In June 2011, two of East Renfrewshire’s clusters worked with their pupils to create e-portfolios using Glow Blogs. This involved Eastwood High School, St Ninian’s High School and their associated primary schools. At the start of the 2011-12 academic session, the other five Secondary clusters did the same. Part 1 of this cookbook covers the background to this and the set up process for the e-portfolios.

Here in part 2, we focus on the use of the e-portfolios and the plans that one school has for this.

Context

The schools in East Renfrewshire are using e-portfolios as part of their adoption of the recommendations in Building the Curriculum 5, and whilst every school in the local authority is following the same basic adoption principles, each school has its own specific plans for implementation and use. This cookbook highlights the plans of one of these schools.

Crookfur Primary School

Crookfur Primary is one of the schools in the Eastwood High cluster.

Gillian Graham is Depute Headteacher in Crookfur and has responsibility for implementing the e-portfolios. Supported by the National Glow Team, the school created e-portfolios with all of their Primary 6 and Primary 7 classes. Building on this, Gillian then worked with the Primary 5 classes to do the same.

Gillian has been taking part in the Education Scotland pilot group for Pupil Profiles and when introduced to the e-portfolios, immediately saw a way to link them with the pupil profiles.

Working with staff and Headteacher Fiona Loudon, Gillian developed the format of the profile document that the P7 pupils in Crookfur Primary will complete. This document will contain the pupil’s reflections on their learning, their progress through the curricular areas, information on achievements across learning plus a section for parental comment on their child’s progress.

In ICT time, pupils add information to their e-portfolios about their weekly achievements, to build a permanent record throughout the year. This will be used at the end of the year to help pupils complete their profiles. These will then be attached to their e-portfolios.

Staff can access each pupil’s e-portfolio and comment on the posts that pupils write and parents can view the e-portfolios when their child logs in to Glow at home to show them.

In the following audio clips, Gillian Graham explains Crookfur Primary’s plans for use the e-portfolios:

Use of e-portfolios and Pupil Profiles (0:51)
Gillian Graham: Pupil Profiles

 In the following video, we’ll look at one pupil’s e-portfolio and how they have included their pupil profile in it.

Pupil profile in their e-portfolio (8:10)
e-portfolios in East Renfrewshire – Part 2

You can also view a sample of the pupil profile document being used in Crookfur Primary in the following attachment:  You can also view a sample of the pupil profile document being used in Crookfur Primary in the following attachment:    Pupil’s primary 7 Profile

Ingredients

In order for pupils to be able to attach their profile to their e-portfolio, they first had to learn how to add content to their blog. The Crookfur pupils learned the same things as the pupils in all of the East Renfrewshire schools.

This included:

-          Adding information about themselves on the blog’s welcome page

-          Learning how to use the Blog Dashboard to write a post and edit it

-          Finding out how to categorise and tag a post

-          Learning how to attach documents and images to blog post

Pupils were also shown how teachers can comment on posts and how they can then read those comments and reply.
 

Recipe

Learn in the following videos how to do the things listed above:

How to set up the ‘All about me’ welcome page (8:48)
e-portfolios in East Renfrewshire – Part 2
How to use the blog dashboard to write a post, categorise and tag it (9:54)
e-portfolios in East Renfrewshire – Part 2
How to attach a document to a post (6:10)
e-portfolios in East Renfrewshire – Part 2
How to add an image to a post (8:38)
e-portfolios in East Renfrewshire – Part 2
How teachers access a pupil’s e-portfolio and add comments to it (7:11)
e-portfolios in East Renfrewshire – Part 2
 

One additional thing which pupils did, to give ease of access to their e-portfolio, was to create a button on their Glow Light screen to take them straight to their e-portfolio. Find out how to do this in the following video:

How to create an e-portfolio button on the Glow Light screen (3:39)
e-portfolios in East Renfrewshire – Part 2
 

 Impact

Each of the schools in East Renfrewshire plans to use the pupil e-portfolios in different ways and so the impact will be different for each.  

In the following audio clip, Gillian Graham gives her thoughts on the benefits of using e-portfolios, including access from home and parental access:

Ninian’s High School:
Josef Fuchs is Principal Teacher of Development at St Ninian’s High School in Giffnock. He has been heavily involved in the implementation of the pupil e-portfolios there and commented on the benefits that he and the school see for their usage:

 “E-portfolios allow our pupils to keep an online record of their progress and achievements throughout their school life.  These records can be categorized into achievements and/or curricular areas.  Pupils post updates on their progress and achievements, also being able to attach media files such as photos to evidence these. 

