Glow Scotland

Metaphrog are comics creators Sandra Marrs and John Chalmers, best known for making the Louis series of comics.

For the first time, they are bringing their popular comics workshop to Glow!

Any classes from P5 – S4 are invited to join Metaphrog over Glow Meet at 1pm on Wednesday the 3rd of March. You’ll learn lots about creating characters and comics, and have the chance to create your own characters. They will also set you a comic-creating challenge, and you can come back for the follow-up Glow Meet later in the year and show us how you got on.

To join the Glow Meet, you’ll need a room with a computer with internet access, a projector and screen or interactive whiteboard, and speakers. Pupils will also need access to paper and drawing materials.

The Glow Meet and the sign-up sheet can be found in the Graphic Novels National Glow Group.

The Scottish Book Trust Online Teacher in Residence is an online teaching and CPD resource community and programme of events aimed at teachers in Scotland interested in creative learning approaches to literature and literacy within Curriculum for Excellence.

Working with two practising teachers, Scottish Book Trust will develop a diverse range of online teaching and CPD resources, and an online community where teachers can benefit from:
• regular CPD resources and events
• best practice examples
• shared teaching resources
• interaction with like-minded colleagues

Teachers will be able to connect with Online Teacher in Residence through a dedicated web space or our national Glow Group.

Eric Booth will be hosting the online launch via a Glow Meet at 4pm on Thursday 25th February. In order to attend this event, teachers will need to sign up via the Online Teacher in Residence Glow Group before 24th February 2010.

Please sign up by clicking here.

The Online Teacher in Residence web space can be found by clicking here.

Further information can be found on the Scottish Book trust website by clicking here.

If your or colleagues have any additional questions, please email otir@scottishbooktrust.com

This year’s Scottish Book Trust Writer in Residence is the award-winning teen fiction writer Catherine Forde.

Catherine will be available to answer all your questions about creative writing on Glow on the Third of February – time to be confirmed –

Click here to sign up to take part!

The event is suitable for secondary school pupils

Catherine Forde has been writing novels with teenagers as the central characters for over a decade. Most of her novels are contemporary and Glaswegian. In a previous life she taught English in secondary schools and colleges and edited dictionaries. Catherine likes to explore the relationship between teenagers and the adults in their lives, and her writing is colloquial and dialogue-driven. Recurring themes in her novels are the influence and impact of music on the individual, fitting in and fractured relationships.

Between now and March Catherine Forde will have a new writing task for learners on the first Monday of every month, and teacher’s notes on the task are also available. Watch Cathy’s brilliant video podcasts where she explains each task, and use the accompanying written notes. There are already 3 tasks online – check them out at the Scottish Book Trust’s site:

Click for pupils’ pages

Click for teachers’ pages

Guest Post from Catriona Oates of Scottish CILT

If you have ever taken part in a book discussion group and thought the format might well be useful for professional purposes, then put this date in your diary – Thursday 28th January 4pm -5pm.

At Scottish CILT ( the Scottish Centre for Information on Languages Teaching and Research ) we are committed to supporting the professional development of languages teachers across Scotland. We do this in several ways: through our programme of CPD events both national and local, on an outreach basis; through our news updates and enquiry service, and through the on-line educational journal, the Scottish Languages Review. We dipped our toes into Glow last session and had our first on-line CPD event in June, which was very successful, attracting 17 participants from across Scotland. We then live streamed the keynote talks from our national conference on MLPS in September.

This session, we took inspiration from David Niven of Wallace High School in Stirling and decided to follow his lead and organise a virtual professional reading group. This is a great idea that David started in his department and it hits a lot of targets for us. We like to think that we help teachers develop professionally through reflection on their own practice and engaging in professional dialogue.

We know that money is tight and CPD budgets are coming under increasing strain; we edit and publish a cost –free educational journal of relevance to languages teachers. It is the most frequently visited part of our website attracting hits worldwide, but we’d like more teachers in Scotland to be aware of it and make use of it, so our first reading text will be Content and Language Integrated Learning : Motivating Students, Motivating Teachers by Prof Do Coyle of Aberdeen University. Do gave the keynote talk at our September national conference and inspired many teachers to think about content and how we approach this in languages classrooms. We’d like to take a closer look at her thoughts on this and make a space to discuss what might be attractive in this idea; what might the barriers be, and where these ideas fits in with Curriculum for Excellence.

If you’d like to join us please get in touch – either with Mandy Reeman Clark (mandy.reemanclark@strath.ac.uk) or myself, Catriona.Oates@strath.ac.uk to register interest for the event and download your free copy of the reading paper. Looking forward to seeing you in the new year!

The planned Glowcoming Glow Meet has been postponed due to one of the two host schools being closed on the 30th – watch the blog for details of the new date when it’s confirmed. Sorry to those who had planned to get involved.

There’s still time to sign up to take part in a nationwide Glow Meet on Tuesday the 15th of September with Fiona Hyslop, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning. The Glow Meet starts at 13:00, and will last for an hour. Ms Hyslop will be speaking about why she is proud to be Scottish, and then answering questions from the audience at Gavinburn Primary School, and from the Glow audience.

