SG History Glow Group. Click to enlarge.

Glenwood High School in Fife, with a roll of 860 pupils and with 90 teaching staff, has seen a significant increase in the use of Glow over the last six months. By the end of the year, around 75% of staff and pupils had active accounts and in an average week over 200 pupils were using Glow during school hours.

The cookbook, “Glowing across the curriculum at Glenwood High School“, describes how a number of staff from different departments, have been using Glow to enhance learning and teaching. In this cookbook we focus on the work of one teacher, Kayleigh Brown, and explore how she has used Glow with her Standard Grade History class. In the Recipe section, video clips show how you can replicate Kayleigh’s use of an “Upload your homework” web part to allow pupils to submit work confidentially.

Context

In January 2011, a number of Glow training courses were run in Fife and staff from eight secondary schools were invited to attend. At Glenwood, volunteers were sought from across the school and 14 participated in the training. Most of the sessions offered were one-day Glow Basics training, which covered how to create a curricular Glow Group to support learning with a specific class. At the end of the day’s session, staff had a Glow Group ready to go and a good idea of how they wanted their pupils to use it. The aim for many of the staff was initially to upload revision documents in preparation for prelims and for pupils to be able to use discussion boards or forums to ask questions or look for help.

History teacher, Kayleigh Brown, was keen to use Glow with her fourth year class. Just before the prelims, she created a Standard Grade History Glow Group, the main purpose of which was to encourage pupils to revise at home. Learning resources, such as PowerPoint slides and revision mind maps, were uploaded to the Glow Group, along with web links directing pupils to websites relevant to the course topics. Kayleigh has shared these materials with other history teachers in her authority, through the ‘Fife Study Support’ Glow Group.

Kayleigh Brown: Standard Grade History (6:36) Using Glow to support an exam class

Kayleigh introduced pupils to Glow in a class lesson, showing them how to log in to Glow, navigate to the Glow Group and use the uploaded resources. She had also posted a question in a forum and asked pupils to reply to this. She was very pleased with the response to this: some pupils who rarely speak up in class were the first to get on and post their comments in the forum. Others were reluctant initially, but gained confidence through reading the contributions of other pupils and building upon them. As a first task, this proved very successful and Kayleigh feels there’s real potential in using the forums to stimulate pupils’ interest and build their skills in structuring exam answers.

Survey results. Click to enlarge.

Following the prelim Kayleigh asked pupils to respond to a survey she’d created and added into the Glow Group. This asked pupils to give feedback on their prelim result, how they’d revised and which topics they felt most or least confident about. The survey permissions were set so that pupils could see only their own response. The ‘graphical summary’ option on the survey results enabled Kayleigh to see at a glance the responses on questions such as ‘In the recent prelim were you pleased with your result?’ and then to look in more detailed at individual responses to read the more personal feedback that pupils had given, describing the topics they were finding difficult.  

Submitted homework. Click to enlarge.

One of the biggest benefits of the Glow Group for Kayleigh has been providing her pupils with a quick method of submitting homework and practice papers. Using the ‘Custom List’ option in a Glow Group, she created an ‘Upload your homework’ web part. Pupils attach the file(s) they have been working on and submit the work for assessment. The permissions on the web part are set so that, while Kayleigh can see everyone’s work, pupils can see only their own. Through the web part, Kayleigh is able to assess the work and give overall comments, or can re-attach the document giving detailed feedback. Pupils have appreciated the quick feedback they have received in this way.

As the Glow Group developed, Kayleigh has begun to add separate pages for each of the different units in the SG course. Each page contains everything pupils will need for revision, such as learning resources and web links, reducing the risk of pupils finding wrong materials or studying the wrong periods, as has always been the danger when pupils are asked to research using the internet. For topics that pupils struggle with, Kayleigh has added video clips from YouTube and similar sites. While these may be blocked by school filtering, it’s proved an effective way of directly pupils to use these clips at home. 

Ingredients

For her Standard Grade class, Kayleigh required:

* a Glow Group

* pupils given Contributor membership of the group

Recipe

Having created the Glow Group, Kayleigh customised it to fit, for example adding on additional pages, adding in a Glow forum, creating surveys and embedding YouTube video clips. For Kayleigh, one of the most useful features was the ‘Upload your homework’ web part that she created. The video clips below show how to replicate this web part, if you’re interested in using something similar with your own classes. For ‘how-to’ video clips on surveys, see the cookbook focusing on another Glenwood teacher, Clare Todd.

* How to create a web part for homework submission (4:57) Using Glow to support an exam class

* How to add the homework web part to a Glow Group page (4:42)Using Glow to support an exam class

* How to set permissions on the homework web part (3:39) Using Glow to support an exam class

* How to check the homework web part is ready to use (3:53) Using Glow to support an exam class

* How to view pupils’ work submitted in the homework web part (4:30) Using Glow to support an exam class

* How the Site Collection Administrator can save the homework web part as a template (3:40) Using Glow to support an exam class

* How to use the template to create a homework web part (4:10) Using Glow to support an exam class

Impact

Kayleigh has been very pleased with the response of her S4 pupils to Glow. Having seen the value of the Glow Group tools, and in particular the ‘upload your homework’ web part, she has established similar ways of working with first and second year classes.

The use of Glow at Glenwood has grown very rapidly over just a few months, not just with History classes. Glow is becoming well embedded in the curriculum: it’s not viewed as an adjunct, but a tool to be used, when appropriate, to enhance learning and teaching.

In the video clip below, Dave Dawson, DHT at Glenwood, explains the progress that has been made.

Dave Dawson: uptake and usage of Glow at Glenwood (1:35) Using Glow to support an exam class

The challenge now is to continue to develop. In the new academic year, each department has been asked to have a Glow representative and for Glow to be included in development plans.

