Glow Scotland

The Scottish Arts Council and Learning and Teaching Scotland have joined forces to bring arts education online through Glow. As a result of this partnership, a new post and project have been created to explore Glow’s potential to support innovative approaches to learning and teaching through the arts.

I have recently joined the Glow Team as Development Officer (Arts) and I’m hugely excited about this project’s potential to enable artists, performers and writers and Scotland’s schools to work and learn together in ways that have never been possible before. Glow is breaking down barriers and making learning experiences and opportunities more widely accessible – the recent Anthony Horowitz and Oscar Stringer Glow Meet events and the Willie Rodger print project are just a few examples of the exciting work that is already going on via Glow.

Over the next 22 months I will be working with selected Scottish Arts Council funded arts organisations on a number of ambitious demonstration projects, to be announced later this year, which will trial new ways of learning and will show how creativity and the arts are a fantastic way of supporting Curriculum for Excellence.

The project will provide CPD opportunities for both teachers and arts practitioners to work together to develop ideas, projects and resources. I am keen to make contact with teachers, cultural co-ordinators and local arts teams who would like to be involved so please do get in touch – I’ll be delighted to hear from you.

Look out for a new national Glow Group for the project which will highlight developments and opportunities providing a focal point for all related activity and a place to collaborate and share good practice. The project will also be showcased at the Scottish Learning Festival on 23 September.

Enquiries: glowenquiries@LTScotland.org.uk

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This post and project is funded through a partnership between Learning and Teaching Scotland and the Scottish Arts Council

Two very successful Glow events have recently taken place at Stirling Management Centre. These ‘Building Glow Communities’ events focused on getting English Teachers and Primary 4-7 teachers respectively to work together to create Glow groups to support learning and teaching.

These groups will be used by the teachers who created them to share ideas and resources and to allow collaborative activities between their pupils. The groups are also open to all teachers and pupils nationally so that they can follow what’s going on.

Teachers can apply to join the groups with their own classes and take part in the activities.

You can find the P4/7 groups created by the participants under National Groups/Building Glow Communities. Groups include ‘The Victorians’, World War 2, Scotland and European Tour Guide Mission. The English Teacher groups at are at National Groups/Literacy and English/Building Glow Communities and include Transition P7/S1, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and War Poetry.

If you have any problems viewing or applying to join the groups please contact Lesley Dickson at l.dickson@ltscotland.org.uk

We are still taking applications for the next events for early years, maths, the expressive arts, science and social studies. Visit Glow Scotland to apply for a place.

Please note that while the emphasis of the events is very much on sharing and collaboration it would be useful for applicants to have some previous experience of creating Glow groups.

If you would like an event held for your subject area or sector please register your interest with Glow Administration.

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.

On Wednesday 21^st January, pupils across Scotland watched leading scientists perform a bird post-mortem beamed live into their classrooms from East Lothian through Glow.

Ecologists at the Scottish Seabird Centre in North Berwick carried out the post-mortem on the fulmar as part of their Save the North Sea project, which aims to raise awareness of the damage caused by 20,000 tons of litter dumped every year.

Dr Franeker is a senior scientist at the Institute for Marine Resources and Ecosystem studies in the Netherlands and he took pupils through the dissection and findings. Pupils and teachers who logged on were able to ask questions throughout the procedure.

Pupils studying Biology were able to see live on Glow how scientists are researching what is happening in the North Sea and how they are using the findings to protect sealife and cut the amount of marine litter. Pupils asked questions about the birds’ eating habits and enquired how many birds die of litter pollution each year. One school even asked Dr Franeker how old the bird was and if he is used to the smell when dissecting!

The event is just an example of how Glow is providing unique learning opportunities for pupils that could be difficult for schools to organise themselves. The seabird centre is doing fantastic work that provides a real opportunity for teachers to discuss science, biology, environmental change and citizenship in the context of real work that’s going on in Scotland.

This type of approach not only gets pupils enthusiastic about their learning but also helps them make connections across different subjects and instils a deeper knowledge and understanding.

Around 65 pupils from Cathkin High School joined in the Glow Meet.  S4 pupil, Robin Meek, 15, said:  “It was really interesting.  I’ve never seen anything like it before so it was amazing to watch.  It was much better being able to watch it live and ask questions directly to the scientist involved in the project as you remember it more and can understand how it all fits together.  It wasn’t too gory.”

The Scottish Learning Festival is the most prestigious educational event in Scotland and this year we are celebrating the 10th anniversary. Over the years the Scottish Learning Festival has gone from an event with four keynotes, 40 sessions and a small exhibition, which attracted 1200 delegates, to an event attended by over 7000 delegates, with a conference programme of over 170 sessions and an exhibition of 200 suppliers.The conference secretariat is now open for abstracts for proposed participation in SLF 2009. This is your opportunity to present at the main educational event in Scotland.The Call for Participation documents are available from the SLF website and give full details of the theme for the 2009 conference, the submission process and deadlines.Abstracts are to be submitted by Friday 30 January 2009.To ensure that we deliver a first-class conference programme, please circulate this information to any of your contacts who you feel would be interested in taking part.For more information and copies of the papers go to; www.LTScotland.org.uk/slf/aboutslf/participation.asp.

Glow is providing Primary School teachers with the chance to partake in a ‘Homecoming’ topic with schools across the whole of Scotland. In January there will be an on-line classroom where teachers from P4-7 can contribute to, and get ideas from, that will have great potential for cross-curricular teaching and learning.

As a teacher, you will get the best of the ideas by planning with teachers from across Scotland – just submit ideas and they will be collated and shown to everyone else. Each week there will be on line challenges that you can take part in, and you can share the work your class produce on Glow as well.  See what other school across Scotland are doing, and encourage your pupils to peer assess other people’s work as well.

There will also be additional opportunities for you to use technology to enhance the children’s learning, and the on-line classroom will show you how to do this through tutorials and advice. For example – have you ever thought about using animation to inspire the children? The on-line classroom will show you where you can get software (even for free!), provide planning resources, and also show you how to use it.

If you want to be a part of this innovative way of teaching, email Sat Bance on s.bance@LTScotland.org.uk to express your interest. In the meantime, share your thoughts and ideas on the discussion forum.

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.

Today I had the great pleasure of attending the annual conference of ADES - the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland. Why was I there? This year, ADES are moving their online community into Glow, and today saw the launch of their National Glow Group. As of today, all Directors of Education in Scotland have access to a National Glow Group for them to discuss, collaborate and share - and from the word ‘go’, they did just that.

The conference keynote was delivered by Prof. Richard Teese - not live in person, but live via Glow Meet. He’d very generously agreed to deliver the keynote speech for the conference from his study (at 2am his time) to those gathered on the other side of the world to hear him.  Prof. Teese is always challenging in his observations. He raised many important questions in light of the OECD report, and called those present to think critically about some of the challenges facing Scottish education. Two of his challenges for those present leaped out at me - to strengthening student engagement and to improving satisfaction with school - how would the directors of education envisage working towards achieving this?

No sooner had Prof. Teese finished speaking than the members of ADES set about discussing the points he raised - in a discussion forum in Glow. They now have collated responses to some of his questions, and set many new questions of their own to ask him. Those present seemed to appreciate what can easily be taken for granted - the ability to see the questions and responses from people seated at other tables instantly collated in the one place for all ADES members to see.

What a great start to the ADES Glow Group. An international speaker of high reputation joining by Glow Meet, and discussion in the Glow group. What a great example for us all of how we can share our ideas for Scottish education across the country.

For colleagues and practicioners who haven’t received their Glow training yet, or for those who simply want to refresh their memory, the GlowScotland website offers ‘learning about Glow’ tutorials. These are a series of Flash-based activities to walk you through the many features of Glow. These tutorials are perfect for colleagues and practicioners who are stretched for time as you can take this at your own pace.  Visit; http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/glowscotland/whatsinglow/learningaboutglow/index.asp

I spent a fun two days in Dumfries and Galloway this week, taking part in three different events geared towards getting people onto and using Glow.

On Wednesday night, I joined the D&G Glow team for a Glow roadshow, where the cluster primary teachers gathered for a demo and introduction to Glow. There was a real buzz in the room (maybe a sugar rush from the lovely biscuits, but I think it was about Glow).

I was fortunate enough to work with some of the same teachers the next day in their own schools. We visited two primary schools, and got all the pupils from P4-7 logged into and playing with Glow. Any fears I had about this task being beyond the younger children were clearly unfounded, as they remembered every step from their short demo, and mostly managed to log on without issues. When one or two issues did arise, the excellent D&G Glow team were on hand to help out. The children had a chance to email their friends from Glow Mail and have a look around their school sites. They all seemed to love it, and were raring to get home and log on to the Glow Games. I was lucky enough to have the chance to talk to one of the classes, a Primary 3/4/5 in Moniaive Primary, about what other classes are doing with Glow around the country and I showed them some fun Glow Groups from Shetland and Aberdeenshire.

In the evening I joined the team in delivering a CPD event to teachers on the Glow communications tools, and the attendees discussed their own ideas for using these in the classroom and collaborating with each other. With the primary rollout just over halfway complete, and a fantastic local support team, Glow is gaining momentum in Dumfries and Galloway and everyone’s getting in on the act.