This Month’s Puzzle has now been added to the Glow Group, just in the nick of time!

You can access the Group with your username and password by using the link http://tinyurl.com/ycv5xmn

Be warned though, the last one’s a right wee stinker!

The new Monthly Maths Puzzle Group is open for business.

Each month a set of fiendish puzzles will appear that will test the skills of pupils, teachers and parents alike! There will also be themed puzzles for special dates in the year.

Upload your pupils’ solutions onto the group and we’ll then publish the most innovative methods.

It’s then our intention to have the pupils’ that have thought up the most creative solutions to use Glow Meet to tell everyone else how it’s done.

You can link to the group here: Monthly Maths Puzzle Group

There isn’t much of January left so best get your thinking caps on.

Good luck!

On Thursday 27 and Friday 28 August 2009, a group of Secondary Maths teachers and Primary teachers from a variety of Local Authorites, met at Stirling Management Centre for the Maths Building Glow Communities event.

The teachers worked in small groups to build Glow Groups that provide ideas and resources that can be used by teachers around the country as part of their learning and teaching.

The Groups are sub groups of the national Numeracy and Mathematics Glow Group and very much take on board the thinking behind Curriculum for Excellence, providing contexts for teaching and learning that will allow teachers to address a range of Mathematics and Numeracy outcomes together, rather than in isolation.

For example, there is a Glow Group created on the theme of Planning a Holiday, and another for Buying a Car, each of which can be used to work on a range of outcomes including Time, Money and Data & Analysis.

All Glow users around the country have Reader access to all of the eight groups that were created. However, if a teacher and their pupils would like to participate in collaborative projects with others, there is information within each Glow Group explaining how they can do that. Teachers can also request Contributor access to enable them to add to the resources within the Groups.

The two day event was extremely enjoyable, with teachers leaving feeling inspired and keen to continue their Glow usage even more within their own classrooms. It was felt that the event gave a very worthwhile opportunity to meet other likeminded people, make connections for ongoing collaboration, and find out more about Glow itself.

You can find out about future Building Glow Communities events by visiting the Glow Scotland website.

John Sexton, a Maths teacher from the James Young High School in West Lothian, has taken Glow on holiday!

He has been speaking today at the The Ninth International Conference on Technology in Mathematics Teaching (ICTMT 9) in Metz, France, about his use of Glow in his classroom. The International conference is for Mathematicians who use ICT within their learning and teaching and John was invited to speak, having submitted a proposal earlier this year.

John said his presentation was well received, and that “a 15 minute presentation lasted for a further 15 minutes because of the number of questions that were asked. The audience was small (20) but they were VERY interested in Glow as a concept”

As a result of his presentation, John has made contact with a teacher from Australia who is keen to start up a joint project, using Glow. Watch this space for more info once the project gets up and running later in the year!