Bringing the Katie Morag stories to life using Glow Meet

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

‘What’s it really like living on an island?’ That was the question being asked by the Primary 1 pupils in Bannockburn Primary after reading some of Mairi Hedderwick’s ‘Katie Morag’ stories. To help answer that question, one of the school’s Primary 1 teachers, Jenny Shineton, decided to use Glow Meet to enable the pupils to speak to children who do live on an island.

Context

Bannockburn Primary is a fairly large school, with a roll of approximately 400 pupils. This session, there are three Primary 1 classes, taught by Jenny Shineton, Theresa Dandie and Claire Baillie. The teachers work closely together to plan rich learning experiences for their pupils.

© Mairi Hedderwick published by Red Fox Used by permission of The Random House Group Ltd

Part of this session’s learning was based around pupils’ engaging with the Katie Morag Stories, “Katie Morag delivers the mail”, “Katie Morag and the two grannies”, ‘Katie Morag and the Big Boy Cousins’, ‘Katie Morag and Tiresome Ted’ and “Katie Morag and the wedding”.

 A wide range of rich, engaging, cross-curricular learning activities were undertaken using the content of these stories as a stimulus.

© Mairi Hedderwick published by Red Fox. Used by permission of The Random House Group Ltd

As part of the language work being explored, pupils looked at and talked about photographs of islands, including Coll, the island that was once home to Katie Morag author Mairi Hedderwick and the inspiration for the stories. The children were asked to discuss what it might be like to live on an island, such as Struay – home to Katie Morag – and to compare this with living in Bannockburn.

It was this exercise that inspired Jenny to make enquiries about making contact with pupils who actually live on an island, to really bring the topic to life.

Hear P1 teacher Claire Baillie explain why they decided to do this (0:15)

Through making enquiries with the National Glow Team, Bannockburn was put in touch with Eigg Primary School. Eigg is one of the small isles, lying off the coast of the West Highlands. It is about 160 miles away from Bannockburn.

The Headteacher of Eigg Primary school is Hilda Ibrahim. Hilda was introduced to Glow as part of Highland’s pilot with the Mallaig ASG, and she was keen to explore its potential and the added experiences it could bring to her pupils. She was therefore delighted to be able to collaborate with Bannockburn.

Preparation and Planning
Initial contact was made and the schools corresponded by email to make arrangements. A Glow Group was created at Stirling’s Local Authority level. As well as the Bannockburn teachers being given membership, the teachers on Eigg were added as members and then sent the URL of the Group, since they did not have automatic sight of it, not being part of Stirling Council. The link to the Glow Group was then added as a web link on Eigg’s Glow school site for ease of access.

In preparation for the link-up, Bannockburn held a practice Glow Meet between two classes in the school. This allowed them to add the Glow Meet web part to the Glow Group and practise using the Glow Meet shared whiteboard. Eigg, being remotely located, had already made great use of Glow Meet as a means of communication with other schools in their ASG.

The Glow Meets
After the arrangements had been made, the first Glow Meet then took place. The sixty pupils from Bannockburn’s three Primary 1 classes were excitedly sitting in one classroom in the busy central belt. All of the pupils from Eigg Primary school sat in the classroom in their school, on the peaceful west coast island.

‘How many is all pupils?’, you ask – just nine! Those nine pupils range from P2 to P7, and although they were linking with Primary 1’s, Hilda was keen to have all pupils on Eigg sharing in the experience.

The first session was mainly used to introduce the pupils to Glow Meet and to make use of the shared whiteboard, which they wrote on. There were a few issues with sound feedback, but this was overcome by each school only switching on their microphone when it was their turn to speak.

The second Glow Meet was more structured. The P1 pupils in Bannockburn had discussed and planned the questions they wanted to ask ahead of time and took turns to come up to the webcam and microphone. Each pupil began by telling the Eigg pupils how things were for them, then asked how it was in Eigg. For example, they would say things like, “We walk to school or come by car. How do you get to school?” The pupils on Eigg would then respond.

