Maximising time and resources: using Glow Meet for Local Authority Meetings
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
Like all Local Authorities, Falkirk Council is always keen to find ways to maximise its resources and enable staff to make the most of their time. Recently Stuart Lennie, one of Falkirk’s ICT Curriculum Development Officers, made an extremely effective contribution towards these things, using Glow.
Context
One element of Stuart’s role is to bring together the ICT co-ordinators for the Authority’s 8 Secondary schools. As part of this remit, Stuart arranges quarterly meetings for the co-ordinators to enable them to share ideas and keep up to date with new initiatives, policies and resources. More often than not, the meetings have not been well attended by the co-ordinators, although not through a lack of willingness. Some have been unable to attend due to conflicting appointments whilst others have been unable to get out of school due to lack of availability of class cover. This has made it harder for Stuart to keep all schools equally up to date.
With schools facing increasing demands in staffing and budgets, Stuart felt that this problem would only be likely to worsen and so decided to use Glow as a way to try to combat the issues facing staff trying to get out of school for the ICT Co-ordinator meetings.
Stuart decided to hold the group’s most recent meeting via Glow Meet. He explains why in the following video clip:
Stuart Lennie: Why we held the meeting via using Glow Meet (1:16)
Stuart emailed the Co-ordinators to tell them the date and time of the meeting, then one week prior to it he uploaded the meeting agenda, minute and other documents to be discussed, into the Secondary ICT Co-ordinators Glow Group. This enabled all 8 Co-ordinators to have access to them ahead of time.
Stuart tells us about this:
Stuart Lennie: Using the Glow Group to share meeting documents (0:18)
For the meeting itself, each teacher remained in their own school and joined the meeting via the Glow Meet web part within the same Glow Group, using their web cams. They were able to take part in the meeting as normal, talk with one another, share information and view the documents being discussed, as Stuart uploaded these to the shared whiteboard within the Glow Meet meeting room.
Stuart recorded the Glow Meet session.
He then embedded it into a Text Editor web part within the Glow Group, making it accessible to all members. This served two purposes: It was still not possible for all 8 coordinators to attend the meeting, despite it taking place online. Those not present no longer have to rely on the summarised minute to know learn about what took place during the meeting, they can watch the entire meeting at a time convenient to them and see the full content. Also, there is a full, permanent record of what was discussed, avoiding any doubt or misunderstanding.
Stuart talks about recording the Glow Meets in the following video:
Stuart Lennie: Recording the Glow Meet sessions (0:35)
Ingredients
Stuart did not need much to be able to hold the virtual meeting.
He needed:
- A Glow Group at Local Authority level to enable teachers from all eight schools to easily access it
- To make all of the ICT Co-ordinators members of the Glow Group.
- Document stores to host the agenda, minutes and other documents
- To add the Glow Meet web part to the Glow Group and create a meeting room
- A web cam, microphone and speakers/headphones. The other people attending the meeting also required these.
Recipe
Let’s have a brief look first of all at the Glow Group where the Glow Meet was held for the Falkirk ICT co-ordinators:
Falkirk Secondary ICT co-ordinators Support Glow Group tour (4:32)
In the following videos we will find out how to replicate some of the elements listed above.
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)
How to embed a video hosted online into the Text Editor web part (14:08)
How to create a new Document Store (5:36)
Impact
Stuart feels that there are great advantages to holding meetings via Glow Meet.
He talks about these in the following video:
Stuart Lennie: Advantages of holding meetings via Glow Meet (0:56)
Feedback from those participating in the meetings has also been very positive and this has encouraged Stuart to hold future meetings virtually. He talks about this:
Stuart Lennie: Feedback from meeting attendees (0:27)
In fact, it seems to be so advantageous that Stuart is now working with others within Falkirk Council to find out how they too might benefit from using Glow Meet for their meetings and how it may help maximise resources:
Stuart Lennie: Next steps (0:21)
In all, using Glow Meet for the Secondary ICT Co-ordinator meetings has been and extremely positive experience and one which has delivered many benefits. Time and money have been saved by cutting out the need for travel; cover requirements have been reduced as there has been no need to cover anything other than the duration of the meeting (no travel time to be covered); paper (and therefore money) is being saved as there is less need to print out copies of minutes, agendas and documents; no catering has had to be supplied, again saving money.
Staff, who were previously not able, have been able to attend the meetings – even if just for part – as they do not need to travel. One of the ICT Co-ordinators was previously unable to attend due to having other meetings immediately before and after the ICT meeting, meaning he could not travel to Stuart’s meeting. He can now join via Glow Meet and take part, whilst still attending his other meetings. Another teacher commented that it was extremely advantageous to be able to start her class at the beginning of the period, which she was unable to do previously when she had to be out of school to attend the meeting.
Stuart hopes that these and other benefits can be extended to other areas of the Local Authority’s Education Department too.