An Award-Winning Glow Blog!
Overview
Malcolm Wilson is an ICT Development Officer with Falkirk Council. Part of his role is to support Primary Schools in their use of ICT. Last year, Malcolm decided to use the then new Glow Blogs to create a blog as one of his support tools for Primary Schools. The blog, called ‘ICT for learning and teaching in Falkirk Primary Schools’, recently won 3rd Prize in the 2011 UK Education Blog Awards in the Most influential Blog of the Year category.
Context
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Malcolm’s blog contains a wealth of useful information, hints and tips, to help enhance the use of ICT within the classroom. Although the blog is primarily aimed at Primary teachers, its content is most definitely applicable to all sectors.
In the following videos, Malcolm gives us a tour of the blog, highlighting some of the key features:
Tour of Malcolm’s Blog Part 1 (3:19)
Tour of Malcolm’s Blog Part 2 (3:26)
Tour of Malcolm’s Blog Part 3 (2:33)
Tour of Malcolm’s Blog Part 4 (2:21)
The blog is a public blog, so is open to anyone interested in reading it. You can access it by clicking this link :
‘ICT for learning and teaching in Falkirk Primary Schools’
(Note: If you click on the link, you may be asked to log in to Glow. To view the blog without logging in, right click on the link, select ‘copy shortcut’, then paste it into a new browser tab/window. This also applies to other links to the blog within this cookbook)
Supporting particular areas of the curriculum – focus on Literacy
Malcolm has uncovered a fantastic range tools to help support teachers and learners within the classroom and has written individual blog posts on each. He categorises and tags each post, to make it easy for readers of the blog to find specific articles they are looking for. For example, he has categories for Animation, ASN, Databases, Early Years, Glow, Literacy, Music, etc to name but a few.
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So, for example, if a reader is interested in learning about how ICT can be used to support literacy within the classroom, they can select the Literacy category to view all the posts within it.
Here, readers can learn how to use “Word Talk” , a tool which reads out any written text and has the option to then turn it into an mp3 file. This is a great way to support literacy for children with visual impairment, or for those who simply require additional support when reading.
Also posted is information about “Breaking News English” a resource which takes current news stories and provides teaching and learning activities to support them. Defintely worth a look.
Tools for collaborative writing are discussed in the blog. Free online tools such as ‘Titan Pad’ and ‘Primary Pad’ are explored, with their pros and cons highlighted. These tools provide an online space for collaborative writing in real time. The output of the collaboration can be exported and saved (for example to a Word document) and stored as evidence. There are also other interesting features, such as the ability to play back the whole collaborative process to see and discuss how it developed. Click the link to read more in Malcolm’s post about the collaborative writing tools.
One of the most versatile tools shared by Malcolm in the Literacy category is ‘Lingro’ . In its simplest form, Lingro is an online dictionary, but in fact, it is far more than that.
Lingro adds a toolbar to a website the user selects, so enabling any word on that site to be clicked on and a definition of the word given. For many of the words clicked on, there is also an audio feature which reads out the word to aid pronunciation. Amongst other things, Lingro includes a translation tool and also literacy games linked to the words clicked on on the website. Malcolm explains more in the following video:
Malcolm looks at ‘Lingro’ (4:10)
Click on the link to browse all of the posts in the Literacy Category to learn about other tools which can be used to support Literacy in the classroom.
Ingredients
In order to have the blog in its current format, Malcolm had to do the following:
- Create a Glow Blog in a Glow Group
- Make the blog public so that anyone worldwide could view it
- Add the widgets he wanted
- Categorise and tag his posts appropriately to enable readers to find things easily
In the following ‘how to’ videos, you can learn how to replicate some of this for yourself.
How to create a Glow Blog (6:12)
How to add basic widgets to a blog (2:21)
How to customise the image in the blog header (2:27)
How to write a post in a blog (4:55)
How to categorise and tag a post (6:26)
How to add an image to a blog post (8:38)
Impact
Malcolm’s blog has had tremendous impact, not only within Falkirk, but across Scotland, the UK and indeed the rest of the world. This is verified by the traffic statistics displayed in the widgets on the blog.
Comments left on the blog posts confirm that readers of the blog find it very useful and the fact that everything is easily accessible, searchable and retrievable in one place is a big plus. One comment said:
“This is the best education blog I have ever seen. You are to be commended for your comprehensive and tireless efforts. Bravo!” Conor Cusack
Of course, winning 3rd place in the UK Education Blog Awards emphasises how influential and highly regarded Malcolm’s Glow blog is!