Glow Scotland

September 22nd, 2011

SLF Extra: using e-portfolios for recording assessment and achievement

Gerri Tait

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Fife, Glow, Technologies

Olivia Wexelstein teaches a P4-7 class at Wellwood Primary School in Fife. She is an enthusiastic advocate of the use of ICT to enhance learning and teaching. In particular she emphasises the opportunities it provides for pupils to lead their learning, set their own challenges and make decisions about how they want to present their work.

Yesterday at SLF Olivia shared her enthusiasm and experience with a packed audience, in a seminar entitled “Learners journey through Curriculum of Excellence using e-portfolios for recording assessment and achievement”.

Click on the Glow Radio to hear Olivia describe her presentation.

Olivia outlined her own learning journey over the last two years, from using expensive and uninspiring learning logs, to developing pupil e-portfolios, which she described as a ‘digital storage space to record assessment and achievement’.

When she first started to research e-portfolios, she could immediately see the potential benefits over a paper-based system, such as reduced costs, higher pupil engagement and a flexible system which would allow pupils to set targets, reflect on their learning and write about their achievements.

Each pupil in her class now has an e-portfolio created in a Glow blog. This format allows pupils to write text, upload examples of their work, add photos, audio and video. Olivia also makes use of many free online tools, such as Voki (to create talking avatars), Animoto (to make video slideshows from photos or video clips) and  GoAnimate (to create animated videos).

Olivia then showed some inspiring examples from recent work in her class. Pupils had chosen a ‘Myths and Legends’ topic and set themselves a challenge of creating a digital animation to show to their parents. Olivia then chose two experiences and outcomes as an assessment focus. The process of creating the animation was broken down into a number of clear stages, such as researching, writing a script, making clay models and recording the animation.

Pupils then blogged in their e-portfolios about each stage of the process. This reflection then allowed Olivia to assess against the criteria and to determine pupils’ development needs.

Olivia is delighted with the impact that the e-portfolios are having in her class: pupils’ engagement, the promotion of literacy skills and awareness of audience, and the opportunities to assess pupils’ progress through a range of fun and motivating means.

Click on the Glow Radio to listen to feedback from the audience following Olivia’s presentation.

Further details on Olivia’s use of e-portfolios will be available in October in a Glow cookbook.

September 21st, 2011

Lynburn Primary: enthusing learners and promoting responsibility

ggallacher

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

This cookbook illustrates a number of ways in which Jacqui Clark a primary 5 teacher at Lynburn Primary School in Fife has embedded Glow in daily learning and teaching. She has been using Glow for about eighteen months initially just with her own class and now supporting colleagues throughout the school. Jacqui is very positive about the learning opportunities Glow has opened up – allowing pupils to discuss and collaborate, to share their work with their peers and their families, to record and assess their own progress.

Jacqui’s first use of Glow was a project on the Declaration of Arbroath. Her class contacted a history teacher at Arbroath High School who was able to support their project remotely through a Glow Group and a Glow Meet session. This provided an excellent testing ground for Jacqui to explore the potential of Glow to expand learning beyond the classroom. Through Glow Meet pupils engaged in a question and answer session with the history teacher, their learning enhanced by his expertise and local knowledge.

See more in the Glow Cookbook here

September 20th, 2011

Glowing across the curriculum at Glenwood High School

ggallacher

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Fife, Glow Groups, Glow Learn, Glow Meet, Literacy, Social Studies, Technologies

In this Glow cookbook find out how a number of staff, from different departments, have been using Glow to enhance learning and teaching. The video clips and Glow Group tours show the work that has been undertaken, the pupils’ responses and the lesson learned. Additional cookbooks focus on each teacher in turn, and provide the detail of how you can replicate (or adapt) their ideas.

The use of Glow at Glenwood has grown very rapidly over just a few months – thanks to the hard work of teaching staff and to those responsible for creating the accounts. Glow is becoming well embedded in the curriculum: it’s not viewed as an adjunct, but a tool to be used, when appropriate, to enhance learning and teaching.

In the new academic year, each department has been asked to have a Glow representative and for Glow to be included in development plans.

