Primary 1 Literacy – Julia Donaldson Books – Pupil Work
Please note that this cookbook refers to Glow Meet using Marratech. Glow Meet is now delivered over Adobe Connect which offers enhanced functionality. To find out more about Glow Meet using Adobe Connect click here. The principles around the benefits of Glow Meet are the same regardless of the technology used for Glow Meet.
Overview
Chatting about a message for the discussion board
P1 pupils in 5 schools in 3 local authorities started using Glow to facilitate a book project on the subject of Julia Donaldson books. Initially St James’s Primary school in Paisley, Renfrewshire, had wanted to undertake a literacy project and thought Glow would be an interesting way to open this up and make links with other schools at the same time. Athelstaneford Primary school in East Lothian was also interested in taking this forward. Through the teachers collaborating within the national Collaborative Projects group within Glow, schools in Renfrewshire, East Lothian and East Dunbartonshire decided to work together over a period of 6 weeks. Although there are many aspects we could focus on for this group, in this Cookbook we will learn what was involved in bring a Picture Library web part onto the page and configuring the settings of this to allow pupil work to be shared across the schools. There was much pupil work that came as a spin-off from the project which wasn’t expected by the teachers involved. In other Cookbooks on this project additional aspects will be investigated.
Although the group was developed as the project continued for the teachers involved, a similar project could be done with very little customisation of a Glow group and very little information added. Throughout this Cookbook we will concentrate on the simple usage of the group for the purposes of making use of the Picture Library web part, although there are obviously options for further development which were taken within this particular group.
Context
Gruffalo Masks at St James's
Anne Louise Nicholson had originally wanted to work on a literacy project with P1 which could have a different dimension from other projects, she wanted to be able to extend outside of the classroom. Having used Glow for groups within the whole school previously this seemed like the logical next step. Through participation in the National Collaborative Projects group Ms Nicholson had made contact with Lynne Lewis from Athelstaneford Primary in East Lothian who was keen to take this forward with her.
The project was expanded by Anne Louise Nicholson and Lynne Lewis to other schools from East Lothian, Sarah Boyd at Longniddry Primary and Emma Kerr at Pencaitland Primary and also Laura Kerr at Lairdsland Primary in East Dunbartonshire. Eventually the project comprised of 5 different P1 classes across 3 different local authorities. Within the main, each class used only a teacher machine with web cam/microphone and speakers, although St James’s (Paisley) in Renfrewshire arranged for the pupils to use computers individually to contribute to Discussion Boards and to upload their work to be shared. Ms Nicholson at St James’s took the responsibility of setting up the Glow Group with the required web parts.
Naomi's work from the Picture Library
In the main regular web conferencing, or Glow Meet sessions were held with all schools participating. Each of these was led by a different school and the teachers had planned what the content and context of each session would be. All of this was building towards the final Glow Meet session where the schools would join with the author Julia Donaldson. Over a period of a number of weeks pupils were motivated to undertake work outside of the Glow Meet sessions to share with other pupils. Anne Louise Nicholson was surprised by how eager they were to share their work with the other pupils. In this Cookbook we will look at the way an additional page in the group was used to allow the pupil work to be shared with all the schools. The whole project had already taken place when we spoke to the teachers which allowed us to have a complete view of how the entire project had gone and its impact on the pupils and teachers involved. We will concentrate on St James’s (Paisley) in Renfrewshire for illustration in this Cookbook.
In discussion with Ms Nicholson we learned that the project had set out to address many experiences and outcomes from Curriculum for Excellence but we have selected a few of these pertinent to our concentration on using the Picture Library web part to share work:
Experiences – Listening and Talking
• LIT 0-01b– I enjoy exploring and choosing stories and other texts to watch, read and listen to, and can share my likes and dislikes.
• LIT 0-01c – I enjoy exploring events and characters in stories and other texts, sharing my thoughts in different ways.
• LIT 0-04a – I listen or watch for useful or interesting information and I use this to make choices or learn new things.
Experiences – Reading
• LIT 0-07a / LIT 0-16a / ENG 0-17a– To help me understand stories and other texts, I ask questions and link what I am learning to what I already know.
Ingredients
• 5 P1 classes
• Each teacher needed a computer with an internet connection
• Each teacher needed a Glow username and password
• Membership of the National level group which had been set up for the project
• Screen to project onto to enable whole class to see for web conference sessions
• New page added to Glow Group
• Picture Library web part added to the page
• New document web part created and added to the page
• Julia Donaldson books for each class
• Several Glow Meet or web conferencing sessions with all the schools involved
• Participation from the author Julia Donaldson for the last session
• Planning documents for the project shared and agreed on by each teacher
In the next sections, we’ll learn how to recreate the elements of the Glow group that the teachers used for the project. In particular, we’ll find out how to add a new page to a group, add a Picture Library web part and configure this and also how to create and add a new document library to the page. Each video lasts for around 2 minutes and you can choose which section to watch at any time.
Recipe
The Other Work page of the Glow Group
The videos begin by quickly showing the Glow Group with the additional page for “Other Work” added and then develop into explaining how a page can be added to a Glow Group and then move through adding a text editor web part for information and then adding the Picture Library web part and changing the settings of this to allow comments to be displayed. We will then look at creating a new documents web part and adding this to the page to provide a different way for pupils to upload and share their work.
Videos
The finished Other Work page (2:20)
Adding the Other Work page to the group (1:43)
Adding a text editor web part and adding information and instructions (3:28)
Adding the Picture Library web part and changing the settings to allow description and comments (9:55)
Creating a new document web part and adding this to the page (3:20)
Impact
The videos finish with a longer tour through the Glow Group and an interview with Anne Louise Nicholson on how the project came about, why they needed a page for “Other Work” and how they used this. Anne Louise explains that her pupils were very motivated to work on activities outside of the actual Glow Meet sessions taking place. They were very motivated by the thought of an external audience and this led them to concentrate more fully on the content, the presentation and layout of their work.
Videos
Tour through the finished Glow Group (8:35)
Interview with Anne Louise Nicholson on unexpected pupil work (1:44)
Additional Interview with Ann Louise on unexpected pupil work (2:20)
Interview with Anne Louise Nicholson about how the project began (2:10)
Morgan's finger spaces in the Picture Library
Further information on using the Picture Library web part can be found in a number of places: searching on Glow Help at the bottom of every page will bring you information; clicking the Learning about Glow link on the left-hand navigation bar will take you to a menu where you will be able to access a Glow training guide on Glow Groups which contains a section on this web part.
