Glow Scotland

September 29th, 2011

A RIGHT Wee Blether - Live in a Nursery

Jennifer McDougall

Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: SCCYP, Tam Baillie, Wee Blether
 : Categories Curriculum for Excellence, Early Years, Events, Glow, Glow Meet, Pupils

Are you involved in the Wee Blether? It started on the 12th September and nurseries and Primary 1 classes across Scotland are taking part.

Following on from the very successful RIGHT blether, 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. It’s important to get involved as 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.

Find out more about the Wee Blether and how you can be involved on the SCCYP website.

Why not join us live in Glow TV in a nursery setting in North Lanarkshire to see how the children there are getting on with their wee books and talking to staff? You too can join us to share your experiences of a RIGHT Wee Blether and take part in some interactive activities during the Glow Meet.

Why not sign up and join us in Glow TV on Tuesday 4th October from 11-12pm.
We look forward to seeing you then!

September 27th, 2011

“Glow is an ideal place to share pupils’ work”

ggallacher

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Fife, Glow, Glow Blogs, Glow Groups, Technologies

Glenwood High School in Fife, with a roll of 860 pupils and with 90 teaching staff, has seen a significant increase in the use of Glow over the last six months. By the end of the year, around 75% of staff and pupils had active accounts and in an average week over 200 pupils were using Glow during school hours.

This cookbook describes how a number of staff from different departments, have been using Glow to enhance learning and teaching.

In this cookbook we focus on the work of the Computing department. In the Recipe section, video clips show how you can replicate the use of avatars, vokis and forums.

Read more here

September 27th, 2011

Glowing Thursdays - LGBT Youth Scotland

Jennifer McDougall

Comments: 2 Comments » Tags: Tags: community, homophobia, LGBT Youth Scotland
 : Categories Events, Glow, Glow Meet, Health and Wellbeing

This week join us in Glowing Thursdays to find out more about LGBT Youth Scotland.

LGBT Youth Scotland is Scotland’s largest youth and community-based lesbian, gay, bisexual and transexual organisation who work to improve the health and wellbeing of LGBT youth and LGBT communities in Scotland.

In this Glow Meet we will be describing the work of the Challenge Homophobia Together Project, which is working across Scotland to challenge homophobia and homophobic bullying in Scottish Secondary Schools.

Sign up in Glow TV and join us on the day and find out more about the work that this organisation is doing in schools.

September 26th, 2011

Pupils’ Common Room - bursting with resources for pupils

ggallacher

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Glow, Learner Resources, Mathematics, National Groups, Pupils, Technologies, Uncategorized

It’s great to see so many pupils across Scotland using the Pupil Area on the national site within Glow. The area is full of great resources and is now one of the more popular areas in Glow. Join in by logging in to the Glow National Site

For those interested in the designing of computer games you can have a look behind the scenes at some game design companies including Denki and Honeyslug. These video resources have been created by Education Scotland and some have been made available with kind permission of the companies. These should inform and inspire budding game designers, they also explicitly demonstrate that you don’t have to be a programmer to be involved in making computer games.

Here are just some of the resources available:

September 26th, 2011

Daily Quote - Burns Supper at Coylton – Using Glow to support an Enterprise Project

ggallacher

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Expressive Arts, Glow, Glow Groups, Literacy, Mathematics, South Ayrshire, Technologies

“The Burns project worked really well. The pupils were extremely enthusiastic. They had only just got their Glow log-ons and they were really keen to use Glow as much as possible. They were logging in at home quite a lot and also in school they were given a chance to log in whenever they had any free time”

Judith Lennox was P7 teacher at Coylton Primary School in South Ayrshire and is now DHT in the school

To find out more Read the Cookbook here

September 26th, 2011

Lynburn Primary: giving pupils responsibility for their own Glow Group

ggallacher

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Fife, Glow, Glow Groups, Literacy

This is the second of two cookbooks about Jacqui Clark ( a P5 teacher at Lynburn Primary School in Fife) work. The first focused on how Jacqui used Glow to support learning in areas as diverse as Mandarin, Christmas and the Royal Wedding! In this cookbook we look at how she has given the children in her class their own Glow Group and given them the responsibility for ensuring it is used appropriately. She is delighted with the way they have responded to that challenge.

Jacqui’s Primary 5 class were already well used to Glow, to the Glow Group environment and in particular to using Discussion boards to post comments about their work or to ask questions.

