Supporting Int 2 Biology: Part 3 – Using Videos as a memory aid

Overview

Keith Varty teaches Biology at St Margaret’s Academy in Livingston, West Lothian. He is just approaching the end of his first year of teaching. Despite having had to find his feet as a new teacher, he has taken on the responsibility for creating a Glow Group to support pupils studying Intermediate 2 Biology.

In this series of cookbooks, we will look in detail at the content of the Intermediate 2 Biology Glow Group. In each part, there will be a general introductory overview of the Group. Each cookbook will then focus in on a different element, finding out how this has been used to support pupils studying Int2 Biology then learning how this could be replicated. The cookbook will be split into three parts:

Part 1 – Multiple Document stores
Part 2 – Weblinks and Page Viewer
Part 3 – Using Videos as a memory aid

If you have already read Part 1 or Part 2 of the series, you may wish to move on to the cookbook focus section of this one, as the initial context section is the same as in previous parts (for the benefit of those who have not yet read parts 1 or 2)

Context

Keith was introduced to Glow at the start of the session and was immediately taken with the potential it offered. Keen to embrace this as a way of supporting pupils, he decided to set up a Glow Group that would be accessible to all pupils studying Int2 Biology in the school, not only those in his own class.

Keith has worked extremely hard to make the Glow Group what it currently is – engaging, informative and useful.

There are seven pages in the Group, with a range of web parts on each.

Noticeboard Page:

The News web part is used to keep pupils informed about new resources being added to the Glow Group and give information on events relevant to Int 2 biology, such revision class details.

There is a What’s On web part on the page, which has been renamed as Deadlines
This has been used to advise each of the classes of the dates of upcoming ‘NAB’ assessments, prelim dates and revision sessions. This has helped pupils to plan their studies more effectively by having advanced warning of the dates and being able to organise their studying accordingly.

Keith talks us through the Noticeboard page in the following video:

Keith Varty: Noticeboard Page (2:31)

Cookbook Focus: Using Videos as a memory aid

Keith has been keen to engage pupils by using a range of different types of learning resource within the Glow Group.

One way he has done this is to embed videos from YouTube into the text editor web part.

The page in the Glow Group where the videos are embedded currently has six videos to view. These have been chosen as they show people carrying out experiments that the pupils themselves have done in class. The videos are therefore a great way of reminding pupils of this. They also allow pupils who were absent when the experiments were done in class, to still see them being carried out.

Next session, Keith plans to video the pupils when they carry out the experiments, then add these to the Glow Group. He talks about this is the following video clip:

Keith Varty: Videos page (1:01)

Ingredients

Keith initially had to create a Glow Group at school level and make all staff teaching Biology and all pupils studying it, members of the Group. The pupils have contributor permissions to the Group to enable them to take part in Discussions, upload documents and respond to surveys.

Keith added and renamed the pages of the Glow Group to suit his purpose and make the Group easy for pupils to navigate around.

In order to embed the videos, Keith had to add a Text Editor web part for each video clip, then paste the video’s embed code from YouTube into the web part.

In part 1 of this cookbook series, there are videos explaining how to create a Glow Group, add members, and add and rename pages. There is also a video explaining how to create multiple document stores within a Glow Group. In part 2, you can find out how to add web links with the notes field displayed and also how to use the Page Viewer web part.

The following video explains how to embed a YouTube video into the Text Editor web part in a Glow Group :

How to embed a YouTube video into the Text Editor web part (3:47)

Other features of the Intermediate 2 Biology Glow Group

As well as the pages already mentioned, there are a further five pages in the Group. Three of these have been explored in more detail in Part 1 of this cookbook series, and two are the focus of Part 2. However, you can see Keith discuss the content of these five pages in the following videos, to give you a complete picture of the entire Glow Group:

Keith Varty: Homework Help Page (1:29)

Keith Varty: Current Class Topic Page (0:38)

Keith Varty: Archive Page for previous topics (1:47)

Keith Varty: Exam Help Page (1:42)

Keith Varty: Web links page (0:43)

Impact

The Intermediate 2 Biology Glow Group has brought many benefits to the pupils in St Margaret’s Academy.

For the pupils, they now have a ‘one-stop-shop’ for all of their Biology resources, notes, homework exercises and exam revision materials. This gives them access both at home and at school to everything they might need when going over classwork, doing homework or studying for assessments.

They have a Discussion Board within the Group which gives them a place for asking questions and getting support, both from their own teacher, other teachers in the Department, or from other pupils, so widening their range of help sources.

Supporting Int 2 Biology: Part 3 – Using Videos as a memory aid5.051