Glow Scotland

October 31st, 2008

Aberdeen Mentors Sparkle

J Jelly

Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: collaborating, Glow, howto, mentors, searching
 : Categories Aberdeen City, Uncategorized

On 28/29 October, Martin Brown and I were working with a new wave of Glow Mentors in Aberdeen this week. Martin did the bulk of the sessions, mentoring me in my new role as Glow D.O., as well as mentoring the mentors! The new mentors are a great bunch and will make a real impact on Aberdeen’s uptake and use of Glow. They raised several points worth mentioning here for a wider audience to ponder…

Glow refinements –
Could a way be devised to search for Glow Groups by topic?
When we complete our profiles cn we also note down our interests. This should make it easier to connect users interested in the same subjects by searching Glow using the “area of interest” field. There are also areas of Glow where teachers can have a look to see who wants to get involved in collaboration. Mentors suggested the ability to search for existing Glow Groups by topic would be an additional refinement to the search facilities in Glow: that it would be very valuable. One for the developers!
Also could web-based companies be persuaded to have links which lead to embedding in Glow such as some do for MySpace and Facebook?

It’s not surprising this was suggested, since Glow’s existence is Scotland’s way of bringing learning into the digital world in which our learners live and feel at home. They are used to these links being generated by their favourite websites for their social network spaces – so why not for Glow too?

Working together –
What is the best way to share local authority projects nationally? If some good L.A. projects get off the ground, should url links be placed in the national Staffroom glow group with short descriptors? The idea would be that teachers who want to “see into” the glow group, would then click on the url and complete the request entry box with their details (email address very important as well as name, school etc) and what their interest is in the glow group.

The local ICT Support team have managed to get funding for cover for up to a week out of school to allow some mentors to develop Glow projects! When Glow is getting off the ground, this is such a great situation – being able to step back, reflect, develop, create and go back to school with a Glow Group to use with pupils both in the individual mentors’ own schools and across the city.

Some of the Glow Groups created over the two day training session would be very worthwhile to take further. From environmental sustainability to the opportunities in Curriculum for Excellence of studying the world of the black pudding , there was no lack of imagination or creativity in Aberdeen..
Click on each thumbnail to see more detail.

Glow how to -
One piece of information that may be useful regarding the mechanics of Glow came up a couple of times when the Mentors were helping us clear down the training school site which we had used for the two days (How I remember the sad looks on the mentors faces as they deleted their Glow Groups!):
If a sub-group is created, it needs to be deleted before the parent group can go. Both groups, however, can be deleted from the parent group in the following way: (Deleting a Sub Glow Group)

October 30th, 2008

Shetland Shines with Glow

Katie Barrowman

Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: good practice, In Service, mentors, Shetland, training
 : Categories Events, Local authorities, Shetland Islands

Hot on the heels of the Orkney Learning Festival came the Shetland Islands Council two-day In Service event at Anderson High School in Lerwick. The event was well attended on both days, even with lying snow, high winds and ferry cancellations taking their toll. The Glow team ran two training events, one an introduction to Glow and the other a session for advanced users. Both were successful, and we were delighted to have the help of some of the Shetland Islands Glow Mentors, who assisted in the introductory session.

A real highlight of the sessions was seeing the work being done within the local authority, including collaboration between Nesting and Tingwall schools, who had arranged a joint trip to London earlier this year. They planned, discussed and documented the trip via a shared Glow Group, with impressive results.

Also impressive was the school Glow Group of Burravoe School, a fourteen-pupil primary. Each of the school’s projects has its own area on the group, as do each of the pupils. In addition, Glow’s being well used in the ICT department of Anderson High School, where they’re venturing into the world of Glow Learn.

All in all, Shetland seems to be embracing Glow, from small one-teacher establishments to large secondaries, with enthusiasm and imagination, and it’ll be great to see what the newly trained attendees who came to the In Service get up to now they’re back in school.

October 28th, 2008

How are you using Glow?

Lorna Arbuckle

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The Glow team are keen to find out more about how you are using Glow. Why not let us know the different ways you are using it to make a positive impact on the way you work? You could also send us some information providing some examples or suggestions on how you might use it to enhance learning and teaching in your school or local authority. Simply send an email to [email protected]

October 28th, 2008

Spread the Word with the Communications Bank.

Lorna Arbuckle

Comments: 2 Comments » Tags: Tags: Glow, Glowscotland, resources, website
 : Categories Events

At the end of September, the Glow communications bank was launched on the GlowScotland website to provide you with the tools to share with others how Glow is being used in your classroom, school, or local authority. You can access a range of resources from poster and presentation templates, to images and logos, and all the latest information on Glow for you to include in your materials. We have also provided a bank of ready-made resources you can start using straight away. These are all downloadable, free to use, and updated regularly. To find out more visit the communications resource bank (link to comms resource bank; http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/glowscotland/preparing/communications/index.asp

October 28th, 2008

Success as Glow wins Learning Impact Award.

Lorna Arbuckle

Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: awards, Glow, Learning Impact, RM
 : Categories Uncategorized

September started well for Glow with a win! RM has been involved in the IMS Global Learning Consortium for some time and decided to make a submission on behalf of Glow for the Learning Impact Awards for 2009, designed to recognize the most impactful use of technology worldwide in support of learning.RM made a joint submission with Learning and Teaching Scotland for the learning impact of Glow as it begins to roll out across the Scottish education system. The submission highlighted specific benefits Glow can achieve in education and showcased examples of good practice. In addition, the judges asked for a presentation at the conference and had specific questions based on the submission. The judges were particularly interested in user numbers, the architecture of the solution and the research project. Glow has achieved the distinction of becoming the UK regional finalist and as such goes forward to the international final to compete against four other regional finalists.