Dave Dawson: next stages of Glow development at Glenwood (0:36) Using Glow to support an exam class

Glenwood High School

Glenwood High School in Fife, with a roll of 860 pupils and with 90 teaching staff, has seen a significant increase in the use of Glow over the last six months. By the end of the year, around 75% of staff and pupils had active accounts and in an average week over 200 pupils were using Glow during school hours.

This cookbook describes how a number of staff, from different departments, have been using Glow to enhance learning and teaching. The video clips and Glow Group tours show the work that has been undertaken, the pupils’ responses and the lesson learned. Additional cookbooks focus on each teacher in turn, and provide the detail of how you can replicate (or adapt) their ideas.

Context

In January 2011, a number of Glow training courses were run in Fife and staff from eight secondary schools were invited to attend. At Glenwood, volunteers were sought from across the school and 14 participated in the training. Most of the sessions offered were one-day Glow Basics training, which covered how to create a curricular Glow Group to support learning with a specific class. At the end of the day’s session, staff had a Glow Group ready to go and a good idea of how they wanted their pupils to use it. The aim for many of the staff was initially to upload revision documents in preparation for prelims and for pupils to be able to use discussion boards or forums to ask questions or look for help. As can be seen from the clips below, while these basic Glow features were used extensively, staff have also progressed on rapidly to using other tools, such as wikis, blogs and Glow Meet.

In the first clip here, Dave Dawson, DHT at Glenwood, describes the progress over the last few months:

Dave Dawson: uptake and usage of Glow at Glenwood (1:35)Glowing across the curriculum at Glenwood High School

Alison Wood

Alison Wood attended one of the training courses in January and has since used Glow with S1, S3 and Higher English classes. With her first year class she was keen to encourage pupils to tackle more challenging texts. Pupils wrote book reviews, uploaded them into a Glow Group and commented on each others’ reviews in a Glow forum. For her Higher class Alison created a Glow Group, and uploaded notes and past papers for pupils to use at home in the run up to exams. She also used surveys during lesson time for pupils to assess their own knowledge of the set texts. Viewing the survey results allowed pupils to quickly see where their responses differed from those of other pupils. This generated a very valuable class discussion where pupils could identify for themselves where they’d got work to do, and the necessity of going back to revising the text.

With third year pupils Alison has created a wiki to stimulate pupils’ interest in the background of a set text. The third years have been intrigued by the possibilities of the wikis and many have gone well beyond the initial requirements in developing their own pages.

Alison Wood: ‘Poetry and Protest’ wiki created by S3 (1:51) Glowing across the curriculum at Glenwood High School

Alison has found the ‘Daily What’ an excellent resource in encouraging pupils to read newspaper articles. She can see a lot of potential for this, and is looking forward to making more use of it in the coming year when she will have a data projector in her classroom and therefore able to use this with a whole class, rather than needing to book an ICT suite.

Alison Wood: Glow enhancing learning and teaching in English (3:32) Glowing across the curriculum at Glenwood High School

The full cookbook on Alison’s work can be found here. This includes ‘how-to’ video clips which show how to create wikis and how to make best use of the ‘Daily What’.

Clare Hunt is PTC of Business, Enterprise and Computing at Glenwood. She and her colleagues have begun to use Glow across S1-S6. With first year pupils, Glow offered an ideal place to share the work that pupils had been undertaking in class on a ‘Cyber-bullying’ project. Pupils’ presentations were uploaded to a Glow Group and discussed at home with parents and carers. In class the discussion around internet safety continued with pupils creating avatars and posting comments in a Glow forum.

Clare Hunt: S1 Cyber-Bullying presentations and discussions (1:59) Glowing across the curriculum at Glenwood High School

At the end of the year S2 classes created Vokis to record their evaluations of the Computing course. Pupils found this a highly motivating activity, and took great care over their comments, spelling and punctuation, as the Voki’s speech is only as good as the text that’s been entered! The Vokis were then posted into a Glow blog, so that pupils could see each others’ and Computing staff could hear all the feedback on the course.

Clare Hunt: S2’s Computing course evaluations (2:14)Glowing across the curriculum at Glenwood High School

The full cookbook on Clare’s work is available here. It includes ‘how-to’ video clips on using Glow forums, and on creating Vokis.

Kim Yapp teaches Modern Foreign Languages. For the last couple of years, the department has run a Culture Project at the end of first year. Pupils are asked to work in groups, create a presentation on a cultural theme and deliver the presentation to their class. Prior to the arrival of Glow in the school, the project, though very successful, presented logistical difficulties, as pupils saved their work to their own network area, which is inaccessible to the teacher or to each other. If pupils were absent, their work could not be added to the group presentation. In addition, when classes were delivering their presentations, accessing the completed group work again caused problems. Either all work needed to be saved to a single location such as a memory stick or each group in turn needed to log on and off the network. Kim was delighted to find this year that using Glow easily solved all these problems! One Glow Group was all that was needed – for pupils to upload their individual work, to save their completed group work and from which to present it to the class. There were unlooked-for benefits too – Kim could monitor progress after each lesson as the presentations were being developed, allowing her to intervene with any pupil not pulling their weight in their group – and pupils could show their work to their families.

Kim Yapp: S1 Culture Project (6:36) Glowing across the curriculum at Glenwood High School

Further details on how Kim set up her Glow Groups and ran the Culture Project are available here. This cookbook includes ‘how-to’ clips on creating and customising Glow Groups, and using a Documents web part.

Janet Rutterford

Janet Rutterford teaches English, and as a guidance teacher also has a remit for primary-secondary transition. When Glow was introduced at Glenwood earlier this year, she was interested to look at ways in which it could facilitate transition. As a first experiment, a Glow Meet session was arranged between a first year class and a P7 class at Southwood Primary. Both classes were very well prepared. The P7s drafted their questions and sent them to the high school, giving the first years time to think about their responses. The preparation proved invaluable when the day came for the Glow Meet, as no-one got stage fright in front of the web-cam and all were happy to ask and answer the questions!

