Glow Scotland

December 5th, 2011

Panda-monium as Sweetie and Sunshine land in Edinburgh

pcurrie

Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: CfE, China, Chinese, early years, edinburgh, environment, Events, Glow, Glow Meet, Glow TV, Literacy, pandas, Tian Tian, video, Yang Guang, zoos
 : Categories Curriculum for Excellence, Early Years, Events, Glow, Learner Resources, Literacy, Pupils

Our Glow TV team had an unusually early start to their Sunday as they braved the cold and snow and made their way to Edinburgh zoo for the arrival of two very special black and white guests. Known as Tian Tian and Yang Guang, or ‘Sweetie’ and ‘Sunshine’ the Pandas arrived just after lunchtime on Sunday 4th December to an excited throng of flag-waving well-wishers and a tartan-clad pipe band playing ‘Scotland the Brave’.

The pandas’ arrival marks the start of a ten year stay at Edinburgh Zoo, which many people hope will result in a baby panda. Baby or not, the new residents are sure to bring the zoo many new visitors, keen to catch a glimpse of these endangered bears. They arrived at Edinburgh airport, having made the 12 hour journey from China in a special ‘panda express’ Fed Ex plane with panda livery and a crew dressed in kilts.

Our Glow TV team of junior reporters, Callan, Cammy, Daniel, Emma and Evan, were at the zoo’s Education centre all morning, making Chinese lanterns and watching a panda presentation as well as capturing interviews with zoo staff. They, and lots of other children were then given special black and white jackets and hats and Scottish, British and Chinese flags to wave, before making their way down the hill to welcome the pandas from the airport.

The panda reporters did, of course, capture lots and lots of footage of the arrival excitement for Glow users and this week sees Glow TV turn into ‘Pandamonium’ as we bring you as much panda-related content as we can. Pam Currie from the Glow team will kick this all off on Tuesday at 2:30pm as she gives viewers a taste of what’s to come and provides sneaky early details of an exciting panda competition we will be launching. After that, on Wednesday morning at 10:00 am, Pam is joined in the TV studio in Glasgow by Louise and Melissa from the Daily What News, our Glow news service for schools. They will share panda facts, discuss the related news articles and resources, and give more details and tips on the competition to win ‘Pandaphernalia’, or ‘cute black and white panda stuff,’ if you are groaning at our panda puns by now!

Later on Wednesday, at 2:30 pm Glow TV viewers can watch our ‘Pandamentary’ which offers a truly behind-the-scenes look at all the zoo arrival excitement we captured on Sunday. Watch our intrepid panda reporters take part in fun panda activities and see the zoo keepers’ panda presentation from the Education centre. We even managed to grab a real scoop, when our reporters were relaxing with a hot drink in the cafe, only to see Yang Guang’s truck being reversed alongside us as the zoo staff prepared to unload him to his new home. As true reporters would do, they quickly grabbed their cameras and ran back out to the cold to try to get some sneaky footage of Yang Guang in the back of the truck.

‘Pandaphernalia’ competition details will be revealed in all of these Glow TV broadcasts this week and entries will run until December 16th. Tune in and find out how to enter. A good few black and white panda prizes to be had, including two cuddly panda toys, panda wristbands, panda rock, panda sweets, panda pens and a panda keyring, as well as some limited edition Glow TV t-shirts.

Education Scotland has set up a special ‘UK Pandas’ blog to celebrate the arrival of Sweetie and Sunshine and suggest CfE learning ideas as an inter-disciplianary resource. The blog also contains integrated links to the Chinese Embassy’s excellent ‘Panda Pals’ site, the Fed Ex blog that tracked the journey from China, the Edinburgh zoo homepage and a special Edinburgh Zoo panda site as well as videos and a host of other links.

September 2nd, 2011

Screening Shorts – New Moving Image Education Resource

GerryQ

Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: CfE, CPD, Creative Scotland, Education Scotland, English, Expressive Arts, film, Glow, Glow Groups, Learning and Teaching Scotland, Literacy, media literacy, moving image education, National glow groups, video
 : Categories Curriculum for Excellence, Expressive Arts, Glow, Glow Groups, Learner Resources, Literacy, Media Literacy, Moving Image Education, National Groups

The team is currently busy working on Screening Shorts, a major new online resource to help teachers exploit moving image education in the classroom.

Developed by Creative Scotland and Education Scotland, Screening Shorts will be unveiled at SLF 2011, 21-22 Spetember 2011.

The resource will provide:

• Approximately 50 downloadable short films, free to Glow users
• Film tutorials explaining the core concepts of film language
• Lesson examples in film format showing how short films can be used for a wide variety of classroom activities
• A link to CPD opportunities and activities for teachers wishing to explore how to use moving image across Curriculum for Excellence
• A gateway to the growing Moving Image Education online community on Glow.

