Using Glow Chat for Quiz Team practice

Overview

Wilma Gordon is the ICT teacher at Mid Calder Primary in West Lothian.

As well as working with pupils to develop their ICT skills, Wilma is greatly involved in International education projects within the school and has used Glow in many ways to support this. One of the most innovative ways has been her use of Glow Chat to enable the school’s P6 Euro Quiz team to practise prior to competitions.

Context

Every year for the past three years, the Scottish European Educational Trust has run a national Euro Quiz for Primary 6 pupils, to help promote learning about European countries, their culture, history, geography, sporting interests, etc. In 2010 all 32 Local Authorities took part, with 400 schools and 1600 pupils participating.

Each Local Authority holds local heats, with the 32 winning teams then competing in the national final, held at the Scottish Parliament.

Mid Calder Euro Quiz Team 2010

This year, the P6 team from Mid Calder Primary won the West Lothian heats and will be representing the Authority in the final on 10th May. The team was made up of four boys – Ross, Lewis, Ben and Christopher.

As part of their preparation for the regional heats and also for the final itself, Wilma worked with the team to help them develop their knowledge of Europe and to assist them in practising answering questions from a range of topics. With parental agreement, Wilma chose to use Glow Chat for practice sessions, one evening per week.

The Glow Chat web part is in the P6B EU quiz Glow Group, and pupils were told in advance at what time the chat room would be open from. They were shown how to access the chat room and how to add a message to the chat room, taking to it with ease.

One of the rounds in the quiz is a ‘quick fire’ round, requiring pupils to be quick off the mark to ensure they are first to their buzzer. Wilma found a novel way of using Glow Chat to practice this: once she had entered a question, each of the four boys (who were in their own homes) had to try to be the first to enter their answer and have it displayed in the chat window, so simulating the ‘first to the buzzer’ scenario. Whoever’s answer appeared first was the winner (as long as it was correct!!!) The team was also able to use the Chat Room for more general quiz practice too.

Ingredients
What did Wilma need to do to set up the Chat Room and enable the team to have access to it?
• Have a Glow Group at school level
• Make the boys members of the Glow Group
• Add the Chat web part to the Glow Group
• Set up the chat room within the Glow Chat web part.

In the following videos we will look at the P6B Euro Quiz Glow Group to get an overview of it, then find out in subsequent videos how to include Glow Chat within a Glow Group and configure it to suit your needs.

Overview of the P6B Euro Quiz Glow Group (2:08)

How to add Glow Chat to a Glow Group and create a chat room (4:59)

How to set individual user permissions for Glow Chat (4:59)

Moderating a Glow Chat chatroom (3:00)

How to join and take part in a Glow Chat session (5:10)

 Accessing the transcript of a Glow Chat session (2:26)

Impact

Given that the Mid Calder team has reached the national final of the Euro Quiz, it would seem that the practice sessions they have held using Glow Chat have really paid off!

Wilma says that she has found it invaluable to have access to a safe and secure chat environment, rather than an ‘open’ one, as this helps her to promote the need for pupils to stay safe online, and so helps combine both her interest in International education with her role of ICT teacher. It has also given her a tool to enable her to communicate with pupils, and they with one another, outwith school hours in a completely safe way. The availability of the session transcripts has reassured all involved, including parents, that this is indeed a safe form of communication.

Pupils have really enjoyed the sessions on Glow Chat, and have found them a stimulating way to practise for the quiz. Comments on the discussion board from pupils in the P6B Euro Quiz Glow Group include:

“hi the page is really cool and i love the idea of our own glow group” – Ross

“glow chat is absolutely brilliant” – Lewis

Wilma and the team from Mid Calder hope that by the time you are reading this, they will have won the National final of the Euro quiz, and so the impact of using Glow Chat to practise will indeed have been fantastic!

Using Glow Chat for Quiz Team practice5.054