See more in the Glow Cookbook here

September 23rd, 2011

SLF Extra - Literacy across learning: using wider texts at second and third levels

Karen-Ann McSwiggan

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Curriculum for Excellence, Glow, Glow Meet, Health and Wellbeing, Literacy, Media Literacy, Moving Image Education, North Lanarkshire, Pupils, Technologies, West Dunbartonshire

Today the audience was packed into the seminar room at SLF 2011 with no sign of people losing interest on the last afternoon. They were there to see speakers Patrick Mooney, PT English at Caldervale High School in North Lanarkshire and Gilian Penny Headteacher at Gavinburn Primary School in West Dunbartonshire in the Literacy across learning: using wider texts at second and third levels seminar.

Let’s have a listen to why some of the audience were at the seminar today:

Click on the radio to hear why an education student has come to the seminar.
Click on the radio to hear why some international visitors have come to the seminar.

Patrick Mooney

Patrick Mooney is PT English at Caldervale High School and previously taught English at Cardinal Newman High School. He is passionate about using moving image education as a way to enhance literacy across learning.

Let’s have a listen to Patrick describing what he will be presenting on:

Click on the radio to hear Patrick describing what he will be speaking about in the seminar.

He spoke about the challenge of teaching literacy in a modern context and widening the definition of a text. As part of becoming a chartered teacher he researched moving image education and worked with Scotland on Screen. He explained that there are often perceived constraints in the secondary sector with teacher attitude, lack of kit and the need for leadership in moving forward with moving image education in the school. Although he told us that all the kit required is a web cam and a laptop. He stressed that moving image education is an fantastic tool to ensure that active learning is happening, that the pupils are highly motivated and that it builds on their resilience.

He went on to explain that the gains that can be made in terms of inclusion, true collaboration, creativity and enterprise and opportunities for teacher reflection on their own practice are substanial. Pupils with poorer literacy skills can be released from previous ‘failures’ they may have experienced with other forms of communication. Encouragingly, Patrick talked about the possibilities that moving image education opens up in the curriculum by acting as a gel for literacy across the curriculum and inter-disciplinary learning projects. He gave ideas for outcomes/products such as science news reports; documentaries on sports personalities/famous mathematicians/historical figures; movies to analyse performance in PE and projects such as documentaries to celebrate whole school life.

Pupils can really get to employ their own creativity and choice, they can be shown simply how to use the kit and then come up with their own ideas for projects backed by a framework of teacher planning. Patrick ended by speaking about how amazed he continues to be about how much effort pupils are willng to put into these projects - the planning, storyboarding, scripting, celebrating and performing. Pupils who have been very much switched off from the writing process are happily immersed in it due to the motivation of moving image education.

Gillian Penny

Gillian Penny is Headteacher at Gavinburn Primary School in West Dunbartonshire and is passionate about the wider text and digital creativity. Her presentation alternated between short, amazing video clips of pupils from her school and her explanation of the different projects they are invloved in.

Let’s have a listen to Gillian describe her presentation:

Click on the radio to hear Gillian describing what she will be speaking about in the seminar.

Gillian believes it is very important for children to have an audience and purpose for their work as this is highly motivating for them and can change the effort and pride they take in this work. She is also interested in creating opportunities for her pupils to be involved in more interdisciplinary and active learning. In the school they frequently use animation as she feels it is a very powerful tool for pupils planning and storyboarding their work. She notes that it forces them to really think about the story they are telling.

The school also uses the I Can Present tool and green screening to allow pupils to make presentations. We saw a video of children pretending to be in a band and making award acceptance speeches. Gillian notes that for teachers who need persuading about these ways of working it is hard to ignore the quantity and quality of written work from the pupils as part of their planning process when working with these kinds of tools.

The school also makes very successful use of Guitar Hero and other tools for what Gillian calls their ‘Band in a Box’ or ‘Band out of a Box’ project. Pupils are arranged into groups of 4 which are made up by the teachers in order to get an appropriate mix. They create a rock band with imaginative back stories for every member of the band. They write lyrics and put these to music and create a music video to go along with it. They also go on tour virtually to another country and have to plan all the arrangements for this down to hotels, sticking to budgets and preparing a speech in the language of the country. They have performances, including dance and awards sessions within the school. These award sessions have a red carpet where real awards are given out and important dignitries and parents come to watch.

Click here to see this video example from the Consolarium blog of one of the music videos a group of Gillian’s pupils put together:

Gillian showed a video of the pupils reflecting on the process, they are clearly very excited by and thrilled with the whole project. They are able to talk at length about all the aspects of it, how they approached these and how much of their work went into it all. Pupils get to play to their strengths, Gillian commented on the fact that perhaps the pupil who hasn’t succeeded before has a great idea for the band and the other members are able to help make this idea come to fruition.

