This Tuesday may well be just another day, but it is a day that we feel important to acknowledge…

Safer Internet Day is organised by Insafe each year in February to promote safer and more responsible use of online technology and mobile phones, especially amongst children and young people across the world.

This year, Safer Internet Day (SID) will take place on Tuesday 7 February 2012 and will be centred around the theme Connecting generations and educating each other, with the slogan: “Discover the digital world together… safely!”

About Connecting Generations

This topic looks at the reach of the online world across all generations and cultures and encourages families to work together to stay safe online. Whether you are 5, 40 or 75 years old, whether you use the internet once a month or several times a day – each person has something different to bring to the table that can help shape our online experiences and our understanding of online competences and safety. We all have a role to play in ensuring that every child is safe online.

Today our offline and online worlds are strongly connected, from families communicating via webcam with relatives and friends abroad to children doing their homework online. The online world is a unique arena where people of all ages can learn together and from each other, especially regarding online safety. Tech savvy youngsters can teach their elders how to use new technologies, while grandparents can draw on their life experiences to advise younger generations on how to stay safe online, as they discover the digital world together.

How to take part?

Visit saferinternetday.org for more information and to download SID promotional materials and resources.

Glow Resources:

Visit the Internet Safety and Responsible Use Resources site for a brilliant introduction to this topic and a coming together of all the sites that provide further teaching resources. This blog brings together all the well-respected Internet safety sites, including CEOP and ThinkUKnow.

Join us again this year for a fantastic opportunity to explore space travel and meet three exciting NASA guests all in one day.

Find out more about what they’ve done, ask your own questions, take part in space quizzes and use this unique opportunity to enter the world of space exploration. Don’t miss out, you can sign up here now.

More information about our exciting space guests and how you can all get involved in this Glow TV event will follow soon.

If the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report is anything to go by then flooding, droughts, heat waves and extreme storms are likely to occur more frequently through to the middle of the century and beyond.

Are we powerless in the face of increasingly extreme weather or will human ingenuity, resourcefulness and spirit provide us with solutions to help us ride the storm? What steps are our government and public agencies already taking to prepare us for the changes coming? How can the poorest countries adapt with limited resources?

From floating houses to massive flood defence schemes there is already much work underway. Will it be enough? In this, the last in a series of three national Glow meets, learners will have a chance to air their views and put searching questions to our panel of experts including:

- James Curran MBE, Chief Executive, Scottish Environment Protection Agency

- Anna Beswick, Public Sector Officer, Adaptation Scotland

- John Sharp, Schools Education Officer, SCIAF

Visit http://bit.ly/climatedebatethree to register, post your questions in advance and join the Glow meet on the day. This Glow meet is aimed at learners in upper primary and secondary schools.

For resources and videos on climate change visit Weather and Climate Change, Exploring Climate Change, STEM Central and Climate Change on Glow.

Other events in the series included:

- Glow meet 1: Our changing weather and climate – view recording here

- Glow meet 2: Climate science – evidence versus controversy – view recording here

We’ve finally made our decisions on winners and runners-up from your fantastic entries to our Glovember – Glow Book Month writing competition. There were so many excellent pieces of writing in all three of our age categories that it was a very difficult choice. We were thrilled by the number of entries submitted and in awe of the quality.

On Friday 10th November we will be having a Glow TV session where one of our most popular authors, Lari Don, will be returning to announce the winners and read some of their stories.

There will be a winner in each of the categories : early primary, later primary and secondary. There will also be four runners-up in every category. All 15 of these entries will be published in an e-book in the Glovember Glow Group.

Please join us on the morning of Friday 10th February through Glow TV for a fantastic session. Final timings and details will follow soon.

The Scottish Education Awards celebrate the hard work and success which takes place in Scottish education. They recognise the achievements of people who dedicate their lives to children and young people and showcase the valuable work and innovation in Scottish classrooms. Nominations close on Friday 2 March 2012. Visit the Scottish Education Awards website for more information.

Artistic Director, Stage Manager, Marketing Manager are all jobs within theatre and roles you may have heard of. But what does it really take to do a job like this and how do you get a foot in the door? Join Andy Arnold, David Sneddon and Lindsay Mitchell from the Tron Theatre for World of Work Wednesdays. Don’t miss out on your chance to ask these professionals all about the different aspects of their jobs.

So why not join us on Wednesday 1st February from 1.45pm – Sign up in Glow TV.

