In order to look at how the Group was used, this cookbook will be split into four parts. This part, part 4, looks at the use of pictures and videos within the Group. Part 1 looks at the use of hidden pages, Part 2 at the use of Glow Meet and Part 3 focuses on how the Glow Blog was used. All four parts will contain the same overview in the ‘context’ section, with the different elements being explored in the ‘Focus On’ and recipe sections.

Context

Jan Pollok, Quality Improvement Officer and Glow Key Contact for East Dunbartonshire Council sent out a Targeted News item from the Local Authority site in Glow, asking for schools to volunteer to attend the Scottish Learning Festival (SLF) to take part in LEGO activities. Jan had initially wanted to choose two schools, but after responses came in from schools, she decided to invite the four schools named above.

Jan met with Joanne Connolly, one of the Glow Educationalists from the National Glow Team, to discuss how Glow could support the schools before SLF and also how it could be used during and afterwards.

As a result of this conversation, Jan created a Glow Group at Local Authority level to enable the four schools to have direct sight of it. The layout was then designed and built, after consultation with the schools.

Initially, the Primary 7 teachers from the schools met with Jan and Joanne to discuss the activities that the pupils would be undertaking at SLF and to give their input to the Glow Group structure and content. It was agreed that the Group would contain hidden pages, with only the Noticeboard Page visible and links to the hidden pages provided there. This gave the Group a sleek and simple look and made it very easy to navigate around. You can learn more about hidden pages in Part 1 of this cookbook series.
We can look at the Group and its layout in the following video:

Tour of the SLF LEGO Glow Group (11:48)
LEGO activities at SLF: Part 4- Pictures and Videos

Elements of the Glow Group

A range of different web parts were incorporated within the Glow Group:

Glow Meet
The first part of the Glow Group that was used was the Glow Meet page. It was agreed at the initial meeting that a Glow Meet would be held to enable the children to introduce themselves and become more familiar with Glow Meet. It also provided an opportunity for the schools to check their equipment was working. You can find out more details about it in part 2 of the cookbook series.

Picture Library
Both before and after the Glow Meet, the pupils spent time in their classrooms using the ‘We-Do’ LEGO kits that they had been given to allow them to practise prior to attending SLF. They took photos of the models they built and these were uploaded to the Picture Library on the ‘Our Photos’ page of the Group. Find out more in the ‘Focus on’ section of this cookbook.

Document Stores
There are two Document Stores in the Glow Group.

The first is on the Documents page. This was there to give pupils a place where they could perhaps write instructions on how to build a particular LEGO model and share those with others by uploading to the Document store. It was also discussed that pupils might do creative writing about the models they built and those pieces of writing could also be uploaded and shared.

The second Document store was created through the Advanced Settings link, in order to have a fresh, new, empty web part, rather than just a duplicate of the original Document store on the Documents page. This Document store was named Video Files and was added to the ‘Our Videos’ page. A folder was created for each of the schools, along with a fifth folder for SLF. Schools could use this to upload videos of their LEGO models in action, since the ‘We-Do’ kit includes software enabling the models to be programmed to move and make sounds. Find out more about how this Document store was used in the ‘Focus on’ section below.

Discussion Board
A discussion board was added to the Discussions page. This was originally intended for staff to ask questions about preparations for SLF and for pupils to discuss the activities they had been doing with the LEGO kits. However, the discussions about these activities naturally transferred themselves to the final page of the Glow Group, the Glow Blog.

Glow Blog
A page was created to host the Glow Blog.
The Glow Blog web part on the page enabled pupils to make quick posts about the activities they were doing. It was also used during the Scottish Learning Festival and afterwards. You can read more about this in Part 3 of the cookbook series.

In the next section, we will focus on one of the elements briefly described above. The others are focused on in the other three parts of this cookbook series.

Focus on: Pictures and Videos

Pictures

Click to view

A Picture Library was added to the Glow Group to enable the schools to upload photos of the LEGO models they made prior to attending SLF. This enabled the pupils to share their work with other schools, log on at home and show their parents what they had created in school and also learn from one another.

The picture library was configured to show only two columns – a thumbnail of the photo and a description of it. This allowed the pupils to describe their picture or simply add a comment.

During the Scottish Learning Festival, many photos were taken of the pupils participating in the LEGO, animation and video activities. These were then made into a collage by pasting all of the images into a Microsoft Word document then capturing the collage as a single picture using an image capture tool. This single image was then uploaded into the Text Editor web part, giving another way of sharing images between all four schools.

Videos

Video files were added to the Glow Group in two ways.

Prior to SLF, some of the schools recorded short video clips to show the models they made in action, since the software that accompanied the LEGO kits enabled the models to be programmed to move and make sounds.

Click to View

These video files were then shared by uploading them into the ‘Video Files’ Document Library on the ‘Our Videos’ page in the Glow Group. Members of the Group simply had to click on the file to play the video.

During the Scottish Learning Festival, the pupils made stop/start animations with LEGO models. The animation videos were then added to the Glow Group. This meant that they could be watched by pupils who had not attended SLF and could also be shown to parents. In this instance, this was done by uploading the files to a free online hosting site called screencast.com. This site then provided an embed code which was pasted into the xml web part in the Glow Group. This enabled the videos to play within the web part, simply by pressing the play button. You can see this in the SLF LEGO Glow Group Tour video clip earlier in this cookbook. The recipe section below provides a ‘how to’ video to enable you to learn how to do this for yourself.

