August 28th, 2009

New Staffroom Group - Business Education

Katie Barrowman

Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: Accounting, Administration, Business Education, Business Management, Economics, Glow, Glow Groups, ICT
 : Categories Glow Groups, Technologies

Guest post from Alan Hamilton, a Business Education Teacher at Stirling High School, and the administrator of the Business Education Glow Group for Teachers.

A National Glow Group for teachers of Business Education is now taking membership. This group will be a place for teachers to share ideas and resources as we begin to drive forward Curriculum for Excellence.

Business Education teachers can access the group via this handy short link - http://tinyurl.com/BusEdGlow - you will need to request access when you first go, but should be added in quickly.

Glow Groups have been created for all Business Education subjects: S1/S2 ICT, Accounting, Administration, Business Management and Economics. Teachers will be able to upload content and request materials from each other. It is hoped this will carry forward the work of the now defunct BEN forums.

Get involved today to meet your colleagues from across the country.

August 25th, 2009

Transition at Northfield Academy Aberdeen

mbrown

Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: transition
 : Categories Aberdeen City, Curriculum for Excellence, Glow Groups, Glow Meet

It was first week back at school for Northfield Academy and its associated Primary schools in Aberdeen last week. First year pupils started at the big school by taking part in four days of activities based on critical skills.

Eight Primary schools were involved in this project:

Holy Family RC School, Westpark School, Bramble Brae School, Heatheryburn School, Middlefield School, Muirfield School, Quarryhill School, Smithfield School.

It was my pleasure to help the school in the final stage of this transition project. Lorna Murray and I teamed up with the Aberdeen City Council Glow team to support a Glow meet with seven local primary schools. This Glow meet took place in their own Local Authority Transition Glow group .

Lorna Murray, Richard Elliot and I worked closely with the school transition team and the technicians at Northfield to support pupil presentations in the school hall. Four groups of pupils prepared powerpoint presentations describing their transition experience and then shared these live in a Glow meet room: both with parents and teachers and their respective primary schools, who watched from their classrooms across the city. Pupils from seven primary schools were able to ask S1 pupils they recognised, a wide variety of questions about moving up to Northfield Academy from Primary seven:

What was your first day like?

Is the work harder in the big school?

Did you get lost on your first day?

Was it a scary experience ?

It was wonderful to see parents and pupils sharing this experience in the school hall. S1 pupils at Northfield Academy described their their first week at the big school in front of a large real, and larger virtual audience.

If you would like to know more about this transition project and how Glow can be used to connect up primary schools and secondary schools, contact Richard Elliot at the ACC Glow team or Andrea Strachan at Northfield Academy. Many thanks to Sue Muncer, Head Teacher at Northfield, for welcoming us into her school. It was a useful insight for us into transition and great fun working with her team.

relliott@aberdeencity.gov.uk

astrachan@northfield.aberdeen.sch.uk

August 24th, 2009

Building Glow Communities Expressive Arts Event

Lesley Dickson

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Curriculum for Excellence, Events, Expressive Arts

There are a number of places left for this event to be held at Stirling Management Centre of 10th and 11th September.

The event is a great chance for teachers of Expressive Arts to work together to create Glow groups and share resources which can be used for ongoing collaboration as examples of how Glow can enhance practice. This will be a unique opportunity to work alongside colleagues from across the country and share ideas, experiences and resources. The groups created will be shared nationally and follow-up support visits may be arranged by the Glow team.

The groups produced by the previous ‘P4-P7′ and ‘English Teachers’ events can be seen in the national Building Glow Communities and in the Literacy and English group.

You can sign up for the event by clicking here. Please ignore the closing dates on this page

Please note that the travel expenses and accomodation costs of delegates will be paid however class cover will not.