As these can be updated continually, this record is a much fuller account of their experiences than if completed as a paper exercise termly or annually which was the previous method. 

We have a strong emphasis on pupils being responsible for updating their own e-portfolios regularly.  Staff across the school encourage pupils to add in for example test scores, extra curricular activity involvement and achievements such as awards gained.  School staff can easily view and comment on pupils e-portfolios at any time although we plan to timetable a formal review on a termly basis. Another use is that we can make resources available, for example PE fitness test scores and Home Economics Food Diaries that pupils copy and paste into their e-portfolio and then fill in the answers online, allowing pupils and staff to access these.  It also removes the ability to lose them while also saving paper and filing space. We believe these to be invaluable as we prepare our pupils for the next stage in their lives. 
The benefits include: 

• Giving pupils the necessary communication tools to use in the world which is becoming more and more digitalised. 
• Preparing pupils for using e-portfolios at further/higher education level and beyond in many professions such as Medicine, Dentistry and Law.
• Encouraging pupils to be self reflective, important in many professions such as Teaching and Nursing.”

These comments reflect the impact on just two of the schools involved in the implementation of e-portfolios in East Renfrewshire. There are many other benefits being enjoyed across all of the schools.

In June 2011, just before the end of term, two of the East Renfrewshire clusters worked with their pupils to create e-portfolios using Glow Blogs. This involved Eastwood High School, St Ninian’s High School and their associated primary schools. In the secondary schools, every S1 pupil (the new S2 cohort) created an e-portfolio and in the primaries, every P7 pupil did so, in preparation for their transition to high school. In many of the primaries, the P6 pupils also created e-portfolios for use in P7 and beyond.

Context

In line with Building the Curriculum 5: A Framework for Assessment (BTC5) , the Assessment Team in East Renfrewshire was keen to ensure that all schools are providing opportunity for pupils to reflect on their learning, evaluate it and record evidence of what they have achieved, both in school and outwith. They felt it to be essential that there was a consistent approach across all schools in the local authority. This approach is encouraged in BTC 5:

“It is important that shared standards and expectations should apply among the primary schools in a cluster and across departments in secondaries. Transition will be greatly assisted by sharing ideas across sectors.”

To help ensure consistency, staff from East Renfrewshire contacted the National Glow Team to enquire about the possibility of having a custom-built Glow Blog theme created for their e-portfolios. This was readily agreed to and a theme reflecting the East Renfrewshire priorities was created. The theme incorporates an image for the header, widgets, categories and three ready-made pages. This can be seen in the ‘how to’ videos later.

Creating the e-portfolios

Members of the National Glow Team worked with staff and pupils in all of the Eastwood and St Ninian’s cluster schools to create the e-portfolios.

Each pupil created a Glow Group in their My Glow area and into that Group they added a Glow Blog. It is the Glow Blog that is used as their e-portfolio. All staff were made members of the Glow Group where the blog lives. This membership alone, however, does not enable them to access the e-portfolio. Since no one can access another user’s My Glow area, pupils additionally had to provide staff with a link to their blog. This link to the view of the blog was added to a web links web part in a school e-portfolio Glow Group. This Group had been created ahead of time in preparation for the pupil sessions.

Pupils learned how to add content to their blog by writing posts, categorising and tagging them, adding media such as images and attaching documents. They also learned how staff can comment on the posts and where they can then access those comments from.

Ingredients

In preparation for the pupils creating their e-portfolios, each school had to do some work in advance. This involved them creating a Glow Group to host links to the pupil e-portfolios. They also had to ensure that both Glow Light and Glow Blogs were switched on for all pupils. (This task is done by the school or local authority Accounts and Services Manager – ASM)

During the pupil sessions, the pupils required the following:

- To have Glow Light enabled

- Create a Glow Group in their My Glow area

- Add the Glow Blog web part to their Group and create a Blog

-  Add teachers and non-teaching staff as administrators of the Glow Group Note: One of the reasons that  (Administrator access is recommended so that any comments left by staff on the pupil’s blog are automatically published. If, for example, staff are given Contributor rights, they can still access and interact with the pupil’s blog but their initial comments would have to be approved by the pupil before they are displayed)

- Put a link to their Blog into the school e-portfolio Group to enable staff to access it

- Carry out some ‘admin’ on their blog – apply the Local Authority theme; delete the default post; delete one of the pages; set a static welcome page and a page to display latest posts

- Add information about themselves to their welcome page

- Learn how to use the Blog Dashboard to write a post

Recipe

The following videos explain the process that the pupils went through to create their e-portfolios, as well as looking at the preparatory work the schools did to create the Glow Group to host the links to the pupil e-portfolios.

