Glow Scotland

Elspeth Murray is our online poet for National Poetry Day 2009.

Elspeth is visiting an S2 English class in Calderside Academy, Blantyre on Wednesday 16th December to participate with pupils on this year’s theme of Heroes and Heroines. Elspeth will help pupils develop some heroic verse of their very own and you and your class can be there with Glow.

A Glow Meet with Elspeth will be held in the Literacy and English National Glow Group on Wednesday December 16th at 11 10 am. A follow-up Glow Meet where pupils will get the opportunity to present their own poems to Elspeth will take place in January 2010.

Elspeth invites S2 to join her to hear her poetry, work on the Heroes and Heroines theme and to ask her questions about her work and life as a poet.

You can register your interest and post questions for Elspeth to answer by emailing c.gillespie@LTScotland.org.uk

Please note you can also register your interest on the Heroes and Heroines Poetry Glow Page – follow the link from Literacy and English National Glow Group Noticeboard.

Mission Impossible Science Challenges

Find out about how schools from across Scotland are talking part in science challenges and collaborating using Glow Meet. From 9am until 3pm today, June 1st, three schools from across Scotland are taking part in the Foam Fire Extinguisher challenge by Kitchen Chemistry. Pupils from Perth High School, Marr College and Calderglen High School will be exploring a range of chemical reactions with the aim to produce foam. The design process will then begin as pupils from S2 – S3 strive to create a fire extinguisher which can put out a fire in the shortest time. One of the challenges they will face is to find a way to keep the chemicals apart to ensure the fire extinguisher doesn’t go off until they need to put out a fire!

These schools are exploring the possibilities of creating their own fire extinguishers through hands on experiments and sharing their findings in Glow Meet. Pete Johnson from Kitchen Chemistry who is also a teacher at Stewart’s Melville College will be working with all four schools to guide them through their scientific discoveries using the audio, video and white board in Glow Meet. Pupils will be collaborating and updating discussion boards in a Science Challenges Glow Group throughout the day to update everyone with their findings, sharing top tips and eventually their finished products.

The fire service will be joining S2 at Perth High School to give a presentation on fire safety to all the schools involved and then judging the competition to find the most successful fire extinguisher.

You can join this Glow Meet now, Monday 1st June to watch their progress. Join the Science Challenges Glow group by clicking on the link below and then clicking on Send request.
https://portal.glowscotland.org.uk/establishments/nationalsite/Science/Science%20Challenges/default.aspx

A pilot Glow Group has been set up at national level to enhance the experience of a visit from Generation Science’s outreach show – Body Builders. Schools that have access to Glow and have booked a Body Builders Show from Generation Science in the next few weeks are able to use the Glow Group to extend the value of the visit.

The show scenario has four characters visiting the doctor:
Timmy Hawkes, a skater with bone trouble
Kevin Shearer, an out of breath football hero
Rome Zeglobe, an itchy explorer
Don Pupi Panti, a chef extraordinaire with flatulence

Through the very humorous interviews, the pupil audience gains a good understanding of body systems, general health, anatomy, and how to act in a responsible way regarding personal health. The Glow Group enables schools involved to follow up the visit by pupils’ responding to the patients requests for advice, by staff uploading pictures from the visits or posting further work related to the health topics.
It is hoped that teachers will give feedback on whether they feel the Glow Group gave extra value to the visit. This will help the Glow Team and Generation Science plan for next year’s shows.
Generation Science brings shows and workshops into schools to make the learning of science simple and fun. The website has details of all the shows, a downloadable programme and teachers’ notes. These back up the science covered in the shows with the Curriculum for Excellence links for teachers and with follow on experiments for pupils. The shows run from January to June each year. In 2008, 66000 children got to see a show!
If you have had Generation Science visits this year, please leave some feedback about it here and what you would want from Glow in supporting future visits.

If you have a Glow login you will be able to access the Science Glow Group in the National Site. On Wednesday 21st January, a very special Glow Meet session will be taking place there. It will be well worth dropping in, with your class, at 2pm – 3pm, especially if you are studying Higher Biology or are interested in environmental issues.

