Glow Scotland

May 31st, 2008

Castlefield Primary’s African adventure

Anne Ward

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories South Lanarkshire

Asking an 11-year-old pupil in East Kilbride what life is like for their peers in Malawi is a question that might seem comparable to asking what life is like on the moon. Even in our globalised society, understanding cultures other than our own is a tricky task for most children.

For Caroline Gibson, Glow Mentor and P7 teacher at Castlefield Primary School in East Kilbride, Glow has provided a powerful tool for engaging pupils in global citizenship.

From starting off feeling ‘a little anxious’ about her ability to harness Glow’s full potential for learning and teaching, Caroline has now experienced first-hand the kind of rich learning experience Glow can offer.

Caroline’s first project as a Glow Mentor was to establish an African rich-task Glow Group, on which she uploaded information documents, web links to sites on Malawi, videos on global warming and an African photo gallery to encourage discussion.

‘The great thing about Glow is that it offers teachers more autonomy and choice,’ said Caroline. ‘You can use topics in ways you might never have considered before. For my pupils, it has provided a wider learning experience and enhanced their understanding of global citizenship.’

Read more about Castlefield Primary’s African adventure and Glow in South Lanarkshire.

May 25th, 2008

Cathkin High School makes learning ‘real’ through Glow

Anne Ward

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Jaye Richards, a biology and psychology teacher at Cathkin High School in Cambuslang, has found her Glow ‘road test’ enormously successful in reinforcing learning objectives.

Keen to discover how Glow could enhance learning and teaching in her classroom, Glow Mentor Jaye dedicated one third of teaching time to a Glow project examining the effects of water pollution. Armed with the theory of how depleted oxygen levels affect the ecosystem, pupils applied their knowledge to the Yangtze River in Asia, the River Don in Sheffield and the Gulf of Mexico.

Jaye established a Glow Group containing a range of media for pupils to study and compare, including videos, podcasts and newspaper articles. Pupils used the material to study each river, explaining their findings and posting their work on the discussion board.

‘The Glow project took the topic and made it ‘real’ to my students,’ said Jaye. ‘Young people need to relate to their learning or they disengage, and Glow allows us to adapt our approach to education. We can’t sleepwalk our way into the classrooms of the 21st century.’

Read more about Cathkin High School makes learning ‘real’ through Glow and Glow in South Lanarkshire.

May 22nd, 2008

A nurturing Glow at Bernera Primary

Anne Ward

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Western Isles

When Western Isles Glow Mentor Kirsteen Maclean told her pupils at Bernera Primary School she would be attending last month’s Glow conference in Stirling, she encouraged them to post their thoughts and ideas on the Glow discussion board. Checking the forum, Kirsteen was pleased to see that pupils had not only posted summaries of their Glow work to date, but that they had also commented on each other’s work.

‘One little boy had gone from post to post making comments like ‘I like what you’ve done here’ or ‘I like the way you’ve described this,’ laughed Kirsteen. ‘I have children who are really encouraging of one another and the older ones really nurture the younger ones. To actually see that in action is so encouraging.’

Kirsteen first introduced her pupils to Glow through a Judaism Glow Group where she uploaded all of her lessons, including worksheets, photos and videos. She then taught pupils the key skills they would need, such as how to resize photos, hold a discussion and upload their work.

‘So far, our experience with Glow has been very positive,’ Kirsteen said. ‘It all boils down to making Glow activities relevant and meaningful for both staff and pupils.’

Read more about a nurturing Glow at Bernera Primary and Glow in the Western Isles.

May 9th, 2008

Ops Training in Aberdeen City

rpitman

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The importance of roles rather than a series of tasks - this was the main finding for participants on an operational training session run by Aberdeen City Council to investigate two key management roles within Glow.

A group of local authority staff, a management information systems representative and six school mentors were looking at accounts and service management (ASM) and site collection administrator (SCA) roles prior to specific mentor training.

ASM involves provisioning and management of user accounts and setting up policy and service choices. Delegates experienced this through hands-on sessions on management of access to the services of Glow Mail, Secure File Transfer, Video Streaming, Web Hosting and Glow Learn.

A similar interactive session outlined what was involved with SCA, including setting up the staff, pupil and establishment sites, tackling membership permissions and adding information to these sites. There was further experimentation creating top-level Glow Groups, adding membership and enhancing the Glow Group using available web parts. In Aberdeen City these roles will initially be centrally supported and then devolved to school level as appropriate.

May 7th, 2008

Glow in Uist

rpitman

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Western Isles

Following Glow Mentor training in Harris in January, two teachers have been working together to bring pupils from Paible(a 5-14 school on North Uist) together with pupils from Sgoil Lionacleit (a community secondary school on Benbecula) using Glow Meet.

Mary Ann MacDonald, a P6/7 teacher at Paible, and Liz MacMillan, a French teacher at Lionacleit, arranged for former pupils of Paible, now at Sgoil Lionacleit, to read eco poems written in French during the school’s climate change week.

‘Having successfully managed this link-up, we decided to take Glow a step further and arranged for Liz to teach our primary 6/7 class a French lesson on pets,’ says Mary Ann.

Liz talked to, and took oral responses from, Paible pupils, as well as interacting with them through the whiteboard.

‘There was great excitement when they would see a big tick appear against their response,’ adds Mary Ann. ‘This was an ideal opportunity to set up links between schools and make the transition from primary to secondary less daunting for our pupils.’

The other components of Glow have also been used by Mary Ann and Liz, for example to share documents, to start and contribute to discussions and to post news items.