Click on the radio to listen to some audience reactions to the seminar.
Click on the radio to listen to some audience reactions to the seminar.

So what’s next for Gavinburn? From next week Gavinburn will have their own channel on Glow TV where they will be showcasing digital work every week. This is work that is ongoing in Gavinburn but might not normally make it out of the computer.

You will catch the SLF11 Glow TV interview with Gillian Penny by clicking here where you will be asked to log in with your Glow username and password.

The Glow TV session interview with Gillian and 2 of her pupils is now available below:

In addition you might want to have a look at a video of Gillian presenting at the Games Based Learning Conference 2010:

September 23rd, 2011

Daily Quote - Glow Meet with a dragon!- Early Years Fairyland topic

ggallacher

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Expressive Arts, Glow, Glow Meet, Literacy, West Lothian

“All staff, pupils and parents absolutely LOVED this Enchanted Forest topic! The dragon really came to life through GLOW for the children, which was a super way to end such a fabulous project!”

Teachers from Primary 1 and 2 at Windyknowe Primary School, Bathgate, West Lothian

Find out more by visiting the Glow Cookbook here

September 23rd, 2011

Mini-Mentors project at Coylton Primary

ggallacher

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Glow, Glow Groups, Health and Wellbeing, Pupils, South Ayrshire, Technologies

Judith Lennox was P7 teacher at Coylton Primary School in South Ayrshire and is now DHT in the school.

This Cookbook will focus on the Mini-Mentor project that Judith ran with some of her P7 class pupils. After Judith had received her Glow Mentor training her class and the other P7 class were using Glow regularly. Her headteacher wanted Judith to spread this use to all pupils of P3 and above in the school. This would involve giving out all usernames and passwords and making sure they were using Glow as much as they could be. Judith was given a day out of class to kick this off but as she was planning for it she quickly realised that it was going to take much longer than that. By this point Judith’s class had been making good use of Glow for some time and she thought it would be a good idea for some of them to come and help her out. She gave them the title of Mini-Mentors which made them feel really important. She also made them very official-looking badges and other accessories for their role.

See more in the Glow Cookbook here

September 22nd, 2011

SLF Extra: using e-portfolios for recording assessment and achievement

Gerri Tait

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Fife, Glow, Technologies

Olivia Wexelstein teaches a P4-7 class at Wellwood Primary School in Fife. She is an enthusiastic advocate of the use of ICT to enhance learning and teaching. In particular she emphasises the opportunities it provides for pupils to lead their learning, set their own challenges and make decisions about how they want to present their work.

Yesterday at SLF Olivia shared her enthusiasm and experience with a packed audience, in a seminar entitled “Learners journey through Curriculum of Excellence using e-portfolios for recording assessment and achievement”.

Click on the Glow Radio to hear Olivia describe her presentation.

Olivia outlined her own learning journey over the last two years, from using expensive and uninspiring learning logs, to developing pupil e-portfolios, which she described as a ‘digital storage space to record assessment and achievement’.

When she first started to research e-portfolios, she could immediately see the potential benefits over a paper-based system, such as reduced costs, higher pupil engagement and a flexible system which would allow pupils to set targets, reflect on their learning and write about their achievements.

Each pupil in her class now has an e-portfolio created in a Glow blog. This format allows pupils to write text, upload examples of their work, add photos, audio and video. Olivia also makes use of many free online tools, such as Voki (to create talking avatars), Animoto (to make video slideshows from photos or video clips) and GoAnimate (to create animated videos).

Olivia then showed some inspiring examples from recent work in her class. Pupils had chosen a ‘Myths and Legends’ topic and set themselves a challenge of creating a digital animation to show to their parents. Olivia then chose two experiences and outcomes as an assessment focus. The process of creating the animation was broken down into a number of clear stages, such as researching, writing a script, making clay models and recording the animation.

Pupils then blogged in their e-portfolios about each stage of the process. This reflection then allowed Olivia to assess against the criteria and to determine pupils’ development needs.

Olivia is delighted with the impact that the e-portfolios are having in her class: pupils’ engagement, the promotion of literacy skills and awareness of audience, and the opportunities to assess pupils’ progress through a range of fun and motivating means.

Click on the Glow Radio to listen to feedback from the audience following Olivia’s presentation.

Further details on Olivia’s use of e-portfolios will be available in October in a Glow cookbook.