The Scottish Seabird Centre Education Officers, Emily Dodd and Anna Pugh have invited classes across Scotland to come into the Glow Meet session to see the dissection of a seabird, a fulmar. You may be thinking, how grisly! …until you realize this bird has died, not of old age, but because of our lack of care of our environment. Emily told me a similar post mortem was held last year at the SSC and several pieces of plastic were found in the poor bird’s stomach. Reading about this in a book is one thing, but seeing it in real time, via Glow Meet, where classes will be able to pose questions to the scientists performing the autopsy, is quite another! Some North Berwick HS pupils are going to be lucky enough to be in the SSC during the dissection, but schools all over Scotland will for the first time be able to drop into this via the videolink that Glow Meet offers.
It should not be difficult to access the Glow Meet (assuming your local authority and school have enabled this function in Glow – and you have a Glow login as a member of staff). If you are going to bring your class in to see the post mortem, I’d be grateful if you would let me know (j.jelly@ltscotland.org.uk) but essentially, navigate to the national Science Glow Group, find the Glow Meet webpart on the discussions page and click on “Join the Glow Meet”. If you have a webcam, you can be visible to others, if you have a microphone, you will be able to voice questions, but even if you have neither of these things, you will still be able to see the post mortem and pose questions by typing them in. If you are coming in with a webcam in place, a school name placard would be a great help to others in identifying you.
Glow is enabling the sharing of events such as this. There is another great opportunity in the Social Studies national group on 19th Jan. to experience first class Google Earth training via Glow Meet.
Don’t be shy, make use of these opportunities. Log on to Glow and come into these Glow Meet sessions.
Hoping to see to see you on Wednesday! (The session will be recorded though, so if your timetable means you can’t come in live to the session on Wednesday, you can access the Glow Meet recording later)

PS Click here to find out more about using Glow Meet and all the other Glow functions.
You can read more about the post mortem by clicking the poster: fulmarposter.jpg

Jim Reid tells us how a Christmas Glow Group has resulted in some teachers using Glow Meet for the first time in their classes:

18 primary schools took part in a Glow Meet session to meet Santa on Thursday 18 December over two sessions. We used one Glow meet link to each school.  In the sessions Santa (who bore a striking resemblance to Ian Hoffman) and his little elf helper (who bore a striking resemblance to Margaret Tracey) spoke to the children about Christmas. It took place form Santa’s Grotto (which bore a striking resemblance to Carluke Primary).

Santa’s elf helper had asked the schools to send emails to Santa at his South Lanarkshire Council (SLC) email account santa@theadvisorslc.rmplc.co.uk.  In their emails they told Santa what they had been doing in class before Christmas and what sort of toys they wanted for Christmas.  Santa then read out these emails and commented on what the pupils had been doing.  He then spoke to some pupils from each school who asked him some very interesting questions;

How does Santa get into the houses that do not have a chimney?  (Answer: Santa’s Special magic which makes a chimney for him to come down and he then makes it disappear when he leaves)

What does Santa want for Christmas? ( Answer : a Wii fit.  He then asked the boy if he had one and when he said No, Santa said he thought his name was on the list for one) So if RM get a bill for a Wii fit from an irate parent just charge it to Mr Hoffman!

The little elf then took over and spoke to all the schools and asked them one by one to shout “Merry Christmas” to Santa, which they all did and one school also sang to him.  Santa then had to leave as he was still busy getting ready for Christmas. We recorded the sessions for future use.

Margaret and I decided to do the project as a Christmas activity for pupils using Glow.  Its main purpose was not to increase usage of Glow but some teachers did use Glow for the first time with their classes. This was a useful spin off. In talking to one particular Head teacher, through this use of Glow she saw a way in which other projects in her school could be enhanced through the use of Glow.  That was encouraging for Margaret and I. This was a major team effort involving:

• Our Central Advisory Service Development Officers who were “out in the field” resolving early teething problems and helping the school with their use if Glow Meet.  It was also they who constructed the Glow Group and the activities on it.
• The SLC business IT team and RM our network managed Service provider, could not have been more helpful and responded immediately when technical problems arose
• Stephen Forsyth, Alistair Fay and the Glow helpdesk who helped out big time when Glow Meet went pear shaped on Monday.

The efforts of all the above meant that not one school pupil was disappointed because of technical issues. That was a big thing for Margaret and I. In the pupil’s eyes this was not just a video conferencing session. This was Santa talking to them through Glow. We knew were taking a risk, but we felt it was worth it, and it was. To hear the children’s voices as they spoke to Santa was magical.  The feedback from our Development Officers who were out in the schools superb, they said the children absolutely loved it.  

