Archive for November, 2009
- November 29th, 2009
Reminder - Audio masterclass in English teachers’ national Glow group
- Tina Stevens
- Comments: Comments Off Tags: : Categories Curriculum for Excellence, Development, Events, Glow Groups, Glow Meet, Literacy, Uncategorized
Members of the national English teachers’ Glow group have a free CPD session available to them every month - and as these are delivered digitally through Glow Meet they can be watched from the comfort of a classroom or even from a front room - no cover needed!
This month’s session will be delivered on Monday 30th November between 4 and 5pm. In it David Noble - an expert in the field of using audio tools for education - will be giving participants practical advice on how to:
> Set-up a computer to create digital audio recordings
> Record, edit, save, and even publish recordings
> Use existing digital audio resources on the web
> Use mobile devices to capture to capture, distribute, and use voice recordings.
David will also be discussing Project Ideas and connecting digital audio to the Literacy Experiences and Outcomes. A list of useful links and a ‘How to get started’ guide will also be made available.
You do not have to be an English teacher to join the English teachers’ glow group. To participate simply click HERE or go to the English Teacher’s glow group (National site - National groups -Staffroom -Staffroom groups - English Teachers group), and request membership.
More- November 29th, 2009
Democratic Glow?
- Andrew Brown
- Comments: 1 Comment Tags: Tags: change, democracy, national site
: Categories Development, National Groups
The National Site in Glow has been in need of a refresh for some time now. Last time we changed things there, we added additional information to the ‘noticeboard’, changed the way the events were displayed and presented the procured content in a different way, but little has been done with the National Site since then (aside from an ever growing list of national groups! – I’ll come back to that issue in another post)
I made one massive error in the work we did on the National Site – we didn’t ask all of you what you want to do there, or what you want to find there.
It’s time to rectify that mistake.
If you go to the National Site now in Glow, you’ll find the noticeboard changed – it simply asks one question – “if we were to redesign the National Site in Glow, what would you want to find here?” There’s a discussion board there for you to tell us all what you want the National Site to be.
The important word in the sentence on the noticeboard is ‘we’. Glow isn’t the product of selected individuals, or the product of one central organisation – the National Site in Glow needs to belong to all the users of Glow, and more importantly be shaped by us all collectively.
We’ve a great opportunity here – we can all chip in with our thoughts and talents, and turn the National Site in Glow into somewhere not that we ‘must visit’ (after all, how many things do you have on your ‘must do’ list?), but somewhere that we ‘need’ to visit.
I don’t often ask for favours. But if you’re reading this, and you’ve got access to Glow, please go and join the conversation. If you don’t have access to Glow but you’ve got ideas about what it should offer all its users then leave your comments here.
Together we’re greater than the sum of our parts.
More- November 25th, 2009
Glowing Glider Challenge
- Dawn Adams
- Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: Glider, Museum of Flight
: Categories Curriculum for Excellence, Events, Glow Groups, Glow Meet, National Groups, Pupils, Sciences, Technologies
Explore the Science of Flight
On December 17th 1903 the Wright Brothers achieved the first powered, controlled, heavier than air aeroplane flight, it took about 12 seconds and flew less than 40 meters. To celebrate the event the National Museum of Flight is working with Learning Teaching Scotland to create a Glow Meet setting your pupils a challenge similar to that faced by the Wright Brothers.
The Glider Challenge
• To build a glider that will carry 50 grams of modelling clay to fly as far as possible
• The glider must be able to fit through a hole 300mm by 300mm
• The glider must not weigh more than 250grams including the modelling clay
Get Involved on the 15th December at 1.30pm
The Glow Meet will begin at 1.30pm with a member of the National Museum of Flight giving a short presentation with an overview of the museum, what it offers and informing pupils about the four forces of flight.
The challenge will then start and classes will have just over an hour to make their gliders. Some classes may choose to keep working on the testing and adjusting process the next day.
The class hosting the Glow Meet from the Museum of Flight will make their gliders and test them at the museum for everyone to see. Finally there will be a summing up session.
During the Glider Challenge Glow Meet classes will be able to post comments and questions and the discussion board will remain open until the end of the school term.
If you would like to find out more and get involved please visit the National Sciences Glow group. Sign up for the event using the form at the bottom of the page.