Read more here

September 16th, 2011

Fife is piloting Glow e-portfolios in all its schools

ggallacher

Comments: 1 Comment Tags:  : Categories Fife, Glow, Glow Blogs, Pupils, Uncategorized

An interesting article published in TESS on 16 September, 2011 by Douglas Blane

Read the article here

Extract
E-portfolios can record children’s achievements during their educational journey in a form that can’t be lost, mislaid or eaten by the dog. At Wellwood Primary in Fife, Olivia Wexelstein’s pupils are starting young.

You go to this page first,” Alex (P6) explains, as she navigates confidently around her own e-portfolio, set up within Glow. “It’s called About Me. It asks about your interests and how you learn best. It helps you think about what to write.

“So it wanted to know if I learn best by seeing, hearing, doing, working on my own or working with others. I said ‘working with others’. We often work in groups in this class and I like it.”

The next step in setting up an e-portfolio illustrates some of the scope for personalisation. “We made a WeeMee – a little cartoon version of ourselves – and included that,” Alex says. “Mrs Wexelstein has a phone app that does them.”

Technology is a boon in a P4-7 composite class such as this, says Mrs Wexelstein, indicating the mixed-age and ability groups around the room, who are using laptops for blogging and linked Nintendos for maths games.

September 15th, 2011

“Just what I’d been looking for…”

ggallacher

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Expressive Arts, Fife, Glow, Glow Groups

Glenwood High School in Fife, with a roll of 860 pupils and with 90 teaching staff, has seen a significant increase in the use of Glow over the last six months. By the end of the year, around 75% of staff and pupils had active accounts and in an average week over 200 pupils were using Glow during school hours.

The cookbook, describes how a number of staff from different departments, have been using Glow to enhance learning and teaching.

In this cookbook we focus on the work of one teacher, Clare Todd, and how she uses Glow Groups with each of her Drama classes. In the Recipe section, video clips show how you can replicate Clare’s use of surveys for self-evaluation.

See more in the Glow Cookbook here

September 13th, 2011

Using Glow to support an exam class

ggallacher

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Fife, Glow, Glow Groups, Social Studies

This cookbook describes how a number of staff from different departments, have been using Glow to enhance learning and teaching. In this cookbook we focus on the work of one teacher, Kayleigh Brown, and explore how she has used Glow with her Standard Grade History class. In the Recipe section, video clips show how you can replicate Kayleigh’s use of an “Upload your homework” web part to allow pupils to submit work confidentially.

See more in the Glow Cookbook here.

August 26th, 2011

Glow delivers a simple solution to logistical problems

ggallacher

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Curriculum for Excellence, Fife, Glow Groups, Pupils, Technologies, Uncategorized, modern languages

In this Glow Cookbook we focus on the work of one teacher, Kim Yapp, and how she found that Glow solved a long-standing problem. Kim teaches Modern Foreign Languages. For the last couple of years, the department has run a Culture Project for first year pupils.

Prior to the arrival of Glow in the school, the project, though very successful, had presented a number of logistical difficulties.

When Kim began to use Glow earlier this year, she was hopeful that it would deliver a simple solution to these logistical problems – and was delighted to find that it did!

A simple Glow Group had provided a way around the logistical barriers, as Kim had hoped, but there were unexpected additional benefits too. As the work was in a shared area from the start of the four periods, it was easy for Kim to monitor progress as the presentations developed and to step in quickly if any pupil was not pulling their weight. The Glow Group also enabled pupils to continue their work at home and to discuss it with their parents and carers.

December 21st, 2010

Embedding Glow in daily learning and teaching

Gail Cairns

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

Olivia Wexelstein teaches a P4-7 class at Wellwood Primary School in Fife. Olivia has been using Glow since January 2010 and is extrememly positive about the opportunities it has opened up. Glow is rapidly becoming embedded into daily life in the classroom: to share learning, to record pupils’ experiences and achievements, and to give pupils a voice.