Step 0 (for staff) – How to create a school Glow Group to host links to pupil e-portfolios
e-portfolios in East Renfrewshire – Part 1
Step 1 – How a pupil creates a Glow Group in their My Glow
e-portfolios in East Renfrewshire – Part 1
Step 2 – How a pupil creates their Glow Blog
e-portfolios in East Renfrewshire – Part 1
Step 3 – How a pupil adds staff as members of their Glow Group
e-portfolios in East Renfrewshire – Part 1
Step 4- How a pupil adds a link to their blog into the school e-portfolio Glow Group
e-portfolios in East Renfrewshire – Part 1
Step 5 – How a pupil uses the Blog Dashboard to apply the local authority theme and customise it
e-portfolios in East Renfrewshire – Part 1

The following video covers the whole process for steps 1-5 above. There is slightly less explanation than in the separate videos but the video provides a good overview of the entire process:

The whole process for pupils creating their e-portfolio
e-portfolios in East Renfrewshire – Part 1
 

For videos on how to add content to the blog, see part 2 of this cookbook.

Impact

Each of the schools in East Renfrewshire plans to use the pupil e-portfolios in different ways, depending on their particular focus. Part 2 of this cookbook looks at the plans for two of the schools and discusses the impact they hope the e-portfolios will have.

Margaret Hamilton

Margaret Hamilton is PT Raising Achievement at St Aidan’s High School in North Lanarkshire. She is also the Glow Mentor for the school. As part of the many things Margaret was using Glow for she wanted to work on a Transition Glow Group which she just started before the end of term. Margaret had been impressed by what she saw in the Glow Cookbook, Transition Glow Group in Angus Schools, particularly by the involvement of the S1 pupils and also with their Interactive Map.

Some of St Aidan’s High School’s associate primary schools are as much as 12 miles away and Margaret was attracted by the idea of being able to use tools such as Discussion Boards and Glow Meet to keep in contact without having to wait for physical visits.

The video below is Margaret’s description of the Glow Group and tour of the Interactive Map:
Margaret’s Tour of the Glow Group and the Interactive School Map (2:42)
St Aidan’s High School Transition – Interactive School Map

Ingredients

The Noticeboard of the Transition Group – click to enlarge

The St Aidan’s High School Transition Glow Group has been built at local authority level in North Lanarkshire so that all primary schools will see the Glow Group name in their list of Glow Groups. If the Group had been built in St Aidan’s High school site they would have to have sent a link to each primary school.

Graphical Interface

As you can see from the screenshot a graphical interface has been used for the design of the Glow Group. This was done to simplify the interface for pupils and teachers. There are only 2 visible page tabs in the Glow Group, the Noticeboard and the Glow Meet page. The other pages in the Group have been created as ‘Hidden Pages’ and are accessible by clicking on the named button links on the Noticeboard graphic.

Content of the Glow Group

The Questions Page – click to enlarge

The Glow Group is mainly about sharing information with the schools. There are pages with pictures and information about the Senior Management Team; the captains and prefects; pupils care and support; the student council; subjects within the school; tutor time; student planners; competitions and the schedule of primary visits. However, there are also 3 more interactive areas in the Questions page, the P7 wiki and the interactive map of the school. It is planned that the following year there will be much more participation from subject departments within St Aidan’s High School. This will possibly be in the form of challenges and competitions which the primary pupils will be able to participate in.

Pupil Voice

The Questions Page is about the primary pupils being able to ask questions which the S1 pupils will answer. There is also a separate discussion board where the S1 pupils will ask and answer questions that they feel they wish they had known about before they came to secondary school. These discussion boards can be set up so that they are moderated and an administrator of the Glow Group has to approve posts before they are seen by all members of the Glow Group.

The Angus Schools Cookbook mentioned above has how-To videos which will take you through the process of setting up moderated discussion boards if this is of interest.