- November 24th, 2009
Glowing Thursday Arts Double Bill
- Jennifer McDougall
- Comments: 1 Comment Tags: Tags: Glowing Thursday, National Galleries of Scotland, Scottish Ballet
: Categories Co-Create, Curriculum for Excellence, Events, Expressive Arts, Glow Meet, Local authorities, National Groups, Uncategorized
In a Glow first we will be featuring not one but two Glow Meets at the same time on Thursday 26th November. From 2-3pm that day you and your pupils will have the opportunity to engage with two very important arts organsisations.
From the National Galleries of Scotland we will be joined by Martin Boyce in an exclusive ‘behind the scenes’ interview with the Contemporary Scottish Artist. As part of the Glow Meet he will be showing short (time-lapse) films of his installation being constructed in the gallery, as well as mini interviews with key people involved in the entire process of installing contemporary artworks - such as the curator, the art handling team, the conservators and the Director of SNGMA, Simon Groom. This event is supported by Homecoming money.
In addition you can also join Kate Morrison from Scottish Ballet to find out about the concept, costume and design behind Ashley Page’s Nutcracker, delivered by Scottish Ballet education and featuring the resident wardrobe department.
You and your pupils will have the opportunity to view both of these events and if you are not able to attend live you can leave a question on the discussion board and also, as the events are being recorded, you can watch them at your leisure. Find out more about this exciting event at glowhelp.me/thursdays
More- November 24th, 2009
Glow - Planned Maintenance Sat 28 Nov, Sat 05 Dec and on Saturdays until end Feb 2010
- Joan Martin
- Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: Helpdesk
: Categories Uncategorized
This is to let you know that we will be making some changes to Glow on Sat 28 Nov and Sat 05 Dec, which will impact availability.
Sat 28 Nov
Between 08:00 and 12:00 Glow Learn will be unavailable while we upgrade to Glow Learn V3.1.1. The Portal and all other associated Glow Services will be available as normal. This release of Glow Learn provides improved functionality, particularly in the area of Glow Learn Permission Enhancements. Glow Learn has had a revamp in terms of what users can and can’t do with courses and resources. This is a significant change which we hope will make it easier to use Glow Learn. If you would like some more detail on these changes check out the document which has been uploaded to the National Help Glow Group.
Between 12:00 and approximately 18:00 Glow will be unavailable while we carry out some maintenance tasks. We’ll be moving a database to a higher powered server to give us a bit of a performance improvement, and we’ll also be adding some additional discs to give us increased capacity for sites, such as My Glow pages and establishment sites.
Sat 05 Dec
From 08:00 until approximately 20:00, Glow will be unavailable while we apply a batch of important updates to our servers.
Remaining Saturdays until the end of Feb 2010.
As you know, we have a lot of changes coming up as part of Glow Refresh, in addition to the normal churn of maintenance and fixes to known issues. We want to make sure that we deploy these changes as quickly as we can, and as such we are declaring that there is a risk that Glow will be unavailable every Saturday until the end of February approximately. We will do what we can to minimise the impact depending on the nature of the change being deployed eg where possible we may only make one component unavailable. We will keep you updated on what changes are happening when, and what the impact on availability will be.
More- November 23rd, 2009
Glowcoming Update - event postponed.
- Katie Barrowman
- Comments: 1 Comment Tags: Tags: Events, Glow Meet, Homecoming, Schools
: Categories Events, Glow Meet
The planned Glowcoming Glow Meet has been postponed due to one of the two host schools being closed on the 30th - watch the blog for details of the new date when it’s confirmed. Sorry to those who had planned to get involved.
- November 21st, 2009
Watch the Royal Mail Book Awards on Glow
- Katie Barrowman
- Comments: 7 Comments » Tags: : Categories Uncategorized
The voting is over, the discussions have taken place - the only thing left is to find out the winners!
The Royal Mail Book Awards ceremony takes place on Tuesday the 24th of November, and we’re now able to confirm that we will be broadcasting the ceremony via Glow Meet. Why not drop in and watch? The event takes place at 13:30 and ends at 14:45. You can access the Glow Meet by joining the Royal Mail Book Awards Group - make sure you request access in advance.
Drop in and see if your favourite has won!
