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.

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

Just a reminder that the Glow Meet with Alan Bissett takes place next week.

It’s on Thursday 10th December at 2pm and will be in the Glowing Thursdays meeting room.

A new page has been created in the Literacy and English National Group to register your interest and to post any questions you may have for Alan.

On the page there are also details on how to test the Glow Meet before next Thursday.

It’s bound to be a very lively event so get involved on Glow using the link below!

Alan Bissett Glow Page

Guest Post from Laura Tansley at Learning and Teaching Scotland

Schools across Scotland tuned in on Monday to hear Michelle Paver talk of her experiences and adventures as she researched her series of Stone Age adventure novels, ‘The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness’. She spoke of happening across bears in California and singing ‘Danny Boy’ to distract them, getting close enough to Wolves in Finland to lick muzzles, skinning rabbits and eating Reindeer, all in a quest to discover what life was like for a hunter-gatherer. Michelle read from ‘Ghost Hunter’, the latest instalment of the ‘Ancient Darkness’ series which was tantalising for those who have yet to discover her writing. Through the Glow Meet, pupils were then encouraged to ask Michelle questions – we had so many unfortunately we couldn’t ask them all but we hope to get them all answered by Michelle at a later date. For the schools that missed it, the recording of the talk will be available soon at the Glow Group for the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

Once again this year, young people from around Scotland have been invited to vote for their favourite shortlisted title in the Royal Mail Scottish Children’s Book Awards. Glow has teamed up with the Scottish Book Trust to bring you a national Glow Group where you can discuss your thoughts on the books with other young judges in schools across Scotland.

Teachers and librarians can click this link to request access to the Glow Group. Once you’re in, you can contact the Glow team via the group, and they will add your class/reading group as members too.

This is an exciting opportunity for readers to have their opinions heard. The shortlisted books come in three age categories – 0-7, 8-11 and 12-16 – so there’s something for readers of all ages to get their teeth into. Schools will need to register with the Scottish Book Trust in the first instance – click here for more details - and voting closes on the 13th of November, so there’s still plenty of time to get involved.

This is just a quick reminder that Dr Mel Gibson will be speaking from the Edinburgh International Book Festival this Thursday from 17:00, and you can join her via Glow Meet – click on this link to go to the group.

Dr Gibson recently wrote the Learning and Teaching Scotland resource Graphic Novels in the Classroom, and those who join the meet can expect an inspiring hour, finding out what comics and graphic novels can do for young people.

If you’ve never use Glow Meet but are interested in getting involved, why not have a trial run beforehand? There will be a member of the Glow Team in the meeting room at the following times:

Tuesday 18th August:
10:00 – 11:00
13:00 – 14:00

Wednesday 19th August:
15:00 – 17:00

Drop in during any of those times to make sure you have access to Glow Meet. This helpsheet contains a few tips for getting started, and you’ll find a contact email within the group if you’re having difficulty accessing the Glow Meet.

We hope to see lots of you on Thursday for what will be a really interesting opportunity.

For all those interested in using Graphic Novels with their classes, there’s the chance to join an exciting CPD event via Glow Meet!

Dedicated academic Dr Mel Gibson recently wrote the Learning and Teaching Scotland resource Graphic Novels in the Classroom. Join this enthusiastic author for an inspiring hour of what comics and graphic novels can do for young people.

She is appearing at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on Thursday the 20th of August at 17:00, with her talk entitled Visual Literacy, Learning & Graphic Novels. If you can’t make it along to the festival, you can hear Dr.Gibson’s talk live on Glow Meet, and there will be the chance to ask questions.

Go to the Edinburgh International Book Festival’s Glow Group for all the details on how to join in, and if you want to whet your appetite, check out the brilliant graphic novel resource, created by Dr. Gibson for LTS.

Thirty English Teachers from across Scotland brought their skills and knowledge of Glow to Stirling Management Centre to help build a Glow community over the course of two days.

The purpose of the event was to build various subject specific Glow Groups that can be used by English practitioners throughout Scotland providing them with an opportunity to work with others, make lasting connections and share knowledge and ideas which are transferable across schools and authorities throw Glow.

The practitioners, all at different stages with Glow, were just as enthusiastic as each other when they worked in teams to create Glow Groups. The groups included; Scots language, war poetry, personal study, Macbeth, The boy in the striped pyjamas and higher critical essays. Practitioners were given a blank canvas to work from in Glow with ready-made basic Glow Groups to be developed.

True to form, each group communicated well, taking a strategic approach to the planning process with much discussion of what each page should look like and contain. Groups were constantly thinking of the end user when building the groups, taking careful consideration of how the pupils would view the site and how easy they follow the activities in the Group.

The groups created are available for all to see in the Building Glow Communities tab of the Literacy and English Glow Group. If you find any of these groups useful and would like to contribute, you can simply request access through the e-mail address provided in each Group and we would encourage you to do so.

Judith Weston from Earlston High in the Scottish Borders said: “It’s been a fantastic opportunity to take two days out to build these groups.

“I’ll be going back to the classroom with a Glow Group packed with resources for English teachers and creative work for children.”

Michael Stephenson from Inveralmond Community High, West Lothian said: “we have built our group through the eyes of the children so they can follow the instructions, navigate easily and upload work tasks for teachers to edit.”

If you are interested in taking part in future events. Simply CLICK HERE to find out more.  

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.

World-famous author Anthony Horowitz will be taking part in an online event on Friday the 15th of May. In this event, arranged and hosted by the Scottish Book Trust, He will be talking about his work and answering questions. The talk will be taking place on the Scottish Book Trust’s site at 10.30, and the chat in the dedicated Glow Group at 12:00. You’ll need to request access to the group when you first visit.

For information on how to get involved, and what you need to do to prepare, go to the page for the event on the Scottish Book Trust’s site.

PS – If any schools or classes would like watch Anthony’s talk through Glow Meet instead of the live web-stream, they should go to the Glow Group for the event and follow the instructions for registering interest.

(Photo Credit: Des Willie)