The P7 wiki

P7 wiki – click to enlarge

Although it is early days in the set-up of the Glow Group, Margaret has created a Glow wiki with a page for every associate primary school. It is hoped that the schools will use these pages to give information about their school to be shared with the other primary schools in the cluster. In the wiki area they can easily use text, images, audio files and even videos to describe their school. It is also hoped that they will showcase pupil work in these pages.

The Interactive Map

Interactive Map – Click to enlarge

Margaret originally made the Interactive Map in a PowerPoint document, with a separate page for every photograph of the different areas of the school. She carefully annotated the corridor photographs so that they would provide detail on the direction of further corridors and stairwells and to every classroom within them. Every photograph of a corridor links to each of the classrooms within it and onto further classrooms. Each classroom has the name of the subject and the teacher(s) who teach there. On every page there is a small version of the photograph of the front of the school at the bottom right-hand corner to allow users to navigate back to the home page. Margaret also compressed every individual photograph to minimise the size of the finished document. When it was completed in PowerPoint and the links were all set up, the file was converted to a pdf. This was to reduce the size even further. Once placed into a document library the photo of the front of the school, on the interactive map page was linked to the pdf document.

What did Margaret need to be able to set up the Transition Glow Group:

• A Glow Group set up at local authority level with Margaret given Administrator access to this
• Contributor membership set for every associate primary, for all teaching and non-teaching staff; P6 and P7 classes; teaching and non-teaching staff at St Aidan’s High School and all S1 pupils
• Several PowerPoint slides saved as images to be used as graphical interfaces at different points within the Glow Group
• Hidden pages set up for the different areas of the Glow Group
• The pdf version of the interactive map available in the document library and linked to from the photograph of the school on the school map page
• Moderated discussion boards set up for S1 and P7 pupils
• A P7 wiki created with a page created for every associate primary school

Recipe

The videos below show how you could re-create some aspects of the St Aidan’s High School Transition Glow Group in your own Glow Group.

Saving the pdf document into the document library (1:58)
St Aidan’s High School Transition – Interactive School Map

Adding a text editor and image of the school (3:33)
St Aidan’s High School Transition – Interactive School Map

Linking this image to the pdf document (1:50)
St Aidan’s High School Transition – Interactive School Map

You may wish to visit any of these Cookbooks for further information about creating Hidden Pages:

Std Grade Music – A Glow Group using a Graphical Interface

LEGO activities at SLF: Part 1 – Hidden Pages in a Glow Group

“Which Writer Wins?” Chapter 1: The Author & Book pages

FIFA 2010 World Cup in Inverclyde!

Impact

Interactive Map – Click here to enlarge

The S1 pupils were really keen and enthusiastic to be involved in the project. They did all the work to take the photos of every classroom in the school.

Some of our associated primary schools have now looked at it and they’re now going to make a map of their school. It just shows how it catches on.

The S1’s are really really keen to have a link with the primary pupils.

Click below to see the videos where Margaret talks about what she was setting out to achieve with the Transition Project Glow Group.

Why did Margaret want to use Glow for Transition? (0:32)
St Aidan’s High School Transition – Interactive School Map

Why was Margaret interested in the interactive map? (0:50)
St Aidan’s High School Transition – Interactive School Map

The Transition Project at St Aidan’s High School Cluster has obviously only just began and will grow in many exciting ways under Margaret’s steer. What a great resource the Interactive Map is for pupils, not only when they’re in P7 but also when they arrive into S1 and are having to navigate their way around the school on a daily basis!

You may wish to visit other Cookbooks written about St Aidan’s High School:

• Sharing Instrumental Performance Videos at St Aidan’s High School
• Using a wiki as an evidence store for pupil e-portfolios

Maureen Atkins

Maureen Atkins is a Maths teacher at St Aidan’s High School in North Lanarkshire. She has been making good use of Glow in her teaching. She was involved in the school making the decision to move ahead with using e-portfolios with the S1 year group. Maureen was keen that evidence of pupil achievement that she had captured in the classroom would be available to be used by the pupils when creating posts in their e-portfolios. This Cookbook will focus on the Maths Store Glow Group and on the wiki. You will see a tour of the Glow Group and wiki and also interviews with Maureen where she will explain what she was setting out to do.

This process could be used across any whole school seeking a method to give pupils access to evidence from classes for use in their e-portfolios.