More- November 20th, 2009
Alan Bissett – A Sort of Homecoming…
- ronnierankin
- Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: Alan Bissett, books, Glow Meet, Literacy and English
: Categories Events, Falkirk, Glow Groups, Glow Meet, Literacy, National Groups, Uncategorized
Alan Bissett is returning to his and Adam Spark’s old school, Falkirk High, to speak to pupils about his books and you and your class can also be there with Glow.
A Glow Meet with Alan will be held in the Literacy and English National Glow Group on Thursday December 10th at 2pm.
Alan invites S4-S6 to join him to hear him read from his books and to ask him questions about his work.
It promises to be a great event both for pupils and staff as you get to watch, hear and question one of Scotland’s most versatile talents.
You can register your interest and post questions for Alan to answer by replying to the post Here on the Glow group.
Please note you can now register your interest on the Alan Bissett Glow Page.
More- November 18th, 2009
Listen - English Teachers’ November masterclass details
- Tina Stevens
- Comments: Comments Off Tags: : Categories Curriculum for Excellence, Development, Events, Fife, Glow Groups, Glow Meet, Literacy, National Groups, Uncategorized
The English teachers’ national Glow group presents another fantastic free masterclass. The November session will run on Monday, 30th November from 4-5pm and will focus on practical steps to help teachers become more confident in using audio devices and recordings in their classroom.
The masterclass will be delivered by David Noble, a Chartered Teacher at a residential school in Fife experienced in using ICT across the curriculum. David produces the fortnightly educational podcast, Booruch, and is a doctoral student at the University of Edinburgh. He also co-produces the EDUtalk website, (http://edutalk.cc/) a space for teachers and students to use mobile technology to create and share educational audio.
During the session participants will learn how to:
Set-up a computer to create digital audio recordings
Record, edit, save, and even publish recordings
Use existing digital audio resources on the web
Use mobile devices to capture, distribute, and use voice recordings
Project ideas will also be discussed, connecting digital audio to the Literacy
Experiences and Outcomes. A list of useful links and a ‘How to get started’ guide will also be available.
All the English teacher group masterclasses have an English and/or Literacy focus but they are open to all and you do not need to be an English teacher to join the group and participate. Membership requests are welcomed from all stages and sectors of education. Click HERE to request membership. Full details of how to join a Glow Meet masterclass session are posted in the group.
More- November 17th, 2009
Share Your Glow Experiences
- Dougie Eustace
- Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: Benefits Management, benefits realisation, Glow benefits, Glow Experiences
: Categories Benefits
The Glow Team is asking for your help in implementing an ambitious programme to build an overall picture of how practitioners are using Glow across Scotland and the benefits that are being achieved as a result. We are keen to receive input from those new to Glow or who are using Glow in a relatively simple way to provide a useful outcome as well as those with more experience. We want to represent as many different aspects of Glow usage as possible so we’d like to hear about anything you have done. Some examples might be:
- I have eliminated some paperwork or costs by using Glow to disseminate information on-line
- I have shared materials, ideas, thoughts or practice with my colleagues using Glow
- I have found that my class are more motivated when we use Glow for class work
- I set tasks for learners to complete within Glow
- I allow pupils to post their work in a Glow group which then provides a rich record of work
- My class have joined a national Glow Meet event which provided a focus for our topic work
The list is endless….if you’ve done it; we want you to tell us about it. It doesn’t have to be particularly innovative or best practice; we simply want you to share how you are using it.
We recognise that your time is extremely valuable, so we’ve created an on-line questionnaire within Glow which will take less than ten minutes for most people to complete and the displayed results will be anonymous. Once we have sufficient responses, the plan is to publish the results within the Glow community and so you should bear in mind that your comments may be viewed by colleagues, head teachers, school management teams, pupils, and in some authorities, parents.
We would very much appreciate it if you could take a few minutes to share your experiences of using Glow with us. There are three ways to access the questionnaire.
The survey can be found here.
Or ….you can access from www.glowhelp.me/experiences
Or ….Log in to Glow, go to National Site, National Groups, Glowing Potential, Glow Groups, Benefits Management and Realisation, Sharing Glow Experiences.
If you are interested in further discussion of the benefits of using Glow, there is a dedicated Glow Group for Benefits Management and Realisation here.
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