Watch this space for more information before and during SLF 2011…

December 8th, 2010

The Royal Society of Edinburgh Christmas Lecture – Reporting the World in an Age of Conflict – Live webcast

Katie Barrowman

Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: Events, journalism, Literacy, royal society
 : Categories Events

BBC Royal Society Christmas lectureThe Royal Society Christmas Lecture is being given this year by Allan Little. For over two decades, Allan Little has been reporting the changing shape of our world from “a seat in the front row of history”.

Join him live online as he describes some of the key moments from his career and answers your questions about what it is like to report the world in an age of conflict.

The lecture will be webcast live at 2.15 on the 10th December at http://www.royalsoced.org.uk/schools/xmas.htm For more details click here to log into Glow and download a PDF.

November 1st, 2010

National Library of Scotland Glow Group Launched

Katie Barrowman

Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: Glow Groups, Literacy, Literacy and English, National glow groups, National Library of Scotland
 : Categories Glow Groups, Literacy

The National Library of Scotland (NLS) has just launched its new Glow group, which is open to everyone with a Glow logon. Visit the group to find out more about one of the great libraries of the world.

NLS is is an information treasure trove of Scotland’s knowledge, history and culture, with millions of books, manuscripts and maps covering every subject and spanning the centuries from early times to the digital age. The Learning Team at the library is currently working on a new Learning Zone on their website which will help make this unique collection available to teachers and learners throughout Scotland. They are now inviting suggestions from the Glow community on what type of resources you’d like to see and use from the National Library. They’re keen to get feedback from a wide variety of Glow users so check out the group and register your interest, they’d love to hear from you.

October 29th, 2010

Scotland on Screen – a Moving Image Education resource

GerryQ

Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: CfE, CPD, Creative Scotland, English, Glow, Glow Groups, History, Learning and Teaching Scotland, Literacy, moving image education, National glow groups, National Library of Scotland, Social Studies
 : Categories Curriculum for Excellence, Glow, Glow Groups, Homecoming, Literacy, Moving Image Education, National Groups, Social Studies

Scotland on Screen is an exciting educational resource that puts hundreds of important historical film texts online, providing a rear-view mirror on our society over the past century.

It’s a web-based resource developed by National Library of Scotland, Creative Scotland, Learning and Teaching Scotland and Scran.

Scotland on Screen has now been up and running for over a year and has proved to be very popular among teachers and practitioners across Scotland. During 2010, the resource was further developed with the inclusion of a considerably enhanced collection of archive material that can be used across the curriculum.

The website provides short film material and resources for Glow users to use as part of their teaching in the classroom. The public can browse and view the collection of clips on the website but Glow users can log into the site via Glow to also download film clips of interest for reuse in the classroom.

Sitting underneath the main Moving Image National Glow Group, Glow users can access the Scotland on Screen Glow Group – a place to share knowledge, information and content surrounding the resource. Users can also catch up on the latest news and information as well as discuss topics of relevance and interest through the Scotland on Screen Glow Forum. So far, we’ve found that the resource has been of interest and benefit to teachers using it across a variety of subjects and curricular areas including social studies, literacy and health and wellbeing. Scotland on Screen has also been of value to Moving Image Education practitioners.

October 28th, 2010

Scottish Book Trust Online Teacher in Residence Events

Katie Barrowman

Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: books, CPD, Literacy, Literacy and English, Scottish Book Trust
 : Categories Events, Glow Chat, Glow Meet, Literacy

The Scottish Book Trust’s fantastic Online Teacher in residence scheme is in full swing, with some excellent CPD opportunities for teachers. Visit the links below for more details on how to get involved.

1. Choke Chain: Online Teachers’ Book Group Tuesday 2 November at 4pm. Glow Chat featuring Choke Chain by Jason Donald – a dramatic debut novel looking at aspects of a difficult family life, set in South Africa. Suitable for upper secondary level but all teachers welcome. We still have 5 books to give away.
Click here for more details.

2. How to Teach Creative Writing – Tuesday 16 November at 4pm. Glow Meet featuring professional writer and teacher of writing Nick Hesketh on the why, what and how’s of teaching creative writing. A two-part series, participants must be registered and attend the first session on the 16th November in order to gain access to the second session on the 230th November. We only have 6 places left.
Click here for more details.

3. Royal Mail Awards Book Groups – Tuesday 14 December at 4pm. Choose from three simultaneous Glow Chats discussing each of the shortlisted books per ages group for the Royal Mail Awards and how they could be used as cross-curricular lesson tools in class.
Click here for more details.