Ingredients

click on image to enlarge

Maureen decided that the easiest way to give pupils access to  evidence from  their Maths classes was to create a Glow Group called The Maths Store and then create a wiki inside this group for various files to be uploaded to. The plan was originally that the whole Maths Dept would use this but the school are looking into having a school-wide evidence wiki. It was materials such as, scanned images of posters the pupils had made; PowerPoint files from their Famous Mathematicians presentations and photos Maureen normally takes in class for evidence that she wanted to give the pupils access to. There is a 5Mb limit on uploading individual files into the Glow Blogs currently being used as pupil e-portfolios. With this in mind, Maureen compressed some larger image files before adding them to the wiki to make it easier for the pupils to upload them to their individual e-portfolios.

What did Maureen need to do to enable the pupils to upload class evidence into their e-portfolios:

• Have a staff Glow account at St Aidan’s High School
• Have her pupils provisioned and given their Glow usernames and passwords
• Create a Glow Group on the school site and set the pupils up with at least Reader membership
• Remove pages other than Noticeboard page from the Glow Group
• Add a text editor web part with instructions
• Add a wiki web part and create the wiki
• Edit the wiki to give instructions and create a separate page for her class to use
• Upload images and files to the page in the wiki
• Pupils with e-portfolios created
• Pupils need access to a computer to save the file and upload this to their e-portfolio to become part of a post.

Recipe

The first video below is of Maureen taking you on a tour through the Maths Store Glow Group and through the wiki itself. The videos that follow will allow you to follow the same steps that Maureen has taken to be able to achieve this yourselves.

Maureen’s Tour of the Maths Store Wiki (3:09)
Using a wiki as an evidence store for pupil e-portfolios

Creating a Glow Group to use as an evidence store (1:38)
Using a wiki as an evidence store for pupil e-portfolios

Removing the unwanted pages and adding a text editor (3:06)
Using a wiki as an evidence store for pupil e-portfolios

Adding the wiki web part and creating the wiki (2:17)
Using a wiki as an evidence store for pupil e-portfolios

Editing the wiki (3:17)
Using a wiki as an evidence store for pupil e-portfolios

Uploading evidence to the wiki (1:28)
Using a wiki as an evidence store for pupil e-portfolios

How the pupils can access the evidence from the wiki (1:33)
Using a wiki as an evidence store for pupil e-portfolios

How the pupils would use this in their e-portfolio (3:20)
Using a wiki as an evidence store for pupil e-portfolios

Impact

Click on image to enlarge

Maureen notes that the pupils were very keen to use the evidence she had provided in the wiki for their individual e-portfolios. She notes:

They were even going home and trying to do it. They’re excited about it … because they live in that world. This use of ICT, they like it, they are very comfortable with it.

They were very keen that it gave them a vehicle to be able to show their parents. This is something Maureen knew that both the parents and the pupils were keen on before but that there wasn’t really a mechanism for sharing until Glow.

In the videos below Maureen talks about various aspects of the impact of this project.

Why Maureen was keen to become involved with Glow? (0:24)
Using a wiki as an evidence store for pupil e-portfolios

Why did Maureen decide to create an evidence store in Glow? (0:35)
Using a wiki as an evidence store for pupil e-portfolios

What was involved in getting the materials onto the wiki? (0:39)
Using a wiki as an evidence store for pupil e-portfolios

How the pupils have responded to using evidence and making posts in their e-portfolios. (1:05)
Using a wiki as an evidence store for pupil e-portfolios

You may wish to visit other Cookbooks written about St Aidan’s High School:

• St Aidan’s High School Transition – Interactive School Map
• Sharing Instrumental Performance Videos at St Aidan’s High School

Overview

BTC 5

Building the Curriculum 5  has led many schools to look more closely at the ways in which they record pupils’ achievements and how they store that information. Many are considering how they might provide opportunity for pupils to easily contribute to the content of that store of information and how they might be involved in the design and development of their own learning profile. In this cookbook we will look at the work that the Secondary schools in Scottish Borders have recently started in order to help achieve this.

This cookbook comprises four parts. Part 1 explains the process that was followed to create the pupil e-portfolio and give staff access to it. Part 2 looks at how different schools have been using their e-portfolios as well as looking at how to customise the blogs and add content. Part 4 explains how to avoid and correct user error when creating the e-protfolio. In Part 3, you can find out how schools are using other elements of Glow to enable pupils to record their wider achievements in a way that will enable staff to collate and report on these.

