Glow Scotland

Today I made my first visit to Aberdeen City as a Glow Development Officer. I was delighted to have the chance to speak to the city’s current probationer teachers concerning Glow as part of their training day about ICT based resources. It was heartening that, when asked what they knew already about Glow, a perfect response was given about a national web-based learning community of teachers and pupils.
After a short presentation about changing learning styles and the resulting need for pedagogical change, using digital tools such as are second nature to today’s pupils, we had a tour of the growing list of activities and Glow Groups to be found on the National Site. We looked at the Glowing Games and the Consolarium, Jaye Richards’ research into the impact of Glow, Fiona Hyslop’s recent Glow Chat and much in between.
After this national perspective, Brian Murray, a Glow ASG Mentor and maths teacher at Hazlehead Academy gave an insight into his school’s site. Staff at his school recently got their logins to Glow and now are paper free – accessing the daily bulletin and attendance information via Glow. The role-based sites and the school site had all been prepared by the central ICT team and looked very stylish and inviting. Hazlehead and other Aberdeen schools on Glow at present, are initially concentrating on the use of Glow for information flow. Its learning and teaching potential will soon be realised too when pupils are brought on to Glow in the near future. The planned gap between staff and pupils’ access, is working to advantage in terms of staff confidence building. Staff see the potential of Glow and now actively want pupils to get logins. The other schools across the LA will follow a similar pattern – staff first, then pupils a couple of months later.
The probationers are looking forward to getting their Glow logins – and I’m certainly looking forward to working with Aberdeen City and seeing all the planning and hard work pay off!