Glow Scotland

November 10th, 2011

Bookbug – What the Ladybird Heard

Jennifer McDougall

Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: bookbug, Scottish Book Trust
 : Categories Early Years, Events, Glow, Glow Meet, Literacy, Pupils

During their first year at primary school, all children in Scotland will receive a free book with a message from Bookbug.

This year’s chosen book, ‘What the Ladybird Heard’ by Julia Donaldson, won in the 0-7 age category of the 2011 Royal Mail Awards for Scottish Children’s Books. Thousands of children voted in this age group, so we are pleased to be gifting a book that really was their choice.

This Glow Meet will explore the book ‘What the Ladybird Heard’ including gifting ideas and fun activities that students and teachers can plan at school or in their classroom. The official gifting week is the week beginning November 21.

The session will be presented by Tracy Lowe from the Scottish Book Trust who is a regular Glow Meet presenter, her enthusiasm and love for books is clearly demonstrated in her presentations!

Sign up and join us on Friday 11th November at 10.45am.

November 9th, 2011

An Award-Winning Glow Blog!

ggallacher

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Falkirk, Glow, Literacy

Malcolm Wilson is an ICT Development Officer with Falkirk Council. Part of his role is to support Primary Schools in their use of ICT. Last year, Malcolm decided to use the then new Glow Blogs to create a blog as one of his support tools for Primary Schools. The blog, called ‘ICT for learning and teaching in Falkirk Primary Schools’, recently won 3rd Prize in the 2011 UK Education Blog Awards in the Most influential Blog of the Year category.

Read more in the Cookbook here

November 8th, 2011

Which Writer Wins? – part 3

ggallacher

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Angus, Glow, Glow Groups, Literacy

The “Which Writer Wins?” initiative takes place each year in Angus and involves around 1200 pupils in 55 primary schools.
P5 pupils are invited to read, or listen to, at least one book by each of three different authors and then to vote for their favourite writer.
This is the third of three cookbooks in which we explore how Glow has added a whole new dimension to this enjoyable and hugely valuable project.

Find out more in the cookbook here

November 4th, 2011

Story Telling in Early Years using Glow Meet

ggallacher

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Glow, Glow Groups, Glow Meet, Literacy, West Lothian

Margo Kerr was teaching in her nursery post at Kirknewton Primary School and working as the Early Years ICT Development Officer within the West Lothian Council Early Years Team. Margo’s remit was to provide curricular ICT support to all Early Years practitioners (nursery – P3) within the Local Authority and to drive forward and support the implementation of Glow within the Nurseries.

There are five standalone Early Years Centres and eight Nursery Schools in West Lothian. Since these Early Years establishments are not attached to a school, they do not have access to a school Glow establishment site. West Lothian therefore asked to have a separate, single Glow establishment created for the standalone Early Years establishments. The staff in all of these nurseries had their Glow accounts provisioned within this establishment, which is called ‘West Lothian Early Years’ to enable them to all work together.

Margo was keen to provide a place where the Nursery staff could communicate and collaborate and so created a Glow Group at Local Authority level. It was created at this level to enable all nursery staff, from both the standalone nurseries and those attached to schools, to be able to access the Group if they wanted to. Margo tells us a little bit about this and how she introduced staff in the standalone nurseries to the Glow Group:

To find out more read the Cookbook here

November 1st, 2011

e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

ggallacher

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Glow, Glow Blogs, Health and Wellbeing, Literacy, Mathematics, Social Studies, South Ayrshire, Technologies

From the recommendations contained within Building the Curriculum 5 Jennifer Richardson then South Ayrshire’s Curriculum for Excellence Assessment Team Development Officer, had decided to initiate a pilot project to use Glow to help schools meet the requirements. The documentation states that,

“children and young people should agree learning goals and should record them in ways that are meaningful and relevant.”

To find out more read the cookbook here

October 26th, 2011

Sharing Learning Intentions with pupils and parents

ggallacher

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Glow, Glow Groups, Literacy, South Ayrshire

Kerry Malcolm is P1-4 teacher at Fisherton Primary School. Her 09-10 class had 22 pupils. Kerry received an hour’s introductory training session from a Glow Mentor. Being quite computer literate to start off with Kerry immediately saw the potential within Glow for the pupils to enjoy using it and to expand learning in her classroom. She was keen that Glow would encourage pupils to be more involved in their own learning and help them become more independent learners. She notes that working in a multi-composite class there is always the challenge of gaining more time to work with pupils and ensuring that they are always focussed and on-task. She could see that using Glow would help achieve this.

Find out more in the cookbook here

October 19th, 2011

Daily Quote – Samba anyone? Using Glow to Support Games Based Learning

ggallacher

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Aberdeenshire, Expressive Arts, Glow, Glow Groups, Health and Wellbeing, Literacy, Social Studies, Technologies

“The best bit about today was meeting the people face to face after talking to them on Glow. The best project ever..Amazing, Radical, Awesome”

Pupils from Meldrum Primary in Oldmeldrumboth & Slains Primary in Ellon both Aberdeenshire

Find out more in the Cookbook here

October 19th, 2011

Raising attainment in literacy in Primary 3

ggallacher

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Fife, Glow, Glow Chat, Glow Groups, Literacy

When Glow was introduced at Touch Primary School in Fife in early 2010, teacher Kate McIntosh was keen to explore how it could be used to raise attainment in literacy in her P3 class. She wanted to stimulate pupils’ interest in using the library, to encourage pupils to read for pleasure and to explore a wider range of authors and genre.

In the P3 Book Group Kate created a survey, to gauge pupils’ engagement with, and enthusiasm for, reading. This was the P3s first experience of a Glow survey, so questions were kept simple with either multiple choice or free-text formats. Kate’s pupils and the parallel P3 class responded to the survey. The two classes are not in adjacent classrooms in the school, so having them respond to the same survey and being able to view each others’ responses worked very well. Kate and her stage partner analysed the survey responses, using the graphical responses option, and were interested in the snapshot this provided, particularly in breaking some of the gender stereotypes which might have been expected.

To find out more – read the Cookbook here

October 17th, 2011

Rapid Readers: using Glow to support a lunchtime reading club

ggallacher

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Glow, Glow Groups, Literacy, South Lanarkshire

Librarian Linda Martin runs a Rapid Readers club at Carluke High School in South Lanarkshire. The club, for S2 pupils, meets at lunchtimes in the school library. It aims to encourage pupils to read for enjoyment and to read as widely as possible.

When Carluke High School first started using Glow in early 2008, the Rapid Readers Glow Group was created as one of a number of pilot projects, to explore how Glow could enhance pupils’ learning.

The same Glow Group has now been in use for over two years, evolving with each new activity the club undertakes. The Group is now a central hub, providing a focus for the lunchtime meetings and giving pupils a wealth of information and activities to explore when they log on to Glow at home.

Read more in the Cookbook here

October 14th, 2011

Daily Quote – P6 online classroom

ggallacher

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Glow, Glow Groups, Literacy, Midlothian, Technologies

“As a teacher, for me, it’s great for me to be able to keep in contact with the pupils at the weekend if there was anything else I wanted to reinforce about the homework or lesson intentions. It’s also great for pupils to keep in contact with each other to share their thoughts and idea’s about homework on something that maybe has not been covered in class that day”

Francine Paterson, probationary teacher at Lasswade Primary School, Midlothian.

Read more in the Cookbook here