Content

In January 2011, Depute Headteachers from the Scottish Borders Secondary schools met to discuss how they might use Glow to support the work they were doing on providing a portfolio for pupils to record their achievements. With support from Liz Marroni, Glow Key Contact for Scottish Borders, Lawrence Alexander, Curriculum for Excellence Manager, and advice from members of the National Glow Team, the schools decided to use Glow Blogs to create an e-portfolio for pupils.

Staff from each of the Secondary schools involved in the e-portfolio initiative were given some initial training in the use of Glow Blogs to enable them to become more familiar with their potential and to allow them to work through the process of creating an e-portfolio for themselves in the way pupils would. There was also discussion about how staff would access the pupils’ e-portfolios and who would be given access to them.

Click to enlarge

It was decided that the pupils would create a Glow Group containing a Glow Blog in their My Glow area, so keeping it private. This meant though that by default, no one other than the pupil themselves would have access to the e-portfolio blog.  A method was proposed which would enable staff to see the blog, but no other part of the pupils’ My Glow area.

The advantage of creating the e-portfolio in the pupil’s ‘My Glow’ area is this area of Glow moves with them, even if they move school, so their e-portfolio will go with them throughout their education. For e-portfolios created in P7, they will still be accessible to pupils in S1 and beyond, aiding transition.

In preparation for pupils creating their e-portfolio, staff in each school created a Glow Group at school level called ‘S1 e-portfolios’ (or similar). Into this Group they created and added multiple Web Links web parts which would later be used by pupils to add in links to their e-portfolios. Each web links web part was named as either a class or a pastoral Group, depending on each school’s personal preference. Details of this can be seen in the ‘How to’ videos in the Recipe section of this cookbook.

The next step was to work with the pupils to create their e-portfolio. This was done as follows:

• First of all the pupils went to the S1 e-portfolio Group in their My Glow Groups list and added it as a favourite to give them easy access to it later.
• Pupils were shown an example e-portfolio to help them understand what they were to build for themselves.
• Pupils created a Glow Group in their My Glow area via their Glow Light screen. They added this Group to their favourites.
• They added the Glow Blog web part to the Glow Group
• They created a blog and named it with their Glow username, in order to keep the blog name unique
• The pupils used the Advanced Settings link to add staff as Administrators of their Glow Group.
• The pupils then viewed the blog and copied the URL of the blog view.
• They went then to the S1 e-portfolio Glow Group and in the web links web part for their class/pastoral group, they pasted the link to the view of their e-portfolio blog. In the description field they put their name, to ensure this was displayed in the web part in the Glow Group.

Click to view

Since the staff had been added as members of the pupil’s Glow Group in their My Glow, they could simply click on a pupil’s name in the S1 e-portfolio Group and be taken directly to view their e-portfolio. They could also add comments to posts made by the pupil.

All of the above was covered in a single 50 minute period for each class.

In a second period, the pupils learned how to customise their blog and add content to it.

In some schools, a third period was used to show pupils how to add an image to a post and attach a document. This session also looked at the benefits of compressing images prior to adding them to a blog post in order to reduce the size of the file being uploaded (There is a 5Mb limit on each individual media item being added to a post. The whole blog has a default capacity of 100Mb, so compressing images prior to upload significantly increases the number of files which can be attached)

Also, the pupils created a button on their Glow Light screen to take them directly to their e-portfolio, giving them quick and easy access.

Each school had a slightly different focus for how they envisaged pupils would use their e-portfolio. In Part 2 of this cookbook we will look at some specific examples as well as learning how to add content to the blog.

But what does the e-portfolio actually look like?

In the following video you can see a sample e-portfolio to help illustrate potential use.

Video of sample e-portfolio (9:29)
S1 e-portfolios in Scottish Borders: Part 1-Overview of process
 

 Recipe

 What did the schools need to do and have in order to have an e-portfolio for their pupils?

• A school Glow Group where pupils could add in links to their blog
• Explain to pupils what an e-portfolio is and how they would be creating theirs
• Each pupil creating a Glow Group in their My Glow and add adding and creating Glow Blog within the Glow Group.
• Teaching pupils how to add content to their blog, add images and attach files.

The customising of the blogs and addition of content will be covered in part 2 of the cookbook.
 

Method

Since the schools in Scottish Borders went through the process of creating e-portfolios, advice from the National Team has changed. Changes have been made to make the creation process easier and the National Team has worked with Local Authorities to create bespoke e-portfolio themes.
You can find full details of this in the National e-portfolio Glow Group. Here, you will find a range of useful documents and ‘how to’ videos along with information on how to contact the National Team to request support.