October 27th, 2010

Moving Image Education – Glow National Group

GerryQ

Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: CfE, CPD, Creative Scotland, Glow, Glow Groups, Learning and Teaching Scotland, Literacy, media literacy, moving image education, National glow groups, National Library of Scotland
 : Categories Curriculum for Excellence, Expressive Arts, Literacy, Moving Image Education, National Groups

Moving Image Education (MIE) is fast becoming an integral part of 21^st century literacy and modern teaching practice. Using moving image texts as a source in addition to the written word has been proved to vastly increase wider literacy skills, confidence, engagement and fun in the classroom.

Learning and Teaching Scotland is working in partnership with Creative Scotland to make moving image education more accessible and active within Glow

We now have a Moving Image Education National Glow Group which is steadily being populated with information, resources and CPD opportunities. Work is also underway to engage with Glow users across Scotland and encourage them to participate in interesting and relevant topics of discussion through the group’s Glow Forum. There are some Glow Meets planned too.

We look forward to seeing you on Glow.

September 21st, 2010

The Daily What News service is now live

pcurrie

Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: CfE, cross curricular, English, Glow, health and wellbeing, Literacy, Literacy and English, Mathematics, Maths, news, news service, Numeracy, politics, relevant learning, science
 : Categories Curriculum for Excellence, Glow, Literacy, Mathematics, National Groups, Pupils, Sciences, Social Studies, Technologies

The Daily What News is the all new Glow news service for schools. Launched this week, the service provides a sophisticated and interactive news service for Glow users, with articles written by a specialist news content editor especially for a schools’ audience. Articles will be published every school day and there will be two versions of each article: What? gives readers a less complex approach to the story; What’s More…provides a bit more of a challenge. In the very near future, there will also be three articles each week which will be published in Gaelic.

The articles are arranged in news categories and will be tagged according to CfE subjects and experiences and outcomes. The articles will be archived and searchable from the main homepage, giving users a rich learning resource that offers learners the opportunity to make meaningful and relevant connections across different curricular areas. Many of the articles will feature an interactive activity that will provide Glow account holders with a fun way to extend or cement users’ learning on the story’s topic. Users can also use their Glow logins to take part in forum discussion topics for each article.

Teachers will find the Teachers’ Area Blog an excellent resource. Beneath each daily news article there is a link to a blog post that provides Glow users with a wealth of lesson ideas and suggestions for several curricular areas from the one news story. The posts are written by a specialist education content editor who links the news story to CfE outcomes and experiences and provides links to other interesting and relevant content. Teachers themselves are encouraged to contribute to these posts so that we build up an extensive bank of cross-curricular lesson suggestions for each news story. The blog is organised in the same way as the news site itself and offers users the option to browse in several different ways or search for specific content.

From each blog post, there is a link to a Glow group that allows users to upload resources to a document store. The documents will be tagged according to CfE level, subject area, date the article was published and article title, offering users the ability to filter searches in several different ways.  In delivering their curriculum outcomes through The Daily What News service, Teachers are encouraged to upload any materials they develop and share with other Glow users, so that we build up an extensive store of learning resources that can be archived for future use.

Feedback received so far has been very encouraging indeed and the service provides educators with a real opportunity to have relevant curricular content that can be accessed through a number of different subject areas in a truly meaningful way.

A recent article in the Sport category focused upon Rangers’ fans’ trip to Manchester and how their behaviour was better than on a previous occasion that had led to trouble in the city centre. The article would surely be a popular one with young people and, because they are known for their reluctance in reading, it is of note that it would be of particular appeal to boys. There is even an interactive activity attached to this article which invites learners to test their knowledge of SPL club nicknames. What better way to engage reluctant learners in purposeful and relevant learning? In the Teachers’ Blog, lesson suggestions were offered in a number of CfE subject areas (Social studies, Health +Wellbeing, English+Literacy) and links were provided to video content and discussion stimuli that would encourage even the most reluctant learner to engage with such relevant and meaningful subject matter.

This is, of course, just one example. There is already a good stock of interesting content on the site, with stories ranging in topic from the floods in Pakistan, for a World focus, to how young people made an impression on the Scottish Parliament, for a story that is closer to home. Each school day sees another story added to the archive, so we are building a wealth of content that Glow users can benefit from.

Whatever the story’s subject-matter, it is always the case that it will be written in a manner that is appealing and relevant to our learners. Add to that the interactive activities and lesson suggestions in the teachers’ blog, and you might just find that The Daily What News is just what you have been looking for!

September 15th, 2010

Glow Live – Bringing the Scottish Learning Festival straight to your desktop!

