will also be discussed, connecting digital audio to the Literacy
Experiences and Outcomes. A list of useful links and a ‘How to get started’ guide will also be available.

All the English teacher group masterclasses have an English and/or Literacy focus but they are open to all and you do not need to be an English teacher to join the group and participate. Membership requests are welcomed from all stages and sectors of education. Click HERE to request membership. Full details of how to join a Glow Meet masterclass session are posted in the group.