Glow Scotland

August 31st, 2011

Roald Dahl in Shetland

Dawn Adams

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Events, Glow Meet, Literacy

Christine De Luca reads ‘Dodie’s Phenomenal Pheesic’ to a class at Sound Primary School, broadcasted live via Glow Meet.

On Monday 5th September 2011 at 11:15am Christine De Luca will be in Sound Primary School, Lerwick, reading to a P5 class, from her Shetland dialect translation of Roald Dahl.

Roald Dahl’s famous children’s book ‘George’s Marvellous Medicine’ contains such a wealth of charming situations, characters, and imaginative language that it stood out as a perfect opportunity for translation into Shetland dialect. Christine De Luca, an admired writer in Shetland, Scotland and beyond, took Roald Dahl’s classic and created a fantastic new version which keeps the story and spirit of the original but tells it in Shetland dialect with Shetland characters.

The dialect of Shetland, like so many of the dialects of Scotland, has unique features but also similarities with its neighbouring Scots languages. Christine De Luca is well-known for her talented use of Shetland dialect in her poetry and children’s stories and is an experienced, expressive reader.

The Creative Links team at Shetland Islands Council’s would like to share this reading with as many other schools as possible so are broadcasting the event live via Glow. After the reading the author will answer questions from children in the class – and also any that come in from viewing schools.

For more information regarding this event please email bruce.eunson@shetland.gov.uk
Bruce Eunson
Dialect Co-ordinator
Schools Service
Shetland Islands Council

Visit Glow TV to sign up and take part in this event: http://glo.li/nw6vbx

August 31st, 2011

BTC5 - using Glow for your school e-portfolio solution

ggallacher

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Curriculum for Excellence, Glow, Glow Blogs, Pupils, Uncategorized

A national Glow E-portfolio group has been set up for schools who have requested, through their local authority, that the National Glow Team work with them, and for schools wishing to get started with e-portfolios themselves.

What will you find in the Glow Group

Planning Documents
Planning for e-portfolios and pre-requisities for e-portfolio training are 2 documents which you will need to consider, especially if you are working with the National Glow Team. They should ensure that you are taking the necessary steps to get ready for e-portfolios in your school. If you are working with us, we will let you know about timescales to get back to us.

Support Documents
If you are just getting started with e-portfolios in your school you may find the following documents helpful:

* Creating an e-portfolio blog
* Creating a School Glow Group to house e-portfolio links

If you are up and running with e-portfolios in your school you may find the following support documents helpful:

* Helping pupils post to their e-portfolio
* Teachers commenting on pupil e-portfolios
* Helpsheet for pupils accessing teacher comments

Videos
You will also find videos to support you with getting ready for e-portfolios. At the moment you will find videos on how to set up a Glow Group to house links to e-portfolios and one covering the process for pupils creating e-portfolios.

August 30th, 2011

TESS reports on Glow and good old-fashioned writing and drawing skills

ggallacher

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories East Renfrewshire, Glow Groups, Literacy, Pupils, Uncategorized

This week’s TESS covers another great example of embedding Glow in learning and teaching across a school.

Modern technology, the Glow intranet and good old-fashioned writing and drawing skills were a perfect combination to record the goings-on at one school’s nesting box, reports Douglas Blane

Read the article online

August 30th, 2011

Glow e-portfolios in East Renfrewshire – Part 1

ggallacher

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The Assessment Team in East Renfrewshire was keen to ensure that all schools are providing opportunity for pupils to reflect on their learning, evaluate it and record evidence of what they have achieved, both in school and outwith. They felt it to be essential that there was a consistent approach across all schools in the local authority. This approach is encouraged in BTC 5.

Read all about this in the Glow Cookbook

Background
In June 2011, just before the end of term, two of the East Renfrewshire clusters worked with their pupils to create e-portfolios using Glow Blogs. In the secondary schools, every S1 pupil (the new S2 cohort) created an e-portfolio and in the primaries, every P7 pupil did so, in preparation for their transition to high school. In many of the primaries, the P6 pupils also created e-portfolios for use in P7 and beyond.

To help ensure consistency, staff from East Renfrewshire contacted the National Glow Team to enquire about the possibility of having a custom-built Glow Blog theme created for their e-portfolios. This was readily agreed to and a theme reflecting the East Renfrewshire priorities was created. The theme incorporates an image for the header, widgets, categories and three ready-made pages.

