Glow Scotland

St. James’s Primary School in Paisley recently hosted a delegation from Hanban, the executive body of the Chinese Language Council International. Hanban, established in 1987, is affiliated to China’s Ministry of Education and is committed to making teaching resources for Chinese language and culture available to the world.

Hanban are well known as the organizers of the ‘Confucius Classrooms’ project which involves Scottish schools in learning about Chinese language and culture.

To find out more about Confucius Classrooms click here.

http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/mfle/confuciusclassrooms/index.asp

The three delegates, Ms. Gu Lei, Deputy Director of Confucius Institute, Ms. Zhu Dan and Mr. Liu Bochao, Officers of Confucius Institute On-line, were delighted to see Glow in action. The St. James’s pupils, who are old hands at describing how they use Glow in their learning, gave the visitors a full explanation of the various activities they were taking part in and answered their many questions.

The visitors presented several gifts to the Head Teacher as mementos of the visit including a beautiful silk scroll and some postage stamps printed specially for Hanban.

A special thanks to Sarah Guthrie, Head Teacher, and to Anne Louise Nicholson, Acting Principle Teacher for welcoming our guests to St. James’s. This was particularly appreciated since some of the pupils were in the middle of preparation for presenting at the Scottish Learning Festival the next day.

On 24 February I was lucky enought to be invited along to Lairdsland primary where Julia Donaldson – author of many children’s books including ‘the Gruffalo’ – was visiting. Julia had been invited as part of a project set up by Anne Louise Nicholson of St. James’s primary school in Renfrewshire and Lynne Lewis from Athelstaneford primary school in East Lothian.

The project involved children from Renfrewshire, East Lothian and East Dunbartonshire joining together to work on a whole range of activities based around some of Julia’s books.

The 5 schools got together through GLOW meet and each school performed part of “The Smartest Giant in Town” for each other as a puppet show.

After reading “Charlie Cook’s Favourite Book”, each of the 5 schools investigated a genre that features in the book and during another GLOW meet session told the other schools all about their genre.

The children also took part in ‘The Book Factor’ where they chose their favourite Julia Donaldson book. The winner was ‘Stickman’ and this was the story that Julia read during her visit after receiving her certificate from the children.

As well as reading Julia answered questions and also got the children to sing along to a new song ‘Funny Face’ where they got to make lots of funny faces at one another!

Julia was wonderful with all of the children and used the Glow technology to engage with as many of them as possible during her visit.

It was a fantastic morning and my thanks go to Anne Louise, Lynne and Laura for their invitation.

Glow usage statistics in Renfrewshire have risen considerably in the past couple of months. The local authority support team put this rise down to several factors:

Head teachers are being encouraged to use Glow to access information available only via a central services Glow group. Having become familiar with Glow through using the group for this practical purpose they are beginning to see the benefits of using it in their schools.

Schools are now using Glow as a communication tool which is replacing the more traditional staff bulletins and weekly diaries. Never again will the ‘please pass on quickly’ folder be found down the back of a radiator. Having to visit their establishment site helps teachers to overcome any reservations about using Glow and lets them see how their colleagues are using it with their classes.

In some schools in particular the influence of these motivated teachers is leading to Glow being more widely used by other members of staff. St. James Primary, Trinity High School and Glennifer High School are all good examples of this.

Other factors influencing the rise in usage are the use of Glow Mail across the authority by both staff and pupils, the Education Officers use of Glow to support initiatives for improving learning and teaching, and the support provided to teachers by the central support team members Wendy McNaught and Ann Crawford in a series of in-service courses.

I was out at Mossvale Primary yesterday to help Ms. Park and her P5 class set up a Glow group to support their ‘Britain’ topic. After a lively start getting everyone’s passwords sorted out, we added a discussion subject to which the pupils posted the findings of some research that they been carrying out about different areas of Britain. They seemed to enjoy using Glow to record their information and liked being able to read other pupils’ work as soon as it was posted. A couple of pupils noticed the link to ‘My Glow’ and were keen to start building their own pages there and then. Another noted down the URL so he could start using Glow from home. The challenge will be to keep up with them!

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.