Margaret and I wanted to try out running a major central initiative using Glow and Glow Meet.  We learned a lot from the exercise which will help us for future events. Santa will Glow again in South Lanarkshire next Christmas, and we would like to try some other events like this as the year progresses.

24th & 25th November saw the first national Glow Learn training sessions, held at Stirling Management Centre. Representatives of Aberdeen, Clackmannanshire, Dundee, South Lanarkshire and Western Isles attended this well-structured, intensive two-day residential course – the first of several to come over the next few months.
The course was introduced by Ian Hoffman, who gave an overview of Glow’s virtual learning environment, Glow Learn, and its potential as a tool for teaching and learning. The possibilities to create, organise and share digital resources; to search for, copy and amend other teachers’ resources and courses; to plan courses comprising these digital resources; to set digital tasks for enrolled pupils; to monitor pupil progress in these assignments – and how to incorporate all this in a Glow Group Learning Space was all covered over the two days!
Those attending were full of ideas for how they might take Glow Learn forward back in their schools or local authorities – and documented these in a specially set up national Glow Group devoted to Glow Learn Training.
We all also amended our profiles (look on the page you first see when you log into Glow for the link to this) to include “Glow Learn” as an area of interest. This will let other folk find us when they search the Glow membership using “area of interest” as the key field. If you have a Glow login, try it! (It’s a good idea to add your areas of interest such as sector or subject to your profile if you like the idea of collaborating with others in a similar situation. Once we all document our interests, we’ll be able to make such useful contacts!)
Several hands on sessions were held to take us all through the various steps involved in using Glow Learn, interspersed with presentations covering important issues such as observing IPR (intellectual property rights).
There were some light-hearted moments: Ian claimed to be the “supervisor” of the training team and his role was even celebrated in an ode by one of the participants, but his “lassies” – Karen-Anne, Dawn, Gerri and Lesley, the very able workshop leaders – were not so sure!
Ian rounded off the two days with a challenge to those of us who had attended – to go back to school or L.A. and use Glow Learn soon in earnest, to keep in touch and to help our colleagues to move forward with Glow to the benefit of all our learners.
If you are interested in using Glow Learn, have a look at the tutorials.

Asking an 11-year-old pupil in East Kilbride what life is like for their peers in Malawi is a question that might seem comparable to asking what life is like on the moon. Even in our globalised society, understanding cultures other than our own is a tricky task for most children.

For Caroline Gibson, Glow Mentor and P7 teacher at Castlefield Primary School in East Kilbride, Glow has provided a powerful tool for engaging pupils in global citizenship.

From starting off feeling ‘a little anxious’ about her ability to harness Glow’s full potential for learning and teaching, Caroline has now experienced first-hand the kind of rich learning experience Glow can offer.

Caroline’s first project as a Glow Mentor was to establish an African rich-task Glow Group, on which she uploaded information documents, web links to sites on Malawi, videos on global warming and an African photo gallery to encourage discussion.

‘The great thing about Glow is that it offers teachers more autonomy and choice,’ said Caroline. ‘You can use topics in ways you might never have considered before. For my pupils, it has provided a wider learning experience and enhanced their understanding of global citizenship.’

Read more about Castlefield Primary’s African adventure and Glow in South Lanarkshire.

Jaye Richards, a biology and psychology teacher at Cathkin High School in Cambuslang, has found her Glow ‘road test’ enormously successful in reinforcing learning objectives.

Keen to discover how Glow could enhance learning and teaching in her classroom, Glow Mentor Jaye dedicated one third of teaching time to a Glow project examining the effects of water pollution. Armed with the theory of how depleted oxygen levels affect the ecosystem, pupils applied their knowledge to the Yangtze River in Asia, the River Don in Sheffield and the Gulf of Mexico.

Jaye established a Glow Group containing a range of media for pupils to study and compare, including videos, podcasts and newspaper articles. Pupils used the material to study each river, explaining their findings and posting their work on the discussion board.

‘The Glow project took the topic and made it ‘real’ to my students,’ said Jaye. ‘Young people need to relate to their learning or they disengage, and Glow allows us to adapt our approach to education. We can’t sleepwalk our way into the classrooms of the 21st century.’

Read more about Cathkin High School makes learning ‘real’ through Glow and Glow in South Lanarkshire.