Glow Scotland

January 30th, 2009

St Martin’s Primary School

mbrown

Comments: 1 Comment Tags: Tags: community art, Glow Groups, nursery school
 : Categories East Lothian, Local authorities

I was warmly welcomed at St Martin’s RC Primary and Nursery School, in Tranent, today.

Dave Gilmour, the East Lothian Council Key Contact for Glow, and I were helping a small group of primary and nursery teachers get to grips with Glow. It was informal and informative. I was really impressed with their ‘have a go’ attitude and the way they very quickly came up with questions about Glow groups and how to use them for different teaching and learning purposes. It was clear to me that while quite a few of the group were trying Glow (hands on) for the first time, they would not be slow in trying it out with children in their classes.

I spoke with Christine Muir, a nursery teacher. I showed her some basic tools or web parts, how to create a Glow group and how to add members to the group. She promised to create a Glow group for her nursery classes. I assured her she cannot break Glow and look forward to seeing her ideas for using Glow for whole class teaching. I am sure she will develop some of the ideas we talked about: using the National Site and content for teaching literacy eg Bo Bear, using Glow meet offline with pupils to record speaking and acting etc and sharing digital images of pupil work from her Glow group.

It would also be great if nursery teachers in ELC could develop Glow groups for outdoor learning, eg Forest Schools projects, and share these links in the National site in the National Parks and Outdoor Learning National Glow Group. I know teachers in ELC have a wealth of experience in this area. If they record what they do outside in Glow groups, then pupils can bring their learning back indoors and enjoy sharing the experience even more.

It was great to visit St Martin’s RC Primary School and great to work with such positive teachers. The fantastic pictures above are by Frank Carty: seen on the walls surrounding the school.

January 22nd, 2009

Google Earth, CPD and Glow Meet

mbrown

Comments: 4 Comments » Tags: Tags: CPD, Glow Meet, Google Earth
 : Categories Curriculum for Excellence

This event was a great success. Many thanks to all who took part in the free Google earth training on Monday 19th January. Thanks to those who came to the Optima in Glasgow for what was a unique experiment. 16 Geography teachers and 1 Modern Studies teacher from schools in Glasgow, Ayrshire, Highlands, Inverclyde, Dundee, Lanarkshire and East Renfrew:

John Ogilvie High School, Hillhead High School, James Hamilton Academy, Knightswood Secondary, Inverness Royal Academy, Nairn Academy, St. Stephens High School, Harris Academy, St. Thomas Aquinas RC Secondary School, Ardrossan Academy, St. Maurices High School, Calderside Academy, Johnstone High School, Broughton High School, Barrhead High School, Cleveden Secondary School.

Thanks also to our remote participants from, Aberdeenshire, Dundee, Glasgow, Inverclyde and Angus. A special thanks to Vicky Rogers from Angus who stayed to complete the whole day’s training in Glow meet and uploaded her Google earth tour complete with photographs of Friokheim into the Social Studies National glow Group. While Mark Hagart, my colleague, was uploading screenshots of Google earth to the whiteboard in Glow meet I was sending messages to our virtual participants Vikky said: “this is a great example of nationally provided CPD” This is also a first for educators in Scotland. I hope Social Studies teachers will follow Vikky’s good example and share Google earth tours of their local area in Documents in the SSNGG. If you are not familiar with how to share Google earth files: download two guides to using Google earth from Documents in the Place and Environments tab. Also look out for a GE Glow Chat session soon.

Many thanks to our presenter, Jamie Buchanan-Dunlop who prepared well for the event and spoke clearly under more pressure than usual as he was being filmed by three different cameras, one of which was recording in Glow meet. You can find participant’s work on his website. The Glow team will be offering an edited version of this training for use by schools shortly. Many thanks to Stuart Oliphant and Mark Hagart from the Glow team for their technical support with Glow meet. There was a great deal of technology and expertise involved in this event but that does not mean that local authorities can not deliver good centrally organised CPD across their regions with Glow meet and with with less equipment. Stuart and Mark will take what they know about how to use the whiteboard for sharing information, how to improve video and audio in Glow meet and offer this to Local Authorites who intend to use this Glow tool for similar CPD events.