On the back of the overwhelmingly enthusiastic feedback from the first year, Janet has continued to develop the transition Glow Group. Pupils generated a wide range of ideas of the content they thought would be useful for the P7s, and Janet was impressed with their skills and confidence with Glow.

Janet Rutterford: using Glow to support transition (2:27)Glowing across the curriculum at Glenwood High School

A cookbook on Janet’s transition work will be coming soon. The ‘how-to’ clips will include the basics of setting up and using Glow Meet.

Craft and Design Technology teacher, David Lumsden, attended one of the Glow Basics courses but has since concentrated on using Glow Learn. He and colleagues in his department find this ideal for classwork and class tests. They are also developing a S1 and S2 homework policy which will be entirely delivered through Glow Learn, potentially offering considerable savings in paper and duplicating costs.

David uses Glow Learn to create tests and assessments. A range of question types, including multiple-choice and short answer, can be used and most will be automatically marked. Progress records allow him to see a summary of the class’s performance on all questions. Individual pupil’s responses can also be viewed, marking reviewed and feedback given to the pupil.

David Lumsden: assessments in craft and design technology (2:37)Glowing across the curriculum at Glenwood High School

David comments that pupils’ response to Glow Learn have been very positive and the hand-in rate for tests and homework has been much higher than previously.

More information on David’s work, including ‘how-to’ video clips on Glow Learn will follow shortly.

Kayleigh Brown teaches History at Glenwood and has used Glow extensively with her fourth year class to prepare them for the Standard Grade exam. For the prelims Kayleigh has uploaded PowerPoint files and revision mind maps – resources that pupils had used in class and were familiar, but uploading them to Glow ensured that pupils had access for homework and during holidays. Kayleigh has also shared these resources with other History teachers and departments through the Fife ‘Study Support’ Glow Group.

Kayleigh Brown: Standard Grade History (6:36) Glowing across the curriculum at Glenwood High School

Kayleigh asks her pupils to submit their homework through the Glow Group. She created a ‘Upload your homework’ web part, which allows a pupil to hand in their work but not to see the work of any other pupil. Kayleigh can see all the work her pupils submit, review it, add notes to it, and give feedback. Both teacher and pupils have found this invaluable. Using a survey to gather feedback from pupils about their performance in their prelim was also a big hit with Kayleigh. The graphical summary allowed here a rapid overview of where pupils felt they needed help, and viewing individual responses allowed her to see any private concerns about their progress which pupils had expressed.

A cookbook providing more detail on Kayleigh’s Glow Group can be found here. This includes video clips showing how to create a homework web part.

Drama teacher, Clare Todd, comments that she “was really excited when I first heard about Glow. It was exactly what I’d been looking for.” Clare wanted pupils to be able to access learning resources at home, use a forum to ask questions and discuss what they’d been doing in class. She knew that she didn’t have the skills to create her own website, so Glow’s arrival in the school really enthused her. She now has a Drama Glow Group accessible to all pupils in S1-S6 to give a flavour of what classes are doing in lessons and on trips. There are also separate Glow Groups for S1, S2, Standard Grade, Higher and Advanced Higher classes.

Clare Todd: Drama Glow Groups – part 1 (7:14)Glowing across the curriculum at Glenwood High School

Clare Todd: Drama Glow Groups – part 2 (2:29) Glowing across the curriculum at Glenwood High School

Like Kayleigh, she asks pupils to submit homework and makes use of surveys for self-evaluations. She’s recently been introduced to Glow Learn by colleagues in other departments in the school and sees this as her next step, as it provides better options when asking pupils for personal responses, and will be easier to monitor and record pupils’ progress.

The cookbook describing Clare’s work in more detail can be found here. The ‘how-to’ videos show how to create and use surveys.

Next steps

Dave Dawson

The use of Glow at Glenwood has grown very rapidly over just a few months – thanks to the hard work of teaching staff and to those responsible for creating the accounts. Glow is becoming well embedded in the curriculum: it’s not viewed as an adjunct, but a tool to be used, when appropriate, to enhance learning and teaching.

The challenge now is to continue to develop. In the new academic year, each department has been asked to have a Glow representative and for Glow to be included in development plans.

Dave Dawson: next stages of Glow development at Glenwood (0:36) Glowing across the curriculum at Glenwood High School

Burns Supper at Coylton

Judith Lennox was P7 teacher at Coylton Primary School in South Ayrshire and is now DHT in the school.

Judith Lennox

Judith explains the Burns Supper Enterprise Project at Coylton Primary (0:53)
Burns Supper – Using Glow to support an Enterprise Project

Primary 7 pupils at Coylton Primary School used a Glow Group to help in the planning of an interdisciplinary enterprise event. This event was the organising of their annual Burns Supper.

P7 pupils took responsibility for all aspects of planning this event, which involved:

• writing newsletters to parents
• inviting special guests
• selling tickets
• handling cash and cheques
• rehearsing songs, poems and dances
• writing and learning speeches
• publicising the event in the school community.

All 60 P7 pupils took on a role in organising the event, as well as having an ‘on the night’ job.

Glow Group Pages

Co-ordinating this number of pupils, from different classes, who were all completing different tasks, was made easier by the great idea of using a Glow Group for communication. This meant that pupils were able to communicate easily between the 2 classes by using various discussion boards, a moderated chat room and a Glow Meet room. The pupils made use of these both in and out of school. Using Glow enabled class teachers to oversee the planning process, whilst allowing pupils to work independently. It meant that the teachers didn’t have to keep bringing the 2 classes together and disrupting the school day. Teachers were able to answer queries as they arose and challenge pupils’ thinking by contibuting to the discussions in the Glow group.

The Coylton P7 Burns Supper

On the night, pupils chaired the event and provided high quality entertainment for their 90 guests.  After the event, pupils continued to use the Glow Group to celebrate their success. They were able to discuss their favourite memories and look at photos of the event which their teachers had uploaded.

