Glow Scotland

October 19th, 2011

Raising attainment in literacy in Primary 3

ggallacher

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

When Glow was introduced at Touch Primary School in Fife in early 2010, teacher Kate McIntosh was keen to explore how it could be used to raise attainment in literacy in her P3 class. She wanted to stimulate pupils’ interest in using the library, to encourage pupils to read for pleasure and to explore a wider range of authors and genre.

In the P3 Book Group Kate created a survey, to gauge pupils’ engagement with, and enthusiasm for, reading. This was the P3s first experience of a Glow survey, so questions were kept simple with either multiple choice or free-text formats. Kate’s pupils and the parallel P3 class responded to the survey. The two classes are not in adjacent classrooms in the school, so having them respond to the same survey and being able to view each others’ responses worked very well. Kate and her stage partner analysed the survey responses, using the graphical responses option, and were interested in the snapshot this provided, particularly in breaking some of the gender stereotypes which might have been expected.

To find out more - read the Cookbook here

January 10th, 2011

Jacqueline Wilson Live Web Stream and Glow Chat!

Katie Barrowman

Comments: 4 Comments » Tags: Tags: BBC, BBC Learning, Scottish Book Trust
 : Categories Events, Glow Chat, Glow Meet, Literacy

Jacqueline Wilson will be giving a live talk with the Scottish Book Trust and BBC Scotland Learning between 11.00 and 11.40 on Thursday the 27th of January. Please sign up here if you will be watching through Glow.

Even more excting news - Jacqueline has agreed to take part in a Glow Chat after the live streamed event! The time will be 13:00 - 13:30 (subject to Jacqueline finishing her signing session at the BBC).

To take part, you need to be able to use Glow Chat - Please try to join the Glow Chat room on the event page well in advance of the day to make sure you get a successful connection. If you have any trouble, email Katie from the Glow Team on [email protected] as soon as possible before the event and she will advise you - you must do this well in advance, as you may be advised to contact your local authority to enable chat and this may take a few days!

Due to expected high demand, we ask that only one computer per class is logged into the chat, (by the teacher preferably) but the pupils can take turns asking questions, just remember to type in your name, class and school at the end of your question. We realise that the time of the chat may coincide with lunchtime, but we hope a lot of Jacqueline’s fans will still be able to log on.

The more interesting and unusual the question, the more likely it is that Jacqueline will answer it, so get thinking now! Jacqueline will answer as many questions as she can on the day, but she won’t be able to answer everyone, so apologies in advance.

We hope you can join us!

The Glow Team

October 28th, 2010

Scottish Book Trust Online Teacher in Residence Events

Katie Barrowman

Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: books, CPD, Literacy, Literacy and English, Scottish Book Trust
 : Categories Events, Glow Chat, Glow Meet, Literacy

The Scottish Book Trust’s fantastic Online Teacher in residence scheme is in full swing, with some excellent CPD opportunities for teachers. Visit the links below for more details on how to get involved.

1. Choke Chain: Online Teachers’ Book Group Tuesday 2 November at 4pm. Glow Chat featuring Choke Chain by Jason Donald - a dramatic debut novel looking at aspects of a difficult family life, set in South Africa. Suitable for upper secondary level but all teachers welcome. We still have 5 books to give away.
Click here for more details.

2. How to Teach Creative Writing – Tuesday 16 November at 4pm. Glow Meet featuring professional writer and teacher of writing Nick Hesketh on the why, what and how’s of teaching creative writing. A two-part series, participants must be registered and attend the first session on the 16th November in order to gain access to the second session on the 230th November. We only have 6 places left.
Click here for more details.

3. Royal Mail Awards Book Groups – Tuesday 14 December at 4pm. Choose from three simultaneous Glow Chats discussing each of the shortlisted books per ages group for the Royal Mail Awards and how they could be used as cross-curricular lesson tools in class.
Click here for more details.

December 17th, 2009

Glider challenge a Glowing success

Lorna Arbuckle

Comments: 1 Comment Tags:  : Categories Benefits, Curriculum for Excellence, Events, Glow Chat, Glow Groups, Local authorities, National Groups, Sciences, Uncategorized

The Glider Challenge Glow Meet took place on 15th December live from the Concorde hangar at the National Museum of Flight, East Fortune. The Glow Meet was run by the central Glow team in collaboration with the sciences and technologies team. Mr Cain’s Primary 6 class from Pencaitland Primary school were live at the Museum carrying out the challenge.

Earlier in the day they had been in the museum’s Fantastic Flight interactive gallery where they had explored a range of hands on exhibits to help them learn more about flight and the training needed to become a pilot.
Through Glow, 30 classes took part, with over 500 pupils and teachers taking part in the challenge. The Glow Meet kicked off with a representative from the museum presenting on the four forces of flight and then the classes were presented with the challenge and began drawing and discussing their ideas. At the Glow Meet and in classrooms around the country gliders were built, tested, adjusted and retested. One class managed to get their glider to fly 15 metres! Adam Love Rodgers, the programme and Learning Officer answered questions on Glow Chat as people carried the challenge.

The event was great fun and many classes had learnt about flight in the run up to the Glow Meet.

Resources and reflective questions are posted in the glider challenge tab on the national Glow science site; why not take a look? A photograph competition is being run where classes can send their photographs to Wendy French, [email protected] The best photograph will win a prize for the class and will be announced in January.

June 30th, 2009

How are others using Glow?

Lorna Arbuckle

Comments: Comments Off Tags:  : Categories Curriculum for Excellence, East Dunbartonshire, East Lothian, Events, Glow Chat, Glow Groups, Glow Meet, National Groups, Outdoor Learning, Pupils, Shetland Islands, West Lothian

Did you know that within the Sharing Practice page of the GlowScotland website, schools from across Scotland share their experiences of using Glow?

Log on and find out how pupils from across Scotland watched leading scientists perform a bird autopsy beamed live into their classrooms from the Scottish Seabird Centre; or how Burravoe Primary School in Shetland used Glow to keep in touch with pupils when bad weather closed the school.

Read about how schools in East Dunbartonshire are using Glow in a project to ease the transition to secondary school, and how James Young school took a phased approach to the roll out of Glow to benefit learning and teaching.

In addition, practitioners from across Scotland, working with children at different ages and stages, share their experiences of using Glow.

Why not log on and see if you can benefit from any of these ideas and stories ?

May 15th, 2009

Anthony Horowitz on Glow!

Katie Barrowman

Comments: Comments Off Tags: Tags: Anthony Horowitz, books, English, Events, Glow Chat, Glow Meet, Literacy, reading
 : Categories Events, Glow Chat, Glow Meet

This morning I was at a wonderfully exciting event, shared by thousands of children all across Scotland. The Scottish Book trust arranged for Anthony Horowitz, the best-selling author of the Alex Rider novels (among many, many more fantastic books) was broadcast live over the internet on streaming video and via Glow Meet. It’s estimated that up to 7000 fans around the country viewed the event, and hundreds then joined the Glow Chat afterwards.

Anthony took questions from the children from Uphall Primary and Canal View Primary, and also answered questions that had been submitted by schools in the weeks leading up to the event. He entertained everyone with his irreverent stories of evil grandmothers and detestable teachers - according to Anthony, every teacher he has ever had has appeared in one of his books, and he’s had them all meet a sticky end!

After his very enjoyable talk, Anthony joined children on Glow Meet, answering as many as he could of the thousands of questions that flowed in - so many, that the computer eventually gave up the ghost! Not to worry, though - Anthony will be blogging about the experience on his website, www.anthonyhorowitz.com, and you’ll be able to comment there and ask him the questions that didn’t get through.