January 22nd, 2009

Pupils log on to Glow and work with leading scientists

Lorna Arbuckle

Comments: 3 Comments » Tags: Tags: , biology, Glow
 : Categories Curriculum for Excellence, East Lothian, Events

On Wednesday 21^st January, pupils across Scotland watched leading scientists perform a bird post-mortem beamed live into their classrooms from East Lothian through Glow.

Ecologists at the Scottish Seabird Centre in North Berwick carried out the post-mortem on the fulmar as part of their Save the North Sea project, which aims to raise awareness of the damage caused by 20,000 tons of litter dumped every year.

Dr Franeker is a senior scientist at the Institute for Marine Resources and Ecosystem studies in the Netherlands and he took pupils through the dissection and findings. Pupils and teachers who logged on were able to ask questions throughout the procedure.

Pupils studying Biology were able to see live on Glow how scientists are researching what is happening in the North Sea and how they are using the findings to protect sealife and cut the amount of marine litter. Pupils asked questions about the birds’ eating habits and enquired how many birds die of litter pollution each year. One school even asked Dr Franeker how old the bird was and if he is used to the smell when dissecting!

The event is just an example of how Glow is providing unique learning opportunities for pupils that could be difficult for schools to organise themselves. The seabird centre is doing fantastic work that provides a real opportunity for teachers to discuss science, biology, environmental change and citizenship in the context of real work that’s going on in Scotland.

This type of approach not only gets pupils enthusiastic about their learning but also helps them make connections across different subjects and instils a deeper knowledge and understanding.

Around 65 pupils from Cathkin High School joined in the Glow Meet. S4 pupil, Robin Meek, 15, said: “It was really interesting. I’ve never seen anything like it before so it was amazing to watch. It was much better being able to watch it live and ask questions directly to the scientist involved in the project as you remember it more and can understand how it all fits together. It wasn’t too gory.”

January 17th, 2009

Invitation to all biology teachers and classes - 21st Jan., 2pm

J Jelly

Comments: 2 Comments » Tags: Tags: biology, ecology, environment, fulmar, Glow Meet, plastic, seabird, SSC
 : Categories Curriculum for Excellence, East Lothian, Events, Local authorities, National Groups, South Lanarkshire, Uncategorized

If you have a Glow login you will be able to access the Science Glow Group in the National Site. On Wednesday 21st January, a very special Glow Meet session will be taking place there. It will be well worth dropping in, with your class, at 2pm – 3pm, especially if you are studying Higher Biology or are interested in environmental issues.

The Scottish Seabird Centre Education Officers, Emily Dodd and Anna Pugh have invited classes across Scotland to come into the Glow Meet session to see the dissection of a seabird, a fulmar. You may be thinking, how grisly! …until you realize this bird has died, not of old age, but because of our lack of care of our environment. Emily told me a similar post mortem was held last year at the SSC and several pieces of plastic were found in the poor bird’s stomach. Reading about this in a book is one thing, but seeing it in real time, via Glow Meet, where classes will be able to pose questions to the scientists performing the autopsy, is quite another! Some North Berwick HS pupils are going to be lucky enough to be in the SSC during the dissection, but schools all over Scotland will for the first time be able to drop into this via the videolink that Glow Meet offers.
It should not be difficult to access the Glow Meet (assuming your local authority and school have enabled this function in Glow – and you have a Glow login as a member of staff). If you are going to bring your class in to see the post mortem, I’d be grateful if you would let me know ([email protected]) but essentially, navigate to the national Science Glow Group, find the Glow Meet webpart on the discussions page and click on “Join the Glow Meet”. If you have a webcam, you can be visible to others, if you have a microphone, you will be able to voice questions, but even if you have neither of these things, you will still be able to see the post mortem and pose questions by typing them in. If you are coming in with a webcam in place, a school name placard would be a great help to others in identifying you.
Glow is enabling the sharing of events such as this. There is another great opportunity in the Social Studies national group on 19th Jan. to experience first class Google Earth training via Glow Meet.
Don’t be shy, make use of these opportunities. Log on to Glow and come into these Glow Meet sessions.
Hoping to see to see you on Wednesday! (The session will be recorded though, so if your timetable means you can’t come in live to the session on Wednesday, you can access the Glow Meet recording later)

PS Click here to find out more about using Glow Meet and all the other Glow functions.
You can read more about the post mortem by clicking the poster: fulmarposter.jpg

January 14th, 2009

Virtual Advisory Service now in Glow!