Then on Thursday 2nd February we will be continuing the celebrations with a recorded performance from a group from Shanghai who visited Scotland this week. As part of their brief visit to Scotland for the Chinese New Year a delegation from Shanghai performed in certain Confucius Hubs and also paid a visit to Education Scotland where we were lucky enough to have the event recorded.

The performance is beautiful and colourful and includes singing and dancing as well as Chinese drama. We invite you to join us for a Glow Meet with Fan Lin, LTS Confucius Institute Manager where you can watch the recording of the performance and then ask Fan questions about it and all other things that interest you about Chinese New Year!! Sign up in Glow TV for – Shanghai Delegation Perform Confucius Institute Spring Festival Performance 2012

And don’t forget our King of Masks event on the 6th February from 10.15am and later that day the 龙年大吉 Good luck with the year of dragon – Close of Celebrations events at 2pm!!

We took into account how well the entries had met the competition’s requirements (a leaflet giving information about visiting them at the zoo) and the standard of information provided, as well as the overall design quality.

We really were most impressed with the entries and only wish we had more prizes to give out. Congratulations to everyone involved. We have also been very impressed with the number of comments on the blog and just how much interest has been shown in the topic. It clearly shows that pupils have been as excited about the arrival of Tian Tian and Yang Guang as we have. Well done! And Happy Chinese New Year to you all as well!

And now for the big news. Here are the winners:

*Please allow until next week to receive prizes. We will try to post some more of the entries here as time allows, but here is the winning entry, submitted by Ellis Stables of Kirkcowan Primary School. Ellis will receive the larger of the two pandas we picked up as well as a Glow TV T shirt and some sweeties. Well done, Ellis! We picked your entry because it was very informative, with just the kind of information we were looking for. We also choose Ellis as the overall winner because of the fact that it was a P3 entry and of such a high standard.

Rory PandasThe second prize goes to Rory Crombie from P6b at St Joseph’s Primary. Rory’s entry can be viewed by clicking the link here. Very high standard from Rory, with lots of information and quite a high degree of IT skills in preparing his document. Great work!

Runners up will receive a Glow TV T shirt from us and 1st runners up will receive a Glow TV T shirt as well as a small panda gift from the Edinburgh zoo gift shop.

One element of Stuart’s role is to bring together the ICT co-ordinators for the Authority’s 8 Secondary schools. As part of this remit, Stuart arranges quarterly meetings for the co-ordinators to enable them to share ideas and keep up to date with new initiatives, policies and resources. More often than not, the meetings have not been well attended by the co-ordinators, although not through a lack of willingness. Some have been unable to attend due to conflicting appointments whilst others have been unable to get out of school due to lack of availability of class cover. This has made it harder for Stuart to keep all schools equally up to date.

With schools facing increasing demands in staffing and budgets, Stuart felt that this problem would only be likely to worsen and so decided to use Glow as a way to try to combat the issues facing staff trying to get out of school for the ICT Co-ordinator meetings.

Stuart decided to hold the group’s most recent meeting via Glow Meet. He explains why in the following video clip

Find out more in the Cookbook here:

A series of thought-provoking and lively Glow meets

2pm – 3:15pm, Monday 30th January 2012

Climate change is never far from the headlines and is an issue which continues to cause much debate and controversy. Scandals such as Himalayagate and the hacking of emails at the University of East Anglia have shaken public confidence in the credibility of climate science. Media reporting of the issue has also left the sections of the public with the view that the scientific evidence is contested and inconclusive.

What is the scientific community saying about climate change? How much of the evidence is beyond doubt? What do scientists agree on and what do they disagree on? Amid claims of manipulation of evidence and conspiracies, who can we believe?

In this, the second in a series of three national Glow meets, learners will have a chance to air their views and put searching questions to our panel of scientists including:

- Dr. Dave Reay, Senior Lecturer in Carbon Management at the University of Edinburgh and author of Our Planet Needs You! A Kid’s Guide to Going Green.

- Dr. Richard Milne, Institute of Molecular Plant Sciences, University of Edinburgh – winner of EUSA award for innovative teaching as voted for by students across the university.

Visit http://bit.ly/climatedebate2 to register, post your questions in advance and join the Glow meet on the day. This Glow meet is aimed at learners in upper primary and secondary schools.

For resources and videos on climate change visit Weather and Climate Change, Exploring Climate Change, STEM Central and Climate Change on Glow.

Other events in the series include:

- Glow meet 1: Our changing weather and climate – To view the Glow Meet recording click here.

- Glow meet 3: Adapting to climate change (6th Feb ’12)