Theresa Dandie, one of the Bannockburn teachers remarked that her pupils were amazed to hear about what life is really like on an island. They were surprised by the differences between their school and Eigg Primary. Hearing, for example, that Eigg Primary school does not have a dining hall, was a revelation!

Curricular outcomes
Alongside the many other experiences and outcomes that the pupils in Bannockburn were able to engage with as part of the Katie Morag topic work, preparing for and using Glow Meet allowed the pupils to take part in learning activities to support the following Early Level experiences and outcomes:

Literacy and English
LIT 0-01c I enjoy exploring events and characters in stories and other texts, sharing my thoughts in different ways.
LIT 0-02a/ENG 0-03a As I listen and talk in different situations, I am learning to take turns and am developing my awareness of when to talk and when to listen.
LIT 0-04a I listen or watch for useful or interesting information and I use this to make choices or learn new things.
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 with what I already know.
LIT 0-09b/LIT 0-31a I enjoy exploring events and characters in stories and other texts and I use what I learn to invent my own, sharing these with others in imaginative ways.
LIT 0-19a I enjoy exploring events and characters in stories and other texts, sharing my thoughts in different ways.

Technologies:
TCH 0-01a I enjoy playing with and exploring technologies to discover what they can do and how they can help us
TCH 0-04a I enjoy exploring and using technologies to communicate with others within and beyond my place of learning.
TCH 0-04b I enjoy taking photographs or recording sound and images to represent my experiences and the world around me.

IngredientsWhat did the teachers in Bannockburn Primary School need to do to set up and take part in the Glow Meet with Eigg Primary school?
• Have a Glow Group where teachers from both schools were members
• Send the URL of the Glow Group to Eigg
• Add the Glow Meet web part to the Glow Group
• Have a web cam, microphone and speakers for the Glow Meet sessions

In the first video below we will hear from the Headteacher from Eigg talking about the Glow Meets, then find out in the rest of the videos how to replicate these elements.

Eigg Headteacher Hilda Ibrahim talks about the Glow Meet link (1:35)

Now Learn how to do it yourself in the following videos:

How to make people from two schools members of a Glow Group (6:57)

How to set up a Glow Meet in a Glow Group (5:36)

How to join and take part in a Glow Meet (3:38)

How to use the video, audio and chat facility within a Glow Meet meeting room (6:19)

How to use the shared whiteboard in a Glow Meet meeting room (8:25)

How to record a Glow Meet (2:09)

How to play back a previously recorded Glow Meet (3:22)

Impact

For the P1 pupils in Bannockburn, linking up with the pupils on Eigg has really brought relevance to their learning. What started off as a story, became alive, by being able to ask questions of people who could tell them first hand what island life is really like.

Using Glow Meet has given pupils in both Bannockburn and Eigg the opportunity to speak to people that they would otherwise never get to see or talk to, opening up their learning opportunities.

The Glow Meets had a really positive  impact on pupils’ talking and listening skills. The P1 pupils really had to think about what the wanted to ask the children on Eigg and gained great confidence from speaking to an audience.

Claire Baillie tells us about the impact she feels the Glow Meets had for he children (0:25)

For the teachers involved, a great deal was gained from the experience too.

Theresa Dandie admitted that she knew almost nothing about Glow before Jenny Shineton proposed the Glow Meets. Having taken part, Theresa says that she feels far more confident in using Glow now and can see a lot of potential for using it as part of her learning and teaching. She tells us why she enjoyed using Glow in this video clip:
Theresa Dandie – Why I like Glow (0:07)

On Eigg, the impact of not only this Glow Meet, but Glow Meet in general has been enormous. It has opened up a whole new world to the pupils, who normally only have a very small community of people to interact with. Using Glow Meet has enabled them to link up with Bannockburn and other schools in the Mallaig ASG.

Using Glow Meet has enhanced the learning experiences of all of the pupils involved in this collaboration.

Interested in doing something similar and need a school to link with?
Why not head to the Collaborative Projects National Glow Group and start to make some connections!

Bringing the Katie Morag stories to life using Glow Meet3.554