Jennifer McDougall

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Uncategorized

The Virtual Advisory Service aims to provide direct online support for teachers. Over the last two years, which have seen two pilot phases in its development, it has been growing a community of practising professionals to create a mutually supportive environment, aiming ultimately to provide a national service for educators of all stages to 18.

The cornerstone of the service is that online advice/support is provided by a team of high quality, experienced, credible advisers targeting customised support to reflect local needs and delivering the service within firm deadlines.

Overall, more than 350 teaching staff from 12 of Scotland’s local authorities were involved in the two pilot phases that ran from March 07 – June 08.

Each phase of the project was evaluated externally and the results have been extremely positive with users identifying the following key strengths:

• The ability to access the service anytime, anywhere (24 hour access)
• The ability to network with peers from all over Scotland
• Access to expert advice at the click of a button
• The simplicity of the site, navigation and process.

Overall, the evaluation of Phases 1 and 2 established that users view the Virtual Advisory Service as having the potential to appeal to and be used by all educational practitioners in Scotland.

As a result of such a positive response, we have now expanded the Virtual Advisory Service within Glow to be accessible to the entire teaching force across Scotland.

Access the Virtual Advisory Service within Glow –
https://portal.glowscotland.org.uk/establishments/nationalsite/Staffroom/Virtual%20Advisory%20Service/default.aspx

To find out more about the Virtual Advisory Service, email [email protected]

January 12th, 2009

Content and Contexts:in the National Glow Groups

mbrown

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Curriculum for Excellence, National Groups

Chris Anderson has shown, in his briliant book The Long Tail (2006) that context and not content is king in the 21st century. If this is true (and I am sure it is) what does this mean for Glow and sharing content in our National Glow Groups?

June Jelly, my colleague, and I visited the Met Office in Edinburgh, during the recent bout of windy weather . We went there on behalf of the Science and the Social Studies National Glow groups to meet up with Alan Motion, one of their Business Managers. Alan showed us the Met website and some of the free resources that are available in this great website. We saw how to access the most recently updated weather maps and a variety of other easily accessible and very useable data, for flooding, traffic and health. He also showed us a range of free resources such as a DVD, developed by meteorological experts, for school pupils, called Weatherbytes.

This type of specialised free content is becoming more common and there are more excellent sites such as Ordnance Survey, BBC and Google earth. As access to content becomes easier and choice becomes wider it is important that we make good choices. Sharing our ideas in the National Glow groups can help us make better decisions about the curriculum and content for teaching and learning. It is important that we share content but it is more important that we share context aswell.

Teacher reviews of websites and ideas about how content can be used for Curriculum for Excellence can be shared much more easily with Glow tools. Discussions can take place in National Glow Groups and teachers can upload materials there. Alan mentioned that he thought ‘The Weather’ would eventually only be taught by Scientists, not Geographers in schools. Meteorology, like hydrology is afterall a science, isn’t it? There are many Geographers who would disagree with the idea that the weather topic should be moved to the Science curriculum (same arguement for Tectonic Plates). I can see his point, you can put yours in the Social Studies National Glow Group discussions page.

The Met office web site offers great potential for teaching across subjects areas, with up to the minute information and relevent contexts, for example, flooding, health and insurance. Did you know that the Met office is paid to provide information to the oil industry, the armed forces and health trusts in Scotland? There are ample opportunities for imaginative teachers to use this site for problem solving activities based on local and national contexts, for example with global warming. Furthermore, teachers can enrich learning experiences by offering additional locational information from sites such as Google earth or Ordnance survey.

I recently had an idea for using Met Office weather maps in the classroom, which are, by the way, updated every two hours. Teachers and pupils could link up with other schools, in a Glow group, to photograph the weather or even plot the progression of a weather front across Scotland. Digital images of local weather and sky views, could be matched to Met Office national weather maps and Google earth screen shots, to illustrate how the weather changes, such as during the advance of a depression.