If your class want to join in and watch or ask questions, you can sign up by clicking this link and reading the Glow page for more details.

Questions should be submitted before the end of the day on Monday the 14th of September.

There will be a chance to log in and test the Glow Meet on Friday and Monday, so please have a try if you’ve never joined a Glow Meet before.

The SLF Extra Glow Group is now live, with things to see before the Scottish Learning Festival, and a preview of what to expect over the two days. One event you can get involved in before the festival is a Glow Meet Session with Fiona Hyslop, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning. In advance of her Keynote Speech at SLF, Ms Hyslop will be hosting a Glow Meet for Scottish Schools from Gavinburn Primary School in West Dunbartonshire. The Glow Meet will take place on the 15th of September between 1pm and 2pm.

The cabinet secretary will be talking about what it means to her to be Scottish, and inviting questions from the children at Gavinburn and the Glow audience.

To sign up your class to watch or to take part in the question and answer session, please visit the SLF Extra Glow Group by clicking on this link

It’s nearly time for our second national online author event, again in association with the Scottish Book Trust.

MG Harris, author of the acclaimed Joshua Files novels, will be reading from her latest work, Ice Shock and then answering questions, all via Glow Meet. The event is being broadcast from Lenzie Academy at 13:30 on Tuesday the 9th of June, and you and your class can register to take part by visiting the Glow Group for the event and requesting access.

Once you’re in, you can leave your details in the sign-up form, and you can start to add your questions for MG to the discussion board – you may then get the chance to ask it to her live over Glow Meet on the day!

The event will last and hour, and is most suitable for P6 – S2, although everyone is welcome!

There will be a chance to check you can access Glow Meet with support from LTS on Monday the 8th (more details will be on the Glow Group), but please do go in and try before then if you can and get in touch if you have any problems – contact k.barrowman@ltscotland.org.uk with any issues.

This morning I was at a wonderfully exciting event, shared by thousands of children all across Scotland. The Scottish Book trust arranged for Anthony Horowitz, the best-selling author of the Alex Rider novels (among many, many more fantastic books) was broadcast live over the internet on streaming video and via Glow Meet. It’s estimated that up to 7000 fans around the country viewed the event, and hundreds then joined the Glow Chat afterwards.

Anthony took questions from the children from Uphall Primary and Canal View Primary, and also answered questions that had been submitted by schools in the weeks leading up to the event. He entertained everyone with his irreverent stories of evil grandmothers and detestable teachers – according to Anthony, every teacher he has ever had has appeared in one of his books, and he’s had them all meet a sticky end!

After his very enjoyable talk, Anthony joined children on Glow Meet, answering as many as he could of the thousands of questions that flowed in – so many, that the computer eventually gave up the ghost! Not to worry, though – Anthony will be blogging about the experience on his website, www.anthonyhorowitz.com, and you’ll be able to comment there and ask him the questions that didn’t get through.

I had the great privilege today to attend an event marking the culmination of a wonderful project. The famed Scottish artist, Willie Rodger, has been working with nine schools across Scotland, helping them to create linocut prints of their very own. It all began on Hallowe’en, with Willie hosting a masterclass via Glow Meet from his studio, with each of the nine classes joining in to watch. Over the next weeks and months, the pupils, from P7, right through to S6 Advanced Higher, had further webconferences with Willie, who was able to provide one-to-one advice and comments. In addition, the pupils posted their work as it progressed on individual Glow Groups, and met up in Glow Chat rooms every Friday to leave comments on each other’s work.

Today Angela McEwan from Media Matters, who has been managing the project, hosted a Glow Meet from Learning and Teaching Scotland’s Glasgow base. Willie Rodger was here, along with his family, to take part in the highlight of the event – the opening of a Virtual Gallery of the pupils’ work by Glasgow’s Poet Laureate, Liz Lochhead.

Glow’s very own Marie Dougan welcomed participants, and handed over to Angela to speak to the schools. We joined each school in a live Glow Meet link, and the pupils talked about their work as it was displayed on the shared virtual whiteboard. After we’d heard from each school, Liz Lochhead took the mic to officially open the gallery. We were delighted with her reading of two of her own poems, and a reading of Scottish Poet Laureate Edwin Morgan’s poem, The Computer’s First Christmas Card. The latter poem seemed particularly appropriate in light of both the time of year and the subject matter. When Willie Rodger took the mic to praise the project, the room was stunned by the rapturous applause coming from each of the schools. Indeed, it was hard to tell who had enjoyed the project most – Willie Rodger or the children he worked with. Either way, it was a fantastic success.

Today’s Times Educational Supplement contains an article regarding the event and all the schools who took part, and you can find the Virtual Gallery online at Media Matters. Its final home will be in the Glow National Expressive Arts Group, which is due to open soon. This surely paves the way for more exciting Glow-based projects around the country. Got an idea for one? Get glowing!