Related cookbooks:

In part 2 of this cookbook you can find out how different schools have been using the e-portfolios with pupils, find out how to customise and add content to the blogs and find out the impact each school feels having the e-portfolios will have for them.

In part 3 of the cookbook, find out how schools are additionally using Glow to enable pupils to record examples of their wider achievement in a way which will assist staff in their collation and reporting on this.

Part 4 of the cookbook series highlights where user error can cause issues when creating the e-portfolios and shows how to avoid and remedy these.

Overview

In West Lothian, one of the recent In-Service days was used to give all staff the opportunity to engage with the new plans and forthcoming arrangements for assessment. In order to ensure that all staff from every school had access to the same information and resources about this, the Local Authority decided to use Glow to support the day’s activities.

Context

The day was planned on a cluster basis, with teachers from each Secondary and its associated Primaries working together in the Secondary school, along with staff from Nurseries, Special Schools and Outreach Teams. It began with the Director of Education and Cultural Services, Gordon Ford, speaking to every member of staff, via Glow Meet:

Gordon Ford: Glow Meet to all West Lothian teachers (3:16)
Using Glow to support an Authority-wide In-Service Day
Following Gordon Ford’s address, Meg Morrison, Area Adviser from Learning and Teaching Scotland, spoke to all staff about the plans for assessment, in particular the NAR (National Assessment Resource).

Meg Morrison: Glow Meet to introduce the day’s activities (8:00)
Using Glow to support an Authority-wide In-Service Day

After the Glow Meet, staff were tasked with a range of activities, requiring them to explore the assessment proposals and comment on these.

West Lothian has a CfE Development Glow Group at Local Authority level, which is used by each cluster for communication and collaboration. For the In-service day, two new pages were added to the Group. The first was entitled NAR; the second was labelled IN-SET 17^th August 2010.

On the NAR page is a page viewer web part showing the Learning and Teaching Scotland online service which contains samples of emerging approaches to assessment. The page selected to view shows examples from some West Lothian schools. There is also information about the West Lothian schools who are participating in the NAR pilot.

The ‘IN-SET 17^th August 2010’ page provided staff with a dedicated area for accessing the resources needed for the day and a place for uploading the results and feedback of their collaborative working during the sessions. Staff used a Discussion Board on the page to submit questions about assessment and the NAR, to be responded to later in the day.

The day culminated with another Glow Meet to all schools.

Rosemary Delaney (LTS Development Officer) and Meg Morrison gave their responses to the questions that had been submitted by staff throughout the day and gave further information on the NAR and assessment in general. This enabled the same message to be simultaneously delivered to all staff.

Rosemary Delaney: NAR and Assessment (10:25)
Using Glow to support an Authority-wide In-Service Day
Meg Morrison: NAR and Assessment Part 1 (5:42)
Using Glow to support an Authority-wide In-Service Day
Meg Morrison: NAR and Assessment Part 2 (3:24)
Using Glow to support an Authority-wide In-Service Day
 

All of the day’s Glow Meet sessions were recorded. The recordings were then uploaded into XML web parts in the Glow Group for staff to watch back. This provides a permanent record of what was said and can be used for reference at any time.

Ingredients

The support for the In-Service Day was provided via and existing Local Authority CfE Development Glow Group (you can read more about this Glow Group in the following cookbook: Supporting Curriculum for Excellence in a Local Authority). This meant that all West Lothian staff already had membership of the Glow Group and could easily access it through their My Glow Groups list. In order to ready the Group for the In-Service day, the following was required to be done:

- Add two new pages
- Create new three Document stores and add those to the page
- Create a new Discussion Board and add it to the page
- Add a page viewer web part and link it to the LTS online service
- Add a Glow Meet web part to the page and create a meeting room
- Record the Glow Meet sessions
- Use screen-capture software to capture the recorded Glow Meets ,upload the mp4 files that this created to a hosting site then get the embed code from there and embed the videos into the xml web part.

