Glow Scotland

September 4th, 2009

Glow Meet with the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning

Katie Barrowman

Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: Events, Fiona Hyslop, Glow, Glow Groups, Glow Meet, National glow groups, National Groups
 : Categories Curriculum for Excellence, Events, Glow Meet, National Groups, West Dunbartonshire

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

August 24th, 2009

Royal Mail Children’s Book Awards – calling all young judges!

Katie Barrowman

Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: Glow, Glow Groups, Literacy, National glow groups, National Groups, Royal Mail Book Awards, Scottish Book Trust
 : Categories Events, Glow Groups, Literacy

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.

March 11th, 2009

Scots Phrasebook on Glow

Katie Barrowman

Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: Homecoming, National Groups, Scots
 : Categories Glow Groups

If you’re looking for something quick and fun for your class to do on Glow, why not stop by the Scots Phrasebook Glow Group, within the national Homecoming Group. You can upload some favourite Scottish words, or introduce the rest of the country to phrases used in your area.

Simply add your word to the list under one of the headings and tell us what it means, and where it’s from (if you know).

Each tab has its own picture gallery where you can submit pictures to bring your words to life, or why not have your class make posters illustrating their favourite Scottish words, take pictures of them and share them here? In this way, they can display their work to other classes around the country! You can also upload pupil work based around Scottish words into the document store, be it videos, documents, podcasts or anything else.

Have a look today and see what the weans, peedie bairns and wee yins can come up with!

January 6th, 2009

National Groups in the Spotlight – Literacy and English

Katie Barrowman

Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: Curriculum for Excellence, Literacy, Literacy and English, National Groups
 : Categories National Groups

Good news for the New Year – all teachers are now contributing members of the National Literacy and English Group. The National Groups are there for all Glow users and are places to find news, resources, links, and most importantly, people to work with and talk to. The Group will only be a success, though, if people get in there and use it, so it’s time to dive right in and get started!

Literacy is everyone’s business, and literacy development is part of every curricular area. The National Group is there to help all teachers and learners and it will change and grow to meet the needs of the education commumity, so get involved in its future by taking part in the discussions and sharing what you’re doing.

The group currently provides news related to literacy events and projects across the country, meeting and chat rooms for collaboration, discussion boards to share ideas and ask questions, and links to National Literacy Documents and insightful research from across the globe – and that’s just to start with.

Do you have a literacy project going on Glow? Why not put a link to it in the Literacy Glow Groups tab and let people see what you’re doing? The resources tab is another useful port of call, with links to lots of excellent sites for pupils and teachers.

Coming soon to the site are national events, including the chance to virtually attend the National Literacy Conference in March, as well as competitions and activities for pupils.

The National Literacy and English group is there for every teacher and learner, and we will make it everything you need it to be, so let us know what you want from it.

P.S. – Calling all English teachers… The English Teachers Glow Group is now open inside the staffroom. This fantastic and extensive group has a wealth of ideas about how to use Glow with your English classes, and provides a place to share resources with your colleagues across Scotland for all stages of secondary English. We highly recommend a visit!

November 4th, 2008

National Glow Groups – Something for Everyone

Katie Barrowman

Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: , CfE, Curriculum for Excellence, Glow, Glow Groups, Learning and Teaching Scotland, LTS, National glow groups, National Groups
 : Categories Curriculum for Excellence, Events

This week the Glow team met with our colleagues in the Curriculum for Excellence curricular teams to talk about the National Glow Groups. As you’ll know, there is a national level Glow Group for each curricular area, and the Glow and CfE teams, with help from the content managers and communications officers here at LTS, had some great discussions about where we can go with these powerful tools.

Everyone’s keen to make the National Glow Groups inviting and useful for anyone joining them, and the ideas were free-flowing all afternoon, so you can expect to see some exciting developments in the near future. In particular, there are plans for innovative use of Glow Meet, ranging from inviting in outside experts, to having regular informal drop in sessions with people from the CfE and Glow teams. We also looked at the possibility of interdisciplinary projects, and at using the Groups as a place to share real examples of the work being done with the Curriculum for Excellence Draft Experiences and Outcomes in classrooms around Scotland.

Remember, though, the National Groups are for everybody, and it’s important that you have a say too. If there’s anything you’d like to see on a group, or if you’ve done something you’d like to share with the whole country via Glow, get in touch with us – each group will have a place for you to discuss and share ideas, and you can comment here on the Glow blog.

So we’ve got big ideas for the National Glow Groups, and we want to hear yours too!