Each of the schools in East Renfrewshire plans to use the pupil e-portfolios in different ways, depending on their particular focus. Part 2 of this cookbook looks at the plans for two of the schools and discusses the impact they hope the e-portfolios will have.

August 29th, 2011

Have You Heard About the Wee Blether?

Jennifer McDougall

Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: RIGHT Wee Blether, SCCYP, Tam Baillie
 : Categories Curriculum for Excellence, Early Years, Events, Glow, Glow Meet, Local authorities, Uncategorized

Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People, Tam Baillie would like children between the ages of 2 and 5 to have their very own creative conversation using their own forms of expression.

This creative conversation, which runs from 12th September - 31st October 2011, is called a RIGHT wee blether.

It is a chance for young children to inform the Commissioner’s work, to celebrate the variety and diversity of the ways in which children might choose to participate and to encourage their active engagement and involvement.

This conversation builds on the Commissioner’s 2010 national consultation with Scotland’s school aged children called a RIGHT blether. Over 74,000 children and young people took part in a RIGHT blether through creative projects, educational workshops, Tam’s Tour and a national vote. The outcomes influenced the Commissioner’s work plan directly in four key areas: Where I Live, Where I Learn, My Community and, The Country I live in - Scotland.

Join us for this Glow Meet to find out how you and your nursery/Primary 1 class can join in with this exciting National initiative.

Sign up with Glow TV and come and have a RIGHT wee blether with Tam on Tuesday 30th August at 3.45pm and find out more in Glow TV.

August 26th, 2011

Glow delivers a simple solution to logistical problems

ggallacher

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Curriculum for Excellence, Fife, Glow Groups, Pupils, Technologies, Uncategorized, modern languages

In this Glow Cookbook we focus on the work of one teacher, Kim Yapp, and how she found that Glow solved a long-standing problem. Kim teaches Modern Foreign Languages. For the last couple of years, the department has run a Culture Project for first year pupils.

Prior to the arrival of Glow in the school, the project, though very successful, had presented a number of logistical difficulties.

When Kim began to use Glow earlier this year, she was hopeful that it would deliver a simple solution to these logistical problems - and was delighted to find that it did!

A simple Glow Group had provided a way around the logistical barriers, as Kim had hoped, but there were unexpected additional benefits too. As the work was in a shared area from the start of the four periods, it was easy for Kim to monitor progress as the presentations developed and to step in quickly if any pupil was not pulling their weight. The Glow Group also enabled pupils to continue their work at home and to discuss it with their parents and carers.

August 26th, 2011

Enhancing learning and teaching in English classes

ggallacher

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Glenwood High School in Fife has seen a significant increase in the use of Glow over the last six months.

In this newly published Glow Cookbook we focus on the work of one teacher, Alison Wood, and explore how she has used Glow with English classes from first year to Higher.

The cookbook describes how a number of staff from different departments, have been using Glow to enhance learning and teaching. One of Alison’s key aims with beginning to use Glow was to support her Higher class. She had read a number of cookbooks, focusing on using Glow to support exam classes, and she was interested in the possibilities.

With her third year class Alison has created a wiki to develop pupils’ understanding of the context of Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird”. Following a lesson in which the class looked at the concept of protest songs, and studied the lyrics of Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit”, Alison asked the pupils to bring in a protest song of their own choice.

The class responded very well and were intrigued by the possibilities of the wikis. Many have gone well beyond the initial requirements, spending additional time at home on adding further text and images and inserting links to websites, containing videos of the singers or bands.

Alison has been delighted with pupils’ engagement in this work and the results they’ve achieved.

August 25th, 2011

Glow Mini-Mentors at Coylton Primary

ggallacher

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Find out, through this latest cookbook, how one teacher spread the use of Glow to all pupils of P3 and above in Coylton Primary school. During the planning phase Judith quickly realised that the rollout of Glow was going to take longer than expected and thought it would be a good idea for some of her pupils to come and help her out.

The pupils were able to help her troubleshoot getting the other pupils logged into Glow and help them set up their new passwords, Judith speaks of the invaluable help she received from her Mini-Mentors.

Now, if any teachers are needing any help with Glow in their class the Mini-Mentors are called upon to go and help with anything they’re asked to do. They’ve done short presentations to classes about how to do certain things in Glow. For example, how to add Vokis to their My Glow pages. Judith feels that her P7 pupils have grown in confidence as they recognise the level of their own skills in Glow and in being able to share that knowledge with others.