Olivia’s Glow Group is constantly evolving with more content and extra pages being added as learning progresses in the classroom. The Group has a strong sense of identity, the teacher and pupils have very much made their own working space. For reading work the class splits into 5 small groups, each group has their own page in the Glow Group, with a photo of the group members, a list of learning intentions, an image of the book they are currently reading and a document area where they can upload their written work. Pupils are proud of their group and keen to share this with their parents and carers at home.

Visit this cookbook and find out more about the Glow Group that Olivia and her P4-7 class use daily.

December 8th, 2010

Glow in the snow – Inspiring stories

Gail Cairns

Comments: 2 Comments » Tags: Tags: Glow
 : Categories Aberdeenshire, Dundee City, Falkirk, Fife, Glow, Glow Groups, Scottish Borders, Shetland Islands, Stirling, West Lothian

As the bad weather continues to close schools throughout Scotland, teachers all over the country have continued to use Glow to stay in touch with their class. Local authorities have been utilising Glow in a variety of ways.

In a West Lothian Primary School, teachers are using a local authority level Glow Group to support snow activities, as well as poetry competitions, snow photographs, snow science, animation and other general snow day tasks. Teachers are using the West Lothian Council Glow noticeboard to leave messages for pupils asking them to go to their class’ Glow Group to find work. West Lothian teachers are also using Glow messenger for staff meetings.  

St Margarets Academy in West Lothian are using Glow for support and resources for many subjects including, Physics, Business, Biology, Administration, Geography, Maths, Chemistry, Modern Studies and Sociology. Login to Glow to visit the West Lothian – Sharing Our Learning Blog and find out more about how West Lothian teachers have been using Glow in the Snow.

Dundee also created a local authority Glow Snow Day Group where teachers can upload work for pupils. Teachers have also created simple individual groups called Snow Days allowing other members of staff to contribute work for pupils.

Other Authorities using Glow in the snow include:

• Aberdeenshire – Aberdeenshire launched the M2C Snow Glow Group. Now open nationally, this Glow Group offers a huge range of snow based online and offline activities. Other resources available in this Group include an advent calendar, weather research, art, snowmen photographs, symmetry using snowflakes, templates and instructions for creating a snow journal and guidance on measuring snow depth.

• Scottish Borders – Teachers in several departments in Hawick High School have put work up on Glow for schools.

• Shetland Islands – Burravoe Primary School in Shetland have been using Glow tasks and blogs to keep in touch with pupils

• Fife – Several schools in Fife have been encouraging home access to Glow.

• Falkirk – Glow Blogs are being used by pupils at Carronshore Primary School while the school is closed.

• Stirling -  Open to everyone, Stirling Council has made a fantastic Glow blog for pupils to use. Newton Primary in Stirling have also been using Glow to set work for pupil during snow days.

To find out more about using the tools within Glow, visit the Glow Help Blog or alternatively you can  e-mail Glow Admin.

November 15th, 2010

Gordon Brown Glows in Fife!

Jennifer McDougall

Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: Andrew Carnegie, Fife, Gordon Brown, History
 : Categories Curriculum for Excellence, Fife, Glow Meet, Homecoming, Pupils, research

Since leaving No 10, ex-PM Gordon Brown has returned to his roots – to trace the evolution of modern Fife through three centuries of change. Now his researches are to be the catalyst for the launch of a “unique” educational project which is set to roll out not only as a sustainable project across Fife schools but as a potential template to be exported nationally and internationally.

Join Gordon Brown live from the Andrew Carnegie Birth Place Museum, Dunfermline on 25 November 2010 from 11.30am to celebrate the 175 anniversary of the birth of Andrew Carnegie.

He will be launching a unique history project in Fife as he encourages pupils to trace the evaluation of modern Fife through three centuries of change. David Gregory, National History Specialist with HMIe, said the project chimed with the new Curriculum for Excellence and with HMIe’s roll in building capacity to export good practice across Scottish schools. The new curriculum encourages pupils to start local and think global. Thinking about Fife will eventually lead pupils to, say, look at Carnegie on a global scale. It’s about getting history at the roots to enable young people to become global citizens. Join our glow meet and use Gordon Brown as a stimulus to encourage your pupils to explore their own families and local history before thinking global.

Sign up and join us on Thursday 25th November from 11.30am until approximately 12.45pm.