Judith’s Tour of the Burn’s Supper Glow Group (3:14)
Burns Supper – Using Glow to support an Enterprise Project

This Cookbook will focus on the use of the Glow Group as a planning tool for the P7 classes.

Ingredients

What did Judith need to be able to allow the pupils to use Glow as a planning tool for their enterprise event?

• A Glow Group built at school level in Coylton Primary School
• Pupils from a both P7 classes set with Contributor permissions
• Use made of a general discussion board
• A Job Discussions page created
• Additional discussion boards created on this page to aid different teams of pupils in their planning
• A chat room
• A Glow Meet room
• A Page Viewer web part with the World Burns Club website
• An additional Page Viewer web part with Address to a Haggis
• A Memories page with photos and an additional discussion board for pupils to comment on the event

Recipe

Discussions in the Group

In this Cookbook we have chosen to focus on creating the Jobs Discussions page and additional discussion boards.

In the videos below you will be able to see how Judith did this.

How Judith created a new page in the Glow Group (1:47)
Burns Supper – Using Glow to support an Enterprise Project

How Judith created additional discussion web parts (2:47)

Burns Supper – Using Glow to support an Enterprise Project

How Judith added these web parts to the page (1:03)
Burns Supper – Using Glow to support an Enterprise Project

Impact

Judith explains why she wanted to use Glow for the project (0:32)
Burns Supper – Using Glow to support an Enterprise Project

Judith explains why she thinks using Glow was successful (0:49)
Burns Supper – Using Glow to support an Enterprise Project

The Burns project worked really well. The pupils were extremely enthusiastic. They had only just got their Glow log-ons and they were really keen to use Glow as much as possible. They were logging in at home quite a lot and also in school they were given a chance to log in whenever they had any free time.

The discussions worked really well. It was a good way for the pupils to collaborate without having to be in the same room as each other. Because it was 2 classes working together, it meant that we could do that without any disruption to the school day.

Brandon and Dana from P7

Brandon on why he likes Glow (0:29)
Burns Supper – Using Glow to support an Enterprise Project

Dana on why she likes Glow (0:23)
Burns Supper – Using Glow to support an Enterprise Project

Clare Fallon is Principal Teacher at St Mark’s Primary in Irvine, North Ayrshire. She is a Glow Mentor and decided to start using Glow with her pupils at St Mark’s. She began to use Glow with P4 to P7 as she teaches ICT to the whole school. After giving each child their Glow usernames and passwords they were ready to get started. They used many of the resources on the national site as part of their introduction to Glow.

Clare Fallon

In this Cookbook we will focus on the use of Glow Meet for the P4s and also the P7s to link up with St Luke’s Primary and also with St Matthew’s Secondary School. To see a tour of the P7 Glow Group click below:

Tour of the P7 Glow Group (0:47)
Using Glow Meet for Transition at St Mark’s Primary

P4 Glow Meet

Initially, Clare was really interested in trying to set up a Glow Meet session, or web conference, with another school in her cluster. She chose St Luke’s as she had worked with the staff there before. Both P4 classes happened to be working on the same project about Ancient Egypt and both Primary 4 teachers were eager to help. To get started the teachers used a Critical Skills based approach where the pupils designed some fantastic posters they had made to explain the facts they had learned about the Egyptian Gods and Goddesses. The children then shared their knowledge with each other through a Glow Meet where they talked each class through their posters.

Glow Meet at St Mark's

Primary 7 have also enjoyed using Glow this year. They’ve been involved in many different activities from posting  and adding to discussions, to emailing their friends from the class and also friends from outwith the school. Clare spoke with them about how Glow could help them communicate with the children in their local community. They decided to have a Glow Meet session with S1 pupils at their cluster secondary school, St Mathew’s Academy. This would become part of an ongoing programme of transition activities during P7. They decided that this experience would be even richer for the pupils if they invited P7 pupils from

S1 Pupils at St Mathew's

St Luke’s Primary in the cluster to be involved. They were hoping to be able to have a variety of questions from a wide range of children for the Glow Meet. To get started for ideas Clare posted a discussion which the P7 pupils replied to with their ideas for questions.

The P7 pupils from both schools were able to discuss with each other what they thought the most important issues to be addressed during the Glow Meet session should be. These were then emailed to St Mathew’s Academy as the S1 pupils wanted to prepare their responses. The Glow Meet was then able to be held with all pupils involved.

Click below to see the tour of the Glow Meet Glow Group:

Tour of the Glow Meet Glow Group (1:10)
Using Glow Meet for Transition at St Mark’s Primary

Ingredients

What did Clare need to prepare for and to run the Glow Meet web conference with St Mark’s and St Luke’s Primary Schools and St Mathew’s Academy?

• A Glow Group at local authority level with membership for all 3 schools
• The Discussion Board within the P7 Glow Group at school level with membership for all P7 pupils
• Glow Mail accounts for each pupil
• At least one computer with a web camera and microphone in each school

Recipe

Although Clare used the original version of Glow Meet for web conferencing, the how-to videos below will demonstrate how to get started with the new version of Glow Meet.

The how-to videos below will be enough to get you started with the new Glow Meet. You will find additional help in the Glow Meet section of the Glow Help Blog here.

Adding the Glow Meet web part to your Glow Group (1:26)
Using Glow Meet for Transition at St Mark’s Primary

Creating the Glow Meet room (0:56)
Using Glow Meet for Transition at St Mark’s Primary

Entering the Glow Meet (2:03)
Using Glow Meet for Transition at St Mark’s Primary

Impact

In this first impact video Clare Fallon speaks about starting to use Glow and this is followed by a video of Joseph, a P4 pupil, speaking about the Glow Meet with the P4’s in St Luke’s Primary.

How Clare first got started with Glow (1:06)
Using Glow Meet for Transition at St Mark’s Primary

Joseph P4

We took turns to show our posters and our posters were brilliant, so the P4’s in St Luke’s said. And theirs were brilliant too!