August 24th, 2009

Glow Arts on Tour

Julia Fenby

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Co-Create, Curriculum for Excellence, Events, Expressive Arts, Glow Groups, National Groups

During the summer months, the Glow Team has been on tour demonstrating Glow to arts organisations and members of the National Arts and Education Network. Events in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness and Dundee gave participants across the country the opportunity to see how Glow is being used as a platform for online collaboration and sharing, making new and exciting learning experiences and resources more widely accessible to learners and teachers across Scotland.

“Glow is such an amazing resource and it was great to see it first hand” Sonja Lowe, Playwrights’ Studio, Scotland

Engaged audiences, excited by the possibilities of Glow, have wanted to find out as much as possible about the practicalities of getting started and how to use Glow tools and set up Glow Groups. Lively discussion centred around subjects such as quality assurance, responsible use, good practice and access for all users. The events have provided a great opportunity for Scotland’s creative/learning professionals to come together, with conversation and ideas flowing about the creative ways in which Glow could be used to create amazing learning opportunities through the arts.

“Thanks for the day, it was really informative – and very exciting in a mind blowing way” Simon Sharkey, Associate Director – Learn, National Theatre of Scotland

The Glow Arts Project, Co-Create, is inviting Scottish Arts Council funded arts organisations to submit proposals for projects which will explore innovative ways of using Glow and demonstrate the key role the arts play in supporting Curriculum for Excellence. Proposals will be developed in partnership with Local Authorities, teachers and learners and a number of demonstration projects will be selected later in the year. Visit ‘The Arts Get Glowing’ Showcase at the Scottish Learning Festival on 23 September to hear more.

To follow news on the Glow Arts Project Co-Create:

Visit the project page on Scottish Arts Council website: http://www.scottisharts.org.uk/1/artsinscotland/education/features/glow.aspx

Follow #Co-Create on Twitter

The Glow Arts Project Co-Create is funded through a partnership between Learning and Teaching Scotland and the Scottish Arts Council National Lottery Fund

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.

August 21st, 2009

How do you get ‘Glowing’? Peer coaching, of course!

Katie Barrowman

Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: coaching, innovativecpd, WDC
 : Categories Events, West Dunbartonshire

This is a guest post from Rhona Mackenzie of West Dunbartonshire Council - Cross Posted from the National CPD Team Blog

West Dunbartonshire has had an involvement in the Microsoft Innovative Teacher initiative since 2006.

Initially this project was concerned with fostering a community of practice which involved all our Glow mentors but a year ago the focus was moved, by Microsoft, to peer coaching. This involved a week long facilitators’ course near London which I attended in November 2008. As the week progressed, it became obvious that this was a methodology which would fit well with the Glow rollout in our authority.

The rollout of Glow within West Dunbarton had stalled for over a year due to technical problems with our firewalls. While we had made a gentle start in our rollout in the summer term of 2009, we were looking for a way to jump start the process at the start of the new academic session. The peer coaching strategy seemed to fit the bill and we sent out an invitation to all our education staff to take part. It was decided that the only viable way of running the course was to offer two days during term time with paid cover: one in the summer term of 2008/9 and one in the autumn term of 2009/10. The rest of the course would take place over four days during the summer holidays. Two identical four day courses were held, one during the second week of the holidays and the other during the second last week of the holidays. All the staff met for the initial day at the end of June and will come together again in the autumn term. The first course in July had 12 staff attending whilst the August course had 8. Both courses had a mix of Glow mentors and enthusiastic practitioners.

Because the main part of the course took place during the summer holidays, there was a very relaxed atmosphere. No one was worried about what was happening in their classroom while they were attending the course and the fact that everyone felt they were in their “own time” added to the lack of pressure. Each day started with an icebreaker activity which helped set the stress-free atmosphere for the rest of the day.

All staff were asked to bring an idea for a lesson which they could use in the new school session. The plan for this lesson became the basis for the peer coaching protocols and also for the creation of a Glow group designed to enhance the lesson. The pattern for each day consisted of an icebreaker activity, a Glow activity, such as resizing images for Glow, Glow Chat, Glow Meet, Glow Learn (taster session only) and a number of peer coaching protocols and other strategies. As well as the new experiences and outcomes from the Curriculum for Excellence we also looked at other initiatives such as “Beyond Engagement” from Becta and spent some time in discussion over these. This gave staff a chance to explore Glow and current pedagogical thinking in a meaningful way, to interact with and learn from each other and to investigate practices which impact on using Glow effectively. We also had a session looking at freeware such as Xmind and AutoCollage among others.

Towards the end of the course, all participants were asked to create a coaching plan showing how they planned to take the peer coaching approach to Glow forward in their own establishments. It became obvious very quickly that the SMT in the school would have to buy into this method of introducing Glow.

The feedback at the end of the two four day courses was that everyone was leaving with a clear understanding of how Glow could enhance the learning and teaching in their class, a greater knowledge of other establishments and sectors within the authority as well as some new found friends.

We now have a dynamic peer coaching Glow group at authority level which will be our main method of communication and collaboration. We do, however, have two dates in our diaries for face to face meeting. The first will be a twilight in September just to get together and discuss how everyone is using Glow within their own practice. We will also be examining roadblocks and reminding ourselves of strategies to overcome them. The second day will be towards the end of November when we will have a full day examining the impact that the peer coaching is having on each establishment.

The evaluations from each of the two four day courses show that the course was greatly enjoyed by all who attended it. The proof of the success of the course, however, will be the uptake of Glow in the peer coaches’ establishments. Microsoft is having the peer coaching programme independently evaluated and West Dunbarton is one of only three local authorities that are taking part in this evaluation.

August 19th, 2009

New Edinburgh Book Festival Event on Glow - Michelle Paver

Katie Barrowman

Comments: 1 Comment Tags:  : Categories Events, Glow Meet

We’re delighted to announce that the author of the fascinating and bestselling series ‘Chronicles of Ancient Darkness’ will be appearing live over Glow Meet from the Edinburgh International Book Festival. Michelle Paver will be speaking at 12:00 on Monday the 31st of August, so if you and your class would like to hear her talk about her exciting series of novels, set in the stone-age, and to hear about what inspires her to write, sign up by going to the Edinburgh International Book Festival Glow Group.

August 18th, 2009

Building Glow Communities - Mathematics

Joanne Connolly

Comments: 1 Comment Tags: Tags: building glow communities, Glow Groups, Mathematics, Numeracy
 : Categories Curriculum for Excellence, Events

On Thursday 27 and Friday 28 August 2009, the Building Glow Communities Mathematics event takes place at Stirling Management Centre. This event is for exisiting Glow users, with experience of creating and using Glow Groups within their classrooms and is an opportunities for practitioners to come together to work on Glow Groups which will be shared Nationally.

There are still a few places remaining, so if you are a Secondary Mathematics teacher, or a Primary teacher with a keen interest in mathematics and numeracy, and are interested in joining this event, please fill in the application form on the glowscotland website. (The closing date for applications has now been extended to take account of schools returning from the Summer break.)

The event will give participants the opportunity to collaborate with like-minded teachers from around the country and the chance to continue working together after the event. It will be a great two days and we hope you can join us!

August 17th, 2009

Graphic Novels CPD Event - Reminder

Katie Barrowman

Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: CPD, Edinburgh International book Festival, Glow Meet, graphic novels, Literacy, Mel Gibson
 : Categories Events, Glow Meet

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.

August 14th, 2009

Improved Functionality for Glow Learn

Lesley Dickson

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Glow Learn

Glow Learn will be updated on Sat 15 Aug, and will therefore be unavailable from 8am until approximately midday. However the Portal and all other associated Glow services will be available as normal.
This update to Glow Learn introduces some added functionality. Content Pack Manager has been revolutionised in this release.In addition there have been improvements to Glow Learn Markbook Comments, there’s a new Attach File Icon and there have been changes to the Navigation Webpart Layout.

If you would like to know more about the improvements, please click here to view the full documentation in your browser (Windows) or download it to your computer (Mac).