To find out more visit the Glow Cookbook

August 19th, 2011

Enterprising Practitioners Practice What They Preach

Jennifer McDougall

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The final Enterprise Practitioner Network events under the leadership of Determined to Succeed generated more energy and numbers than any before in their eight year history. As DtS policy and Enterprise in Education became embedded in the curriculum the desire and value from continuing to meet as a national forum of enterprising practitioners became stronger.

However, lacking central support, resources, leadership and direction following the demise of DtS it seemed this popular and growing network would be wound down. However at the final meeting outgoing LTS Development Officer for Enterprise, Neil McLennan, set the group with a challenge. That challenge was for a body of practitioners to join him in setting up a committee who could support and sustain the network beyond DtS. The message was clear: - if the group could sustain itself for a year after DtS then it would continue to grow and expand under its own steam. What is more, under practitioners’ direction the opportunities were endless. Following that challenge a committee has now formed which represents all sectors from Early Years to Colleges sector, from teacher to Development Officers and from Shetland to South Lanarkshire. The newly formed Enterprise Practitioners’ Association now have a strong web presence (via twitter and blogs) and are now well advanced in their planning and marketing of the first event on Saturday August 27th 2011.

The programme for the first EPA event includes David Cameron - Education Consultant, Strathclyde Police, and David Erdal – Author of Local Heroes based on the employee buy-out of Loch Fyne Oysters and Stonelaw High School Fair Traders – Winners of the Young Social Enterprise of the Year Award.

Anyone who is interested in attending this first event is very welcome. It is for anyone who wants to find out about or share enterprising, innovative and effective approaches to teaching and learning. The EPA holds it first event on Saturday 27th August 2011 at the Scotmid Academy, Newbridge, Edinburgh. The cost of the event is £5 for EPA Members and £10 for non members.

Further details can be found at:
Event Bookings: http://events.scotlandscolleges.ac.uk/events/show/4003
Twitter:- @EPAScot
For membership information please contact: Leigh Brown – Enterprise Development Officer – leigh.brown@scotcol.ac.uk

August 19th, 2011

Glow Science

nstewart

Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: Glow Science
 : Categories Glow, Sciences, Technologies

Glow Science is a great free resource offering rich engaging learning material for pupils aged 8-14. Inspire your pupils to engage with Science across the curriculum.

With the new school term starting, the search for engaging, curriculum driven resources is high on the agenda of most teachers. As Science is still very much in the news as a priority for Scottish Education, we wanted to flag up a great free resource on Glow called Glow Science.

See the Sciences National Glow Group

Glow Science is a stunning video-based learning resource designed for pupils aged 8 to 14 to engage their imaginations and enhance their understanding of Science in the modern world. Over 500 three-minute films and their associated learning materials (including quizzes, lesson ideas, extension questions, diagrams, images), cover Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Earth Science.

Topics in Chemistry and Physics include the Periodic Table and Newton’s laws of motion; Biology includes films about the brain, heart, pregnancy, senses, muscles, lungs, hormones; Earth Science covers a wide range of topics from volcanoes to renewable energy.

Glow Science can be used in many different ways to support the Sciences experiences and outcomes, as well as other areas of Curriculum for Excellence. It has been available free to all teachers in Scotland since April 2011 and is accessed using your Glow username and password.

Katy Sowden, principal teacher at Williamston Primary school in Livingston, has seen a marked improvement in levels of pupil engagement since she started using Glow Science as well as helping to deepen her own understanding of science concepts. You can read a cookbook of Katy and her pupils using the resource in class.

Williamstown Primary School, Livingston

Glow Science answers pupils’ questions: “What makes our blood red? Why do some people see smells and hear colours? How does the largest mammal on earth hold its breath for up to two hours? It allows learners to journey from Earth’s core to land surface, examining the layers that make up our planet; they can discover how our DNA make us unique and understand the scientific evidence that supports the Big Bang theory

New content is regularly added to Glow Science. The latest Biology module is called Healthy Living and covers Health and Disease, Substance Misuse, Fitness and Nutrition.

You can download a list of over 500 films from the Glow Science website.
Glow would love to hear your ideas for using this rich resource with learners.

New film titles include:
Life Cycle Nutrition Read more…