It was brilliant! I just thought it was good to share about our posters and everyone in St Luke’s.

Joseph, from Primary 4 talks about his class’s project (1:23)
Using Glow Meet for Transition at St Mark’s Primary

More specifically Clare now talks about the P7 Transition Glow Meet Project.

Clare speaks about the cluster transition Glow Meet (1:34)
Using Glow Meet for Transition at St Mark’s Primary

The Glow Meet enabled the children to speak to their peers who they wouldn’t normally meet until their induction visit to St Mathew’s in June. The children learned, first hand, about some of the skills and strategies which would support them as they moved on.

The children contributed effectively to an important and really meaningful event.

The first year pupils answered their questions really well and engaged with their audience.

All the children were able to use ICT across the curriculum. They chose relevant information to suit the purpose and took into account their audience.

I hope that this opportunity has really helped the children to feel a bit better about moving on to a new and exciting stage in their lives.

Avneet and Molly talk about the Transition Glow Meet (1:57)
Using Glow Meet for Transition at St Mark’s Primary

Avneet and Molly P7

It made it easier for us to go to St Mathew’s on our induction because it made us see what secondary was like.

The statement above comes from Katy Sowden, a teacher from Williamston Primary School in Livingston. Katy and pupils from her Primary 7 class were recently asked about the impact that Glow Science has had in their classroom. You can watch what they had to say in a video clip later on in this cookbook.

Overview

Glow Science is an online resource featuring over five hundred video clips aimed at enhancing pupils’ understanding of science in the modern world. Developed in partnership between Twig and Education Scotland, Glow Science is for teachers and for learners from age 8 to 14 and is mapped to Curriculum for Excellence experiences and outcomes. The video content and associated learning materials, quizzes, diagrams and downloadable PDF documents cover all four science disciplines: Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Earth Science; and present key learning points within engaging real-life contexts.

Watch a short excerpt from a featured video. 

Drawing on the highest quality film footage from around the world, researched and written by teachers and scientists and produced by television writers and film editors, Glow Science offers Scottish Education a unique and dynamic learning resource that brings science to life through engaging visuals, music and graphics.

Williamston Primary School 

In the video clip below, Katy and her pupils tell us how Glow Science has impacted on the learning and teaching of Science in class. While the pupils are keen to comment on the quality of the videos and the associated support material, Katy highlights how the real world content raises engagement levels, how the videos link directly to Curriculum for Excellence and the potential for continuing professional development offered by the Glow Science resource.

Accessing Glow Science

For information on accessing the Glow Science resource and adding a shortcut to the resource from Glow Light, please see the video clip below.

Click on image to enlarge

As we heard in the clip from Katy, Glow Science has been developed to aid teachers with their planning and implementation of Curriculum for Excellence. Videos and associated support materials are currently categorised into four broad modules – Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Earth Science. On their web site, the Scottish Association of Geography Teachers (SAGT) highlight the value of the Earth Science module to the teaching of Geography. A new module, Healthy Living, is planned for August 2011 and will include videos and materials to support the topics of Nutrition, Fitness, Health and Disease and Substance Misuse.

To view the Glow Science resource, click the link below to log into Glow (Glow login required), then navigate to the National Site and locate the link to Glow Science. Log in to Glow.

Building the Curriculum 5

From the recommendations contained within Building the Curriculum 5 Jennifer Richardson then South Ayrshire’s Curriculum for Excellence Assessment Team Development Officer, had decided to initiate a pilot project to use Glow to help schools meet the requirements. The documentation states that,

“children and young people should agree learning goals and should record them in ways that are meaningful and relevant.”

It also calls for the creation of a Learner Profile which should include targets and goals with information on all areas of the curriculum and wider achievement and a range of evidence of learning. It states that learners should have opportunities for reflection, sharing and dialogue.  Maintaining an electronic portfolio within Glow could provide schools and pupils with the ongoing information required for a Profile.

In this cookbook we will focus on work done in Barr Primary School in South Ayrshire as part of this pilot process.

Originally South Ayrshire were interested in some work done in East Ayrshire using Glow Groups as e-portfolios. However, since their introduction in the summer of 2010, Glow blogs have become an increasingly important tool within Glow. It quickly became obvious that they would be an excellent opportunity to provide an e-portfolio solution which would have many advantages over using a Glow Group.

Jennifer was originally keen to go ahead with using Glow blogs for this purpose as she saw the following benefits:

• they provide an accessible, electronic and manageable method of storing different types of evidence in one central place
• it can be accessed by both the learner, teachers, parents and peers (optional)
• learners can independently access and update their e-portfolio at any time and from anywhere with an internet connection
• teachers, parents and peers could comment on the learners work
• the e-portfolio can automatically transfer with the learner from class to class and from primary to secondary school.

Nation e-portfolio Glow Group

National advice and access to templates and helpsheets is available from the National level Glow Group here. The advice is given that the e-portfolios are created in a Glow Group in the pupil’s My Glow area. The My Glow area is chosen so that the pupils can have more ownership of the process but also because as the pupil moves to secondary school, if they are correctly identity matched to the same account, then they retain their My Glow and any groups within it. Rather than simply creating the blog on their My Glow it is created in a Glow Group so that membership can be set for teachers in the Glow Group without giving access to the pupil’s My Glow area. When a pupil enters secondary school membership can be reset for all teaching staff for the secondary in the way it was originally set at the primary.

Context

Barr Primary

In South Ayrshire we decided to build a template for schools to use, although local authorities are now able to work with the National Team to design a ‘Theme’ which can be used across the whole authority. Towards the end of 2010 South Ayrshire asked for volunteer schools to come along to a twilight training session. Both primaries and secondaries were keen to be involved. Fraser Baird came along from Barr Primary to find out how to get started with his pupils and kicked the process off with them when he returned to school.