Ollie Brae has recently asked teachers to consider sharing local landscapes and digital images internationally in Google maps, perhaps we can think global and act local using Glow groups? He was commenting on Elrik solheim’s work and a ‘film’ called One Year in 40 seconds, which is a brilliant example of showing something that we all take for granted, in a new way: the changing scenery of the seasons in a given location.

Read more about the Met Office website and share your websites, website reviews and teaching contexts, in the Social Studies National Glow Group, the Science National Glow Group or other National Glow Groups.

January 12th, 2009

Glow at SLF 09 - Call for participation

Lorna Arbuckle

Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: Glow, SLF
 : Categories Events

The Scottish Learning Festival is the most prestigious educational event in Scotland and this year we are celebrating the 10th anniversary. Over the years the Scottish Learning Festival has gone from an event with four keynotes, 40 sessions and a small exhibition, which attracted 1200 delegates, to an event attended by over 7000 delegates, with a conference programme of over 170 sessions and an exhibition of 200 suppliers.The conference secretariat is now open for abstracts for proposed participation in SLF 2009. This is your opportunity to present at the main educational event in Scotland.The Call for Participation documents are available from the SLF website and give full details of the theme for the 2009 conference, the submission process and deadlines.Abstracts are to be submitted by Friday 30 January 2009.To ensure that we deliver a first-class conference programme, please circulate this information to any of your contacts who you feel would be interested in taking part.For more information and copies of the papers go to; www.LTScotland.org.uk/slf/aboutslf/participation.asp.

January 12th, 2009

Share your Glow stories here!

Lorna Arbuckle

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Uncategorized

Glow is very quickly embedding itself into the daily life of many classroom practitioners and we would like to highlight this to other users throughout Scotland. We are looking to you as a Glow user to help us to gather information to produce a ‘Glow Story’.

‘Glow Stories’ will allow you and other practitioners to share some brief details about how you are using Glow and to record some anecdotal evidence of the impact you feel it has had on your teaching and with their pupils. Please send your recommendations along with contact details to [email protected] and you could be invited to attend an event in March to share your journey so far in more detail with others.

Even if you’re just starting to use Glow, we’re very interested to hear how. The information that you provide may be followed up by a member of the Glow team to highlight innovative uses of Glow throughout Scotland. We recognize too, that in some instances you may have not yet experimented with using Glow but would like to use Glow to teach a particular topic. If that’s the case please alert us to this as we hope to use this information to put those working in similar areas in contact with one another. We look forward to hearing how you’ve been using Glow!

• Name
• School
• Stage
• Authority
• Brief outline of how you have used Glow with your class or other pupils
• Which aspect of your work around Curriculum for Excellence best suits this work?
• I would like to use Glow/ am planning to use Glow to teach…
• I have been unable to use Glow because…

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!

January 6th, 2009

Celebrate Scotland’s year of homecoming in your classroom

Lorna Arbuckle

Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: , Glow, Homecoming
 : Categories Events

Glow is providing Primary School teachers with the chance to partake in a ‘Homecoming’ topic with schools across the whole of Scotland. In January there will be an on-line classroom where teachers from P4-7 can contribute to, and get ideas from, that will have great potential for cross-curricular teaching and learning.

As a teacher, you will get the best of the ideas by planning with teachers from across Scotland – just submit ideas and they will be collated and shown to everyone else. Each week there will be on line challenges that you can take part in, and you can share the work your class produce on Glow as well. See what other school across Scotland are doing, and encourage your pupils to peer assess other people’s work as well.

There will also be additional opportunities for you to use technology to enhance the children’s learning, and the on-line classroom will show you how to do this through tutorials and advice. For example – have you ever thought about using animation to inspire the children? The on-line classroom will show you where you can get software (even for free!), provide planning resources, and also show you how to use it.

If you want to be a part of this innovative way of teaching, email Sat Bance on [email protected] to express your interest. In the meantime, share your thoughts and ideas on the discussion forum.