Northern Lights: an international project
Overview
Northern Lights is an expressive arts project involving schools in three local authorities in Scotland and partner schools in Norway and Russia.
In this cookbook Irene Pandolfi of North Lanarkshire Council and Ron Cowie of Stirling Council explain the background to the project and show examples of pupils’ work shared through the Northern Lights Glow Group.
In the Ingredients section you can find information about creating Glow guest accounts if you’re interested in setting up similar links with schools abroad.
Context
Irene and Ron were amongst a number of delegates who in 2009 participated in a study visit to Norway, organised through the Scottish Continuing International Professional Development (SCIPD) programme. The focus of their interest was a national initiative, the Cultural Rucksack, which gives all pupils in Norway access to professional arts and cultural activities in addition to the basic expressive arts curriculum.
As a result of the SCIPD visit, and the relationships established with Norwegian schools, Irene and Ron created the Northern Lights project. The projects links schools in North Lanarkshire, Perth and Kinross, and Stirling with partner schools in Norway and Russia.
The aims of the project are to develop pupils’ skills in expressive arts, in literacy and in peer assessment, and to encourage pupils to learn about and appreciate other cultures.
In order to encourage collaboration between all the partner schools, the Northern Lights Glow Group was established. Guest accounts were created for pupils and staff in the Norwegian and Russian schools to give them access to Glow.
Irene Pandolfi and Ron Cowie talk about the Northern Lights project
Organisation of the Northern Lights project
The Northern Lights Glow Group provides a welcome area, news updates about the project, and links to useful tools such as online translation facilities. A ‘Help for teachers’ page provides background information about the project, its aims, suggestions for learning and teaching activities, and guides to using Glow features, such as the discussion boards.
The group then contains a number of sub-groups, each named after heavenly bodies, such as Comets and Shooting Stars. Each of these sub-groups links a smaller number of partner schools across the local authorities and countries.
Christmas – Norwegian style. Click to enlarge.
In each of these sub-groups, staff and pupils have found a whole host of ways to communicate, discuss their culture, exhibit their work, and give feedback to one another. Pupils have used discussion boards extensively – to write simple introductions, messages and greetings, to give feedback and to write poetry. In the Documents area pupils have uploaded presentations, describing, for example, how they celebrate Christmas. This has led to interesting comparisons about the similarities and differences in traditions between the countries.
Art from nature. Click to enlarge.
Pupils undertook an ‘art from nature’ activity, creating images using materials from the environment. Photographs of the images have been uploaded into the Documents area and shared with the partner schools. Other schools have created video clips, such as short dramas, and audio broadcasts, all also uploaded to the group and shared with an audience across three countries. Pupils have been very motivated by having their work seen and reviewed by a far wider audience than it might typically receive.
Some schools have also used Glow Meet to communicate with their partner schools, adding a whole new dimension to the opportunities to practise literacy skills, share work with an audience and learn about different cultures. Glow Meet is an area that many of the schools are keen to pursue further as the project develops.
Irene and Ron describe the project as having been ‘free-flowing’ and ‘growing arms and legs’ this year. Each school has taken the original idea, developed their own areas of interest and been creative – which indeed was the central aim of the project!
Ingredients
The Northern Lights Glow Group was created on the National Site in Glow. This was to ensure that all staff and pupils in the Scottish schools would be able to see the Group listed on their ‘My Glow Groups’ page. (This would not be the case if, for the example, the Group had been created on the North Lanarkshire site, in which case only the NLC schools would see it on their ‘My Glow Groups’ page.)
If you are interested in running a project which involves schools across a number of authorities, then a suitable Glow Group can be created on the National Site for you. Contact the Glow Admin team (glowadmin@ltscotland.org.uk).
In order to give access to Glow to the pupils in schools in Norway and Russia, guest accounts were created. Such accounts can be created by the Accounts and Services Manager (ASM) for your school or local authority. If you are interested in using Glow to communicate with a school abroad, check with your school’s ASM to see if there is a policy about guest accounts already in place. If not, talk to your authority’s Glow Key Contact who will be able to give you further advice. A list of the Key Contacts is available on the GlowScotland website.
Three documents about guest accounts have been created by Learning and Teaching Scotland and are attached here. Schools and local authorities may wish to use these for reference and adapt them as appropriate: Glow Guest User Account conditions of issue, Glow guest user AUP, Guest Account Application Form.
Recipe
The ‘How-to’ clips below show how to replicate some of the features used in the Northern Lights Glow Group and its sub-groups.
* How to add, rename or remove pages
* How to post messages on a discussion board
* How to change the display of the Discussions web part
* How to use Text Editor to display a set of world clocks
Impact
Feedback from Norway. Click to enlarge.
Feedback from the schools involved in the project has been very positive, with all keen to continue it into the new session (2010/11). The key benefits have been inclusion: large numbers of pupils in three local authorities and two other countries have been able to access and contribute to the same project; pupils from the traveller community have participated and pupils who may be otherwise been disengaged from learning have also been enthusiastically involved.
The project has developed Scottish pupils’ expressive arts and literacy skills and motivated a desire to learn about their own culture and to share it with others. Norwegian and Russian pupils have benefited tremendously through engagement in the project, developing their English language skills, and the opportunity has been much valued by schools and parents.
The impact of the Northern Lights project
Future plans for the Northern Lights project