Barr Primary School

Barr Primary were initially keen to use Glow Groups for e-portfolios and had already got started with doing this but then opted to give the Glow blogs a try instead. They began with creating them with the senior pupils in P5-7 but then set them up with the junior pupils as well. All pupils in P1-7 at Barr Primary have their own Glow blog to use for an e-portfolio.

To put the project in context click below to see Brian from Barr Primary take you on a tour through his e-portfolio blog:
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Ingredients

The prcess the South Ayrshire schools went through to create the e-portfolios was as follows:

• Pupils created a Glow Group with their own name as a title in their My Glow Area using the Glow Light interface.
• They added this Glow Group to their favourites.
• The pupils used the Advanced Settings link to add staff as Administrators of their Glow Group.
• They added the Glow Blog web part to the Glow Group
• They created a Glow blog, naming it with their Glow username, in order to keep the blog name unique.
• The pupils applied a template to their blog but this would now be done by adding a theme decided on by the local authority
• The pupils created their own header for the blog.
• A Glow Group was created by their teacher at school level.
• Pupils copied the URL for their blog and added this to a web links web part in the school-level Glow Group.

Recipe

If you go to the National E-Portfolio Glow Group mentioned above you will see videos and Helpsheets taking you through all the stages required for schools to set up e-portfolio with their pupils.

Brian shows us how pupils access their e-portfolios to make a post (1:22)

e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Brian shows us how to move from the dashboard to the e-portfolio (0:20)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Impact

The senior pupils at Barr Primary School

Barr Primary are very pleased with how the e-portfolio pilot is progressing and the pupils appear to really enjoy this way of working. They were generous enough with their time to let me go into the school and film their opinions on using their e-portfolios. Click on the videos in the sections below to find out what firstly, the pupils thought of various aspects and then what their teacher, Fraser Baird thought:

Introductions to the pupils (0:39)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

The pupils on creating the e-portfolios (0:51)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Pupils on why they’re using the e-portfolios (1:37)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Pupils on what they post on (2:04)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Pupils on using your blog as an evidence store (1:05)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Pupils on how to post (1:37)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Pupils on using vokis on the blogs (0:52)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Pupils on using it from home (0:30)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Pupils on getting comments from teachers (0:32)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Fraser on the decision to use blogs (1:13)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Fraser on getting started (1:27)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Fraser on e-portfolio for measuring pupil progression (1:09)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Fraser on the advantages of blogs over traditional methods (0:49)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Fraser on the pupils and blogs (2:21)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Fraser on what and how often the pupils post (1:05)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Click to enlarge image

Overview

Amy Lumsden and Ruth Torrance teach P1A at James Gillespie’s Primary School in Edinburgh. Following introductory training in Glow, Amy and Ruth were keen to investigate if the Glow tools and functionality could support learning and teaching in their class. ‘People who help us’ is one of the Social Subjects topics covered by P1 pupils at James Gillespie’s and Amy and Ruth felt it would be an ideal pilot to determine if Glow could be used successfully with pupils as young as P1. As part of the school’s ICT strategy, early years pupils are ‘buddied’ with older children when they go to the ICT suite. The older pupils help the younger ones by discussing tasks with them and helping with keyboard entry. With the support of P5 buddies, Amy and Ruth were able to devise Glow tasks that could be done individually in the ICT suite or covered as whole class activities on the interactive whiteboard in the classroom.

Video Clips

Impact

Amy and Ruth have shown that well planned use of Glow functionality can impact positively on the learning and teaching of P1 pupils. In addition, the Glow Group that they have developed with resources, activities and tried and tested methodology has become an invaluable CPD resource for other staff at James Gillespie’s. In the video clip below, Amy and Ruth sum up their views on the impact that Glow had on the teaching of the People who help us topic.

Click to enlarge image

Emily Greenhorn teaches Geography at Jedburgh Grammar in the Scottish Borders. Following an introduction to Glow Learn (the virtual learning environment available to Glow users), Emily was keen to capitalise on the functionality provided to produce a Glow Learn course to support the learning and teaching of her Higher Geography class outwith the classroom. With Glow Learn, Emily was able to create a virtual course structure that matches her classroom course. She populated lesson and topic folders with digital resources (Worksheets, presentations audio and video clips) so that her pupils could access them anytime/anywhere.

Video Clips

Ingredients 

To enable pupil access to the Geography resources through Glow Learn, Emily needed to:

1. Create a Glow Learn course
2. Add resources to the course
3. Enrol her pupils on the course

If you would like to replicate what Emily did, follow the link below for cookbook video support on using Glow Learn:

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

Glow Learn enables Emily to organise her resources, replicating the structure of the Higher Geography course as it progresses. Pupils benefit from being able to access specific resources that support their learning at a particular time during the course and, because of the structure, are able to dip back into particular units of work as required. This has given them a form of support that they would not have otherwise had.

Overview

Morag Carson and Shelagh Scobie are Principal Teachers at Laurieston Primary school and Victoria Primary school respectively. These schools are two of the five Associated Primary schools which form the Graeme High School cluster in Falkirk. During recent transition discussions with Stephen Beath, Principal Teacher of Social Studies at Graeme High school, they came up with an idea to add a new dimension to the topic work that their schools’ Primary 7 classes had been covering.

Context

In their first term of P7, pupils from both Primary schools had been learning about World War 2. As part of the cross-curricular work undertaken during the topic, one of the books that the pupils read was “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas” by John Boyne. They learned about the Holocaust and the atrocities that took place in the Auschwitz concentration camp.

During a meeting with Stephen, Morag and Shelagh learned that a sixth year pupil from Graeme High, Amy Morrison, had visited Auschwitz-Birkenau a few months previously after being chosen to take part in the ‘Lessons from Auschwitz’ project. This project takes 6th year pupils from Scotland to visit the camp to educate them about what happened there and ensure it is never forgotten.

After discussions, it was arranged that Amy would speak to the Primary 7 pupils via Glow Meet to tell them about her experiences of Auschwitz and so add to their previous learning.