Gail Cairns

Comments: 2 Comments » Tags: Tags: Events, Glow Meet, Literacy, National glow groups, Numeracy, SLF
 : Categories Development, Events, Glow, Glow Groups, Glow Meet

Glow Live at SLF – Literacy Across Learning Primary
Wednesday 22nd September, 9.15-10.30am

Join us for the Literacy across Learning Primary seminar as it’s streamed live via Glow Meet! Ideal for all practitioners, this Glow meet will feature an introduction by one of the presenters, talking about the areas that will be covered in this seminar. Join our panel of experts before the seminar as they discuss various topics closely linked to Literacy across Learning.

Sign up for this Glow LIVE meet on Wednesday 22nd September at 9.15am and take advantage of the opportunity to ask questions throughout the seminar, which will be answered by the panel or the speakers at the end of the presentation.

With feedback from members of the live audience at the end of the seminar, this action-packed Glow meet is a must-see event.

For more information or to sign up for this seminar click here.

OR

Sign up for the Glow LIVE Meet here.

Glow Live at SLF – Enhancing Experiences for Pupils on the Autism Spectrum in Mainstream Education: The Autism Toolbox: An Autism Resource for Scottish Schools
Wednesday 22nd September, 3.30–4.45pm

Join us for this Glow LIVE Meet as Professor Aline-Wendy Dunlop’s seminar on Enhancing Experiences for Pupils on the Autism Spectrum in Mainstream Education: The Autism Toolbox: An Autism Resource for Scottish Schools – is streamed live via Glow Meet.

An event suitable for all practitioners this Glow meet will feature a discussion by a panel of experts on three areas closely linked to Autism before the seminar begins. This Glow LIVE meet on Wednesday 22nd September between 3.30–4.45pm welcomes questions throughout the seminar, which will be answered by the expert panel or the speakers at the end of the presentation.

Feedback from members of the live audience can also be seen at the end of this event!

For more information or to sign up for this seminar click here.

OR

Sign up for the Glow LIVE Meet here

Glow Live at SLF – The National Assessment Resource – Nuts and Bolts
Thursday 23rd September, 9.15-10.30am

Ideal for all practitioners this Glow meet will include an expert panel discussion on the various topics surrounding the National Assessment Resource – Nuts and Bolts seminar. Watch the seminar as it is streamed live via Glow meet on Thursday 23rd September between 9.15-10.30am.

Post your questions throughout the seminar and see the responses by our expert panel or seminar speakers at the end of the presentation. Hear from live members of the audience, as they give feedback on the National Assessment Resource seminar.

For more information or to sign up for this seminar click here.

OR
Sign up for the Glow LIVE Meet here.

Glow Live at SLF – Numeracy across Learning into Action in Secondary schools
Thursday 23rd September, 1.45–3.00pm

Join four teaching practitioners from Earlston HS via Glow Meet as their seminar on Numeracy across Learning into Action in Secondary schools is streamed live from the Scottish Learning Festival.

Watch the practitioners from Earlston showcasing their unique approach to promoting Numeracy amongst the staff in their school. This Glow meet is an ideal event for all practitioners and will include contributions from a specially selected expert panel.

Listen as our experts discuss three topics closely linked to Numeracy across Learning and ask your questions within the Glow meet. These will be answered by the speakers or the expert panel at the end of the presentation.

Watch members of the live audience as they give their feedback following the seminar. Join this Glow LIVE meet on Thursday 23rd September between 1.45–3pm.

For more information or to sign up for this seminar click here.

OR

Sign up to the Glow LIVE Meet here.

For more information on any of the Glow Live Meets visit the National SLF Extra Glow Group.

August 10th, 2010

Edinburgh International Book Festival – three live Glow Meet events!

Katie Barrowman

Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: author, authors, Edinburgh International book Festival, Glow Meet, Literacy, writers
 : Categories Events, Glow Meet, Literacy

This year there will be three live events from the festival broadcast over Glow.

On Monday 23rd of August at 10:30, your class is invited to join John Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. This event is suitable for classes in P6 – S2. Click here to find out more and sign up.

Join the Children’s Laureate, Anthony Browne, in a CPD event for teachers on Thursday August the 26th at 5pm. Click here for more details and to sign up.

And finally, on Friday the 27th of August at 12:00 – 13:00 come and join us for Philip Ardagh, as he takes you on a whirlwind tour of Grubtown. Suitable for P4 – P7. To find out more and sign up to take part, click here.

All the Glow Meets will take place in the Glow Meet page of the Book Festival Glow Group Just click ‘Join the Glow Meet’ to join in. We advise that you check a few days in advance whether you can access the Glow Meet from your location. Click here for a quick troubleshooting guide if you’re having trouble, or contact Katie in the Glow Team (k.barrowman@ltscotland.org.uk) who will help you get sorted.