National Collaborative working on The Unsinkable Ship

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 then click here.  The principles around the benefits of Glow Meet are the same regardless of the technology used for Glow Meet.

Overview
Geraldine Shearer, Principal Teacher of Cathedral Primary in Motherwell, North Lanarkshire was studying the topic, The Unsinkable Ship with Primary 4 and 5 and she wanted to work collaboratively with other teachers in order to share ideas and resources and allow the learners to work together across the country. Geraldine created a National Group to share the work she was doing nationally and to work in partnership with teachers across Scotland who were also studying this project.
In this cookbook we will  look at how Geraldine achieved this and the work she completed with the Primary 4 and 5 stages.

Context
Geraldine was one of first mentors trained in North Lanarkshire in January 2009 and straight away was keen to use Glow to support the teaching of the V.I.B Joyning the Learning Project by Learning Unlimited. She then used the topic The Unsinkable ship based on the sinking of the Titanic with the primary 4 and 5 stages and used Glow as a way of archiving the work she was doing with her pupils and sharing ideas with other practitioners. The site is now used regularly by other teachers and resources are being added to it from across Scotland so that teachers can support each other.

Click on the video below to see a tour of the group and the work that was completed.
*The Unsinkable Ship Glow Group

Ingredients
What did Geraldine need to get going?

1. A Glow Username and Password

Recipe

Geraldine navigated her way to the National site and browsed the Glow Groups until she found the Staffroom Glow Group. In there she noticed that there was a Collaborative Group. At a glance Geraldine could see that lots of teachers from across Scotland were leaving messages and looking to collaborate with one another. Geraldine had used this group to share her work on the VIB topic and was keen to do the same as this had been very beneficial.

Geraldine created the group and used it as a place to store information such as resources and photographs of displays she had created. Through setting up a discussion group within the Glow Group she made links with St. James’ PS in Paisley, Renfrewshire, who were also about to start the topic. The children regularly used the Glow Meet component she had added to share the work they had developed and work collaboratively with each other. Together both schools planned a set of four group lessons and the children worked on one each week, rotating the groups so that each child had the opportunity to study each task. The work was shared between the two schools using Glow Meet.

Look at the videos below to see how to re-create the Glow components Geraldine used.
*How to add pages to a Glow Group

*How to change the title of pages in a Glow Group

*How to add Glow Meet to a Glow Group

*How to find the National Collaborative Glow Group

Impact

The Primary 4 and 5 pupils from both schools held regular class Glow Meets and shared Whiteboard documents, updating each other on their progress on the topic.
The pupils got to ask questions of each other and peer assess their work.
The teachers also benefited from each others experience of the topic and were able to share ideas and thoughts when planning lessons.
Geraldine has also found that this term while studying World War II she was able to use the search facility within Glow and find work someone else had created and use it as a starting point in her planning.

*Click on the video below to hear Geraldine describing the process of using Glow and the benefits Glow brought to her class topic.

Curriculum for Excellence Outcomes experienced

*I can use primary and secondary sources selectively to research events in the past. SOC 2-01a

*I can compare and contrast a society in the past with my own and contribute to a discussion of the similarities and differences.  SOC 2-04a

*I can discuss why people and events from a particular time in the past were important, placing them within a historical sequence.SOC 2-06a

*To extend my mental map and sense of place, I can interpret information from different types of maps and am beginning to locate key features within Scotland, UK, Europe or the wider world. SOC 2-14a

National Collaborative working on The Unsinkable Ship4.552