Ingredients
In order for the East Dunbartonshire schools attending the Scottish Learning Festival to be able to upload images and videos to the SLF LEGO Glow Group, the following was done:
- A Picture Library was added to the ‘Our Photos’ page
- A new Document Library was created and added to the Documents page
- Text Editor web parts were added to the Videos Page in the Group and the video files of the pupil animations were added to those.

Additional work was done to create the other elements of the Glow Group which have been touched on in the ‘elements of the Glow Group’ section above. These are covered in the other parts of this cookbook series.

Recipe
In the following videos we will look at how to replicate some of the elements mentioned above. In particular, we will look at creating hidden pages and linking to them:

How to add a Picture Library to a Glow Group (2:03)
LEGO activities at SLF: Part 4- Pictures and Videos
How to create a second Picture Library for your Glow Group (4:27)
LEGO activities at SLF: Part 4- Pictures and Videos
How to change the columns shown in a Picture Library- adding a description field (4:38)
LEGO activities at SLF: Part 4- Pictures and Videos
How to embed a video file in the xml web part (3:55)
LEGO activities at SLF: Part 4- Pictures and Videos
How to create a new Document Store (5:57)
LEGO activities at SLF: Part 4- Pictures and Videos

Impact

Using the Glow Group has had a great impact on the schools involved in the LEGO activities.

They have had a place for communicating and sharing their learning.

Pupils have been able to share with others, both in their own school and outwith, the models they have built, through use of the picture library, Document store for videos, and through their blog posts.

Staff have been able to use the Group to meet virtually using Glow Meet and to plan using this, so eliminating the need to travel to actual meetings. Glow Meet has also enabled the pupils to speak to one another and to the Glow Team, prior to attending the Scottish Learning Festival, which helped reassure them before attending such a large event.

The use of the picture library provides and excellent means of formative assessment, showcasing the work pupils have done and providing an opportunity for peer review.

In all, the Glow Group has been highly beneficial to all who have used it.

Read the other parts of this cookbook series:

Part 1: Focus on – Hidden Pages

Part 2: Focus on – Glow Meet

Part 3: Focus on – Using a Glow Blog

Recently, four schools from East Dunbartonshire volunteered to attend the Scottish Learning Festival to their pupils to take part in a range of activities. To support their preparation for this, a Glow Group was created at Local Authority Level to enable the schools – Bearsden Primary, Killermont Primary, Lenzie-Moss Primary and Oxgang Primary – to communicate, collaborate and share their learning.

In order to look at how the Group was used, this cookbook has been split into four parts. This part, Part 3, looks at the use of Glow Blogs. Part 1 looks at the use of hidden pages in the Glow Group, Part 2 on how the use of Glow Meet and Part 4 on Pictures and Videos. All four parts will contain the same overview in the ‘context’ section, with the different elements being explored in the ‘Focus On’ and recipe sections.

Context

Jan Pollok, Quality Improvement Officer and Glow Key Contact for East Dunbartonshire Council sent out a Targeted News item from the Local Authority site in Glow, asking for schools to volunteer to attend the Scottish Learning Festival (SLF) to take part in LEGO activities. Jan had initially wanted to choose two schools, but after responses came in from schools, she decided to invite the four schools named above.

Jan met with Joanne Connolly, one of the Glow Educationalists from the National Glow Team, to discuss how Glow could support the schools before SLF and also how it could be used during and afterwards.

As a result of this conversation, Jan created a Glow Group at Local Authority level to enable the four schools to have direct sight of it. The layout was then designed and built, after consultation with the schools.

Initially, the Primary 7 teachers from the schools met with Jan and Joanne to discuss the activities that the pupils would be undertaking at SLF and to give their input to the Glow Group structure and content. It was agreed that the Group would contain hidden pages, with only the Noticeboard Page visible and links to the hidden pages provided there. This gave the Group a sleek and simple look and made it very easy to navigate around. (find out more about hidden pages in Part 1 of this cookbook series)
We can look at the Group and its layout in the following video:

Tour of the SLF LEGO Glow Group  (11:48)
LEGO activities at SLF – Part 3: Using Glow Blogs

Elements of the Glow Group

The Glow Group was created with hidden pages, and links to these were provided by hot-spotting an image in the text editor web part.  A range of different web parts were then added to the hidden pages in the Glow Group:

Glow Meet

The first part of the Glow Group that was used was the Glow Meet page. It was agreed at the initial meeting that a Glow Meet would be held to enable the children to introduce themselves and become more familiar with Glow Meet. It also provided an opportunity for the schools to check their equipment was working. You can find out more details about it in part 2 of the cookbook series.

Picture Library

Both before and after the Glow Meet, the pupils spent time in their classrooms using the ‘We-Do’ LEGO kits that they had been given to allow them to practise prior to attending SLF. They took photos of the models they built and these were uploaded to the Picture Library on the ‘Our Photos’ page of the Group. A collage of pictures were also uploaded to a Text Editor web part.  Find out more in Part 4 of the cookbook!

Document Stores

There are two Document Stores in the Glow Group.

The first is on the Documents page. This was there to give pupils a place where they could perhaps write instructions on how to build a particular LEGO model and share those with others by uploading to the Document store. It was also discussed that pupils might do creative writing about the models they built and those pieces of writing could also