We can see these elements in the following tour of the Glow Group:

West Lothian CfE Development Glow Group: Inset Day and NAR pages (3:17)
Using Glow to support an Authority-wide In-Service Day
 

 Recipe

In the following videos, you can see how to replicate some of the elements from the West Lothian in-Service Day pages in the CfE Glow Group:

How to have multiple Document stores in a Glow Group: Creating a new Document Store (5:36)
Using Glow to support an Authority-wide In-Service Day
How to create a new Discussion Board (7:02)
Using Glow to support an Authority-wide In-Service Day
How to edit the user permissions on a newly created Discussion Board (3:48)
Using Glow to support an Authority-wide In-Service Day
How to set up a Glow Meet in a Glow Group (5:36)
Using Glow to support an Authority-wide In-Service Day
How to join and take part in a Glow Meet (3:38)
Using Glow to support an Authority-wide In-Service Day
How to use the video, audio and chat facility within a Glow Meet meeting room (6:19)
Using Glow to support an Authority-wide In-Service Day
How to record a Glow Meet (2:09)
Using Glow to support an Authority-wide In-Service Day
How to play back a previously recorded Glow Meet (3:22)
Using Glow to support an Authority-wide In-Service Day
How to embed a video of a recorded Glow Meet into the xml web part (8:45)
Using Glow to support an Authority-wide In-Service Day
 

Impact

Using the Glow Group for the In-set day had a tremendous impact for the West Lothian schools.

Using Glow Meet to communicate to all staff simultaneously enabled the same message to be delivered to all, ensuring continuity across all schools. Being able to also record these Glow Meets and embed them back into the Glow Group also provides a permanent record of what was said, so that staff can refer back to the recordings as required. It also means that any staff who were absent are able to see and hear the information that was provided.

Staff welcomed the opportunity to be able to feedback and ask questions during the day at a time that suited them, by adding posts to the Discussion Board or uploading files to the Document store. Having a further Glow Meet to address these questions meant that staff received an immediate response. It also enabled all staff to benefit from the answers to questions raised by other schools.

Using the Glow Group reduced the need to produce paper copies of documents and so helped to reduce costs. Using Glow Meet reduced the need too for Gordon Ford and the staff from Learning and Teaching Scotland to travel to each school, saving time and travel costs.

Laura Compton is Curriculum Development Officer and Glow Key Contact for West Lothian . She provided much of the Glow support for the day and was delighted with the success of the event. Laura felt that being able to communicate to all staff at the same time was invaluable, saying:

“The impact of having LTS expertise available to answer questions in real time was huge for most staff. In the current financial climate having the Director being able to address 2500 staff at no cost was fantastic”

Gordon Ford, Director of Education for West Lothian also commented on the benefits for him:

“The opportunity to speak live to 2000 staff was excellent. By using Glow we got this important in-service day off to a great start”

The day was most successful and all involved in its organisation feel that Glow played a vital part in this.

Click to enlarge image

Judith Weston is a teacher of English at Earlston High School in the Scottish Borders. In this cookbook Judith shows us how she makes use of Glow tools to support the principles and practice of Assessment is for Learning.

Context

Aimed at enriching the learning experience of her pupils, Judith has developed Glow Groups to support the teaching of Intermediate 2 and Standard Grade English (links to those cookbooks below). In this cookbook we focus on how Judith makes use of the Survey tool and Glow Learn to gather evidence of learning, provide feedback and advice on next steps and ensuring that pupils are fully involved in their learning.

Ingredients

What Judith uses to support the teaching principles and practice of AifL: 

1. A Glow Group
2. Survey tool
3. Glow Learn

Recipe

In the first video below, Judith talks us through how she uses the survey tool and aspects of Glow Learn to gather evidence of learning, provide feedback and advice on next steps and ensuring that pupils are fully involved in their learning. The second video outlines how to create a Survey and add it to your Glow Group.

Judith uses Glow Learn to assign (send out) homework exercises to her pupils.  The particular assignments that Judith makes to her pupils can be automatically marked by Glow Learn and reviewed by Judith for comment. For video support on using Glow Learn, follow the link below:

Glow Learn cookbook videos

For downloadable versions of Glow Learn helpsheets and training guide, follow the link below (Glow login required):

Glow Learn guide and helpsheets

Impact

The process of reviewing the Glow Learn assignments allows Judith to provide timely, targeted feedback to individual pupils on the quality of their work and what they can do to make it better. Well designed questions used in the Glow Survey helps Judith establish pupil strengths and weaknesses and informs her planning for future lessons. The Survey questions also give the pupils a ‘voice’ enabling them to take ownership for their own learning.

Follow the links below to hear how Judith uses Glow to support the teaching of Intermediate 2 and Standard Grade English: