Glow Scotland

This event was a great success. Many thanks to all who took part in the free Google earth training on Monday 19th January. Thanks to those who came to the Optima in Glasgow for what was a unique experiment. 16 Geography teachers and 1 Modern Studies teacher from schools in Glasgow, Ayrshire, Highlands, Inverclyde, Dundee, Lanarkshire and East Renfrew:

John Ogilvie High School, Hillhead High School, James Hamilton Academy, Knightswood Secondary, Inverness Royal Academy, Nairn Academy, St. Stephens High School, Harris Academy, St. Thomas Aquinas RC Secondary School, Ardrossan Academy, St. Maurices High School, Calderside Academy, Johnstone High School, Broughton High School, Barrhead High School, Cleveden Secondary School.

Thanks also to our remote participants from, Aberdeenshire, Dundee, Glasgow, Inverclyde and Angus. A special thanks to Vicky Rogers from Angus who stayed to complete the whole day’s training in Glow meet and uploaded her Google earth tour complete with photographs of Friokheim into the Social Studies National glow Group.  While Mark Hagart, my colleague, was uploading screenshots of Google earth to the whiteboard in Glow meet I was sending messages to our virtual participants Vikky said: “this is a great example of nationally provided CPD” This is also a first for educators in Scotland. I hope Social Studies teachers will follow Vikky’s good example and share Google earth tours of their local area in Documents in the SSNGG. If you are not familiar with how to share Google earth files: download two guides to using Google earth from Documents in the Place and Environments tab.  Also look out for a  GE Glow Chat session soon.

Many thanks to our presenter, Jamie Buchanan-Dunlop who prepared well for the event and spoke clearly under more pressure than usual as he was being filmed by three different cameras, one of which was recording in Glow meet. You can find participant’s work on his website. The Glow team will be offering an edited version of this training for use by schools shortly.  Many thanks to Stuart Oliphant and Mark Hagart from the Glow team for their technical support with Glow meet. There was a great deal of technology and expertise involved in this event  but that does not mean that local authorities can not deliver good centrally organised CPD across their regions with Glow meet and with with less equipment. Stuart and Mark will take what they know about how to use the whiteboard for sharing information, how to improve video and audio in Glow meet and offer this to Local Authorites who intend to use this Glow tool for similar CPD events.

I took part in some very interesting discussions, hosted by Tina Ornduff, in the Google offices in London, on Friday. I was there for Glow, as an experienced Geography teacher with a handful of other geo ‘experts’ to talk about emerging practice with Google Earth. Discussions were based on the idea that ‘Google Earth (GE) is much more than a digital atlas’. A common wish is to enhance teaching and learning by making it more active and more relevant, with google.

Noel Jenkins described his Juicy Geography; Jamie Buchanan-Dunlop described his social enterprise and outreach programs; Richard Treves shared his experience of lecturing with and about GE at The University of Southampton. Ollie Brae  made useful comments based on his long experience of presenting about GE and I spoke about sharing resources and collaborating in the National Parks and Social Studies, National Glow groups. 

I also made some suggestions for using and developing GE, for the social and the local by describing a sense of place. It is wonderful how pupils can develop their ablity to appreciate strangeness and different cultures, but GE is also a powerful tool for exploring local communities. I would like to see teachers from all subject areas share their experiences of using GE  files in Glow? To encourage this, I have uploaded some resources, kindly given to me by Tina Ornduff, to the Social Studies National Glow group.   

If you would like to learn more about GE look at our Social Subjects National Glow group.  Ollie Brae and I will be taking questions in Glow meet, once the Scottish Learning Festival  is over, where we are both using GE in our presentations.