October 28th, 2008

Join in with the Glow Games

Lorna Arbuckle

Comments: 1 Comment Tags:  : Categories Events

This year’s Scottish Learning Festival launched the interactive ‘Glow Games’. Players can choose from a selection of fun educational based games to memorise, react, observe, decide and analyse. The games are available to play now and you can find them on GlowScotland’s homepage (link - www.glowscotland.org.uk) and also on Glow (Link - https://portal.glowscotland.org.uk/establishments/nationalsite/Glow%20Games/default.aspx) (by playing through Glow you’ll earn more points!) Players have the opportunity to get their name on the high score table and challenge others by sharing the link. You can embed the game in your blog, social networking sites, or indeed bookmark it so you can access easily. The games can be played by those aged three and upwards with levels suitable for each age group. Use the games as part of a classroom challenge, or simply pass the game on to anyone who will enjoy taking part in The Glow Games. Good luck!

October 28th, 2008

Spotlight on the Glowing Lounge

Lorna Arbuckle

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This year’s Scottish Learning Festival saw a different and novel approach to learning more about Glow in relaxed and informal surroundings – the Glowing Lounge. The lounge provided an opportunity for practitioners to come along and share their thoughts and ideas about how they have used Glow over a cup of tea or coffee. In addition, the Glowing Lounge played host to 18 different presentations by Glow practitioners and mentors throughout Scotland, each one demonstrating their Glow Groups and the various routes that they took to developing them for use with their students. The presentations were diverse and demonstrated the wealth of what is going on in classrooms and authorities. There was also a ‘Would like to Meet’ board where teachers could post their requests. Find out more about the Glowing Lounge and the presenters:https://portal.glowscotland.org.uk/establishments/nationalsite/SLF%20Extra/Break/Glowing%20Lounge/default.aspx

October 28th, 2008

The Biggest Ever Scottish Learning Festival!

Lorna Arbuckle

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With more seminars, more exhibitors, more features and more delegates than ever before, the 2008 festival was our most successful yet. The Scottish Learning Festival is now firmly established as the pivotal event on the Scottish education calendar and was attended over the two days by nearly 6000 educationalists from Scotland, the rest of the UK and overseas.Find out more about the Scottish Learning Festival at ‘The Delegate’ (link; www.LTScotland.org.uk/slf/media/emailbulletin/october2008.asp) a newsletter for attendees of the Scottish Learning Festival

October 28th, 2008

Glow in the Western Isles - the best tool for the job.

Tina Stevens

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Uncategorized, Western Isles

Last week I found myself back in the beautiful (and very stormy!) Western Isles on a support visit for Glow. Over the course of the two days I spoke to many teachers and was able to see first-hand the difference that Glow is making in this remote community.
The best part of the visit for me was seeing that the tools making a real difference were not the ‘whizzy’ ones that we hear so much about, but the nuts-and-bolts ones which require minimal bandwith and little preparation to use.
One teacher in Benbecula used her time during my session at the school to upload all her resources into the shared documents store on the local authority site. Her remit requires her to support many teachers over a wide area and she was delighted that this simple tool made all of these resources available to everybody who needed them so quickly and easily.
Another teacher in South Uist told me about the pupil-teacher council Glow group which was running in her school. The most successful tool within it was the discussion board where the pupils had uploaded all of their requests and questions for the next meeting. At the same school they have decided to do a whole school cross-curricular topic based on ‘the Sea’ and in preparation for this their Glow mentor has set up a Glow group. She told me that although the topic doesn’t begin until term 3, already many of the staff are posting their plans into it to share with one another.
My visit really brought home to me the power Glow has to support education, and the best part about it was that none of the teachers using it had changed their plans to fit Glow in - for them, it was simply the best tool for the job.

October 24th, 2008

Glowing at the Orkney Learning Festival

Katie Barrowman

Comments: 1 Comment Tags: Tags: Learning Festival, Orkney
 : Categories Events, Local authorities, Orkney Islands

Thursday and Friday of this week brought the annual Orkney Learning Festival. This astounding feat of organisation saw every teacher in the islands attend for at least one, and in many case two, full day’s access to a wealth of CPD, including some absolutely top class seminars.

Held in Kirkwall Grammar school, the packed programme gave each teacher a wide choice of activity addressing every educational niche. These ranged from full day Learning Outdoors events, to ninety minute seminars and a walk around the small but select group of exhibitors in the exhibition hall, including but not limited to EIS learning representatives, SCRAN, Curriculum for Excellence and Glow.

The quality of presentations on offer would rival a national conference, and I’m glad to say Glow was well represented here too. Marie Dougan delivered a Glow Keynote Speech each day, updating attendees on the great work that’s happening with Glow around the country. Gerri Tait, Andrew Brown and I also held Glow based seminars, on topics including e-mentoring with Glow, Glow for Beginners, and Glow in the Primary and Secondary classrooms. Con Morris and Derek Robertson were able to give updates on and hands on access to the exciting developments in their areas (CPD and Games Based Learning respectively) both of which are represented on Glow.

Over both days, the dedication and enthusiasm of the Orkney staff was constantly evident, and the team enjoyed talking to a diverse set of visitors in the exhibition hall, including visitors from other authorities in Orkney on holiday - that’s dedication! There was a great deal of interest in Glow, and now that mentor training is complete, people are really looking forward to getting on and using Glow. The collaborative tools were a particular hit, because with many small schools across the islands the chance to work together more easily is welcomed. It will be great to keep up to date with what’s happening as the Orkney mentors get Glowing over the next few months, and the next time the Glow team visits these beautiful islands we’ll be getting into schools and seeing all the developments.