The Glow Meet
During the Glow Meet, Amy talked to the Primary 7 pupils about her trip. She told them about the experiences that the Jewish people had in Auschwitz and described what she saw and felt when there. She illustrated this by adding text and images to the shared whiteboard of the Glow Meet room.

The pupils had prepared questions for Amy, and after her talk, they were able to put these questions to her. Due to feedback issues with the sound, the questions were typed into the chat section of the Meeting room. Amy then answered the questions verbally. (The microphone in Graeme High was kept on, so when the microphone in a Primary school was switched on, the sound looped and caused feedback – this would have been alleviated by only having one microphone open at a time).

The Glow Meet session was recorded and the recording added to the Graeme High Cluster Glow Group to allow it to be watched back at any time.

Watch an excerpt from the Auschwitz Glow Meet session in the following video.
(Note: There is some feedback initially due to two microphones being open during the Glow Meet session)

 Amy Morrison: Auschwitz presentation (5:45)
Auschwitz Glow Meet: P7 World War 2 topic

The Learning

Taking part in the Glow Meet added to the learning experiences of the pupils. As well as the other Curriculum for Excellence Experiences and Outcomes that the pupils covered in their World War 2 topic work, the Glow Meet added opportunity for pupils to engage with the following:

SOC 2-16b I can gather and use information about forms of discrimination against people in societies and consider the impact this has on people’s lives.

LIT 2-07a I can show my understanding of what I listen to or watch by responding to literal, inferential, evaluative and other types of questions, and by asking different kinds of questions of my own.

LIT 2-09a When listening and talking with others for different purposes, I can: 

• share information, experiences and opinions
• explain processes and ideas
• identify issues raised and summarise main points or findings
• clarify points by asking questions or by asking others to say more

LIT 2-10a / LIT 3-10a I am developing confidence when engaging with others within and beyond my place of learning. I can communicate in a clear, expressive way and I am learning to select and organise resources independently.

RME 2-09d I am developing my understanding of how my own and other people’s beliefs and values affect their actions.

RME 2-05b I can share my developing views about values such as fairness and equality and love, caring, sharing and human rights.

Ingredients

To make it as easy as possible for all three schools to have access to the Glow Meet meeting room, a Graeme High Cluster Glow Group was created at Local Authority level and all of the teachers were added as members. This gave all three schools access to it through their ‘My Glow Groups’ link.

Within this Group, a Glow Meet web part was added and a meeting room created.

The following all had to be done to make the Glow Meet happen:

- Have a Glow Group at Local Authority level
- Add the teachers from each of the schools as members of the Group
- Have a web cam, microphone and speakers for the presenter (Amy)
- Have speakers in the Primary schools
- Have the computer in each Primary school linked to the interactive whiteboard to enable the Primary 7 children to watch

The following videos explain how to replicate some of these elements:

How to give people from another school membership of a Glow Group in your school (6:57)
Auschwitz Glow Meet: P7 World War 2 topic
How to set up a Glow Meet in a Glow Group (5:36)
Auschwitz Glow Meet: P7 World War 2 topic
How to join and take part in a Glow Meet (3:38)
Auschwitz Glow Meet: P7 World War 2 topic
How to use the video, audio and chat facility within a Glow Meet meeting room (6:19)
Auschwitz Glow Meet: P7 World War 2 topic
How to use the shared whiteboard in a Glow Meet meeting room (8:25)
Auschwitz Glow Meet: P7 World War 2 topic

How to record a Glow Meet (2:09)
Auschwitz Glow Meet: P7 World War 2 topic
How to play back a previously recorded Glow Meet (3:22)
Auschwitz Glow Meet: P7 World War 2 topic

Impact

One of the main things that both Morag and Shelagh commented on was how completely engaged all of the pupils were during the Glow Meet session. They were ‘glued to the screen’ and barely moved in their seats!

Having the Glow Meet two terms after the pupils had initial been learning about World War 2 gave the opportunity to revisit this work and challenge pupils’ recall of what they had previously learned.

The pupils themselves felt that listening to Amy talking about Auschwitz really added to their understanding and made what they had previously learned more real. They felt that learning via Glow Meet was preferable to either learning from textbooks and worksheets, or even hearing their teacher talk, because Amy had actually been to Auschwitz and therefore they felt this added gravitas to the information they were being given.

Inverclyde's World Cup Group

Diana Rolland is ICT Support Teacher and Glow Development Officer for Inverclyde Council. She has supported the roll-out and adoption of Glow in Inverclyde since its inception. One of her many tasks has been to promote the usage of Glow in schools in the authority by creating local authority level groups to enhance learning and teaching. She has created the FIFA World Cup 2010 Glow Group for this purpose and made it available to all schools in Inverclyde. In this Cookbook we will look at the work Diana has done in putting the group together.

In this cookbook, we will find out:
• What the Inverclyde FIFA World Cup 2010 Group looks like
• How Diana created a Graphical Interface on the Noticeboard page
• How this interface was linked to hidden pages within the Glow Group

Context

The pages in the group

Diana wanted to create the local authority level group for 2 main reasons. Firstly, she wanted to practice creating a graphical interface and linking this to hidden pages within the Group. Diana also wanted to provide a resource for schools that teachers could use towards the end of term and over the summer holidays. She wanted to increase the use of Glow in a fun way by introducing pupils to the use of document libraries, web links, picture galleries and discussion boards. Diana is also keen to introduce less experienced teachers to Glow by giving them a resource to use which is already set up for them.

In this Cookbook we will look at how Diana has used different web parts to give access to a wealth of resources freely available on the web but organised for the pupils and teachers in Inverclyde into the one simple interface. Using the discussion boards also involves the pupils in a much more collaborative approach to looking at the World Cup than only interacting individually with resources.

Ingredients

The Graphical Interface Noticeboard

Noticeboard Graphical Interface

The FIFA World Cup 2010 Glow Group is visually stimulating. Almost all areas can be linked to from the South African Flag on the Noticeboard page. To keep the interface simpler all of the pages linked to are hidden pages. This means there are not a multitude of page tabs strewn across the top of the Group.

Each Group within the competition has a page which begins by displaying flags for each of the nations involved within that group (which link to websites on each country) and a document library containing lots of tasksheets on the strips of the different teams. There is also a discussion board where pupils are asked to post match reports and ideas on the best player from each group. Diana felt that this would introduce pupils to document libraries and discussion boards and allow them to become familiar with these central tools in Glow.

Along with each of the groups linked to from the South African Flag interface are links for Websites and Documents. These give access to hidden pages containing lots more resources for teachers and pupils.

Also on the Noticeboard page is a News web part where Diana has targeted news out to the pupils and teachers and a What’s On web part listing when all the matches are being played. Diana has created a web part displaying a Countdown to the Final using MagicWidgets and a web part which links off to a Brainpop movie about the World Cup. At the very bottom of the page is a Contacts web part with Diana’s contact details so that pupils and teachers can request additional functionality for the group.

Other pages

Other Pages of the Group

Outside of the Graphical Interface links on the Noticeboard, there are additional pages available on the tabs along the top. The first of these is the Players page where pupils are given templates in Word and Textease and asked to create biographies of their favourite football players and upload these to a document library. The next page is a Wives and Girlfriends’ Page where pupils are encouraged to design a handbag. The information for uploading a photo of the handbag is given in a News web part along with instructions about editing the properties of the photo within the Picture Gallery to give it a name and a description. The next page, recently added by Diana is called Photo Gallery and is for schools to upload any displays or work related to the World Cup with the last page being a Country Fact File for the pupils to share additional information they have picked up on the countries they have been looking at.

Click here to see some of the handbag designs

What did Diana need to do to build activities around the World Cup and give pupils and teachers access to this local authority Glow Group?

• Create a Glow Group at local authority level in Inverclyde
• Create hidden pages within the group for the different activities
• Hotspot links to these pages from an image in a text editor web part
• Find appropriate images and activities on the web without copyright restrictions
• Find supporting videos from the web and link these onto the pages
• Create a Countdown widget to the Final
• Rename existing pages and create additional pages for Players, Wives and Girlfriends, Photo Gallery and County Factfile
• Set pupils and teachers from across the authority with Reader with Discussions access to the group
• Send out targeted news publicising the Group and any new pages

Recipe

The first video below is a virtual tour by Diana of the FIFA World Cup 2010 Glow Group. Please note, that as the usage of the group grew Diana added more content and the video was recorded before some of the extra pages were added. The videos that then follow show how some of the elements within the Group can be recreated. Details are:

What does the Inverclyde FIFA World Cup 2010 Glow Group look like?
FIFA 2010 World Cup in Inverclyde!

How to add text editor web parts onto the Noticeboard page with glitter text
FIFA 2010 World Cup in Inverclyde!

How to add a Flag image with text into a text editor web part to act as a graphical interface
FIFA 2010 World Cup in Inverclyde!

Creating a hidden page with new document and discussions web parts
FIFA 2010 World Cup in Inverclyde!

Working with a text editor web part and hotspots on the hidden page
FIFA 2010 World Cup in Inverclyde!

How to create hotspots on the image in text editor to link to the various hidden pages
FIFA 2010 World Cup in Inverclyde!

How to create a Countdown widget on the Noticeboard page
FIFA 2010 World Cup in Inverclyde!

Impact

Click here to see Scared Heart Primary's Cameroon Display

As we’ve already mentioned, Diana set up the Glow Group for 2 main reasons. She wanted to have a practice at using a simple graphical interface and hidden pages within Glow and she also wanted to encourage pupils and teachers across the authority to use Glow. She was also setting out to establish a Group which would allow pupils to be able to use Glow over the summer holidays.

“I wanted to increase the use of Glow in a fun way, so I hope I’ve achieved that by giving them lots of different activities.”

Katrina Flaherty, Head of Gourock Pre-5 Centre has begun to use the Group. She thanked Diana for creating it and let her know how she’s been using it with her Pre-5s.

She printed off the flags and gave one to each child to take home where the parents were asked to help them find out information about their country.  Some have already begun to do this. She has put up a map of the world in the classroom with the childrens’ flags fixed to the map to identify where each country is. The children will then take turns telling each other what they have found out about the country.

Katrina noted, “This is parental involvement, investigative learning and use of ICT to increase their knowledge and understanding of the world”.

She intends to create a graph and if their country scores a goal, each child will add a sticker to the graph.

Click here to see Gourock Pre 5 World Map

Diana has added a page to the Group for the schools to upload photos and Katrian has agreed to photograph her wall displays to go up into this gallery. The Centre had also recently been to Blair Drummond and took lots of photos which Katrian is also going to add to the map of the world.

Diana Rolland speaks about the FIFA World Cup 2010 Group
FIFA 2010 World Cup in Inverclyde!

Links with Curriculum for Excellence
Through their involvement in the FIFA World Cup 2010 Glow Group, the pupils have been actively engaging with a range of Curriculum for Excellence Experiences and Outcomes. This range will depend upon many factors, namely, which web parts were used and the age and stage/level of the pupils accessing them. Amongst others, they include:

EXA 0-02a – I have the freedom to discover and choose ways to create images and objects using a variety of materials.

LIT 1-01a – I regularly select and listen to or watch texts which I enjoy and find interesting, and I can explain why I prefer certain sources.

I regularly select subject, purpose, format and resources to create texts of my choice.

LIT 1-20a – I enjoy creating texts of my choice and I regularly select subject, purpose, format and resources to suit the needs of my audience.

LIT 2-23a – Throughout the writing process, I can check that my writing makes sense and meets its purpose.

SOC 2-16c – I can discuss issues of the diversity of cultures, values and customs in our society.

TCH 0-03a – I explore software and use what I learn to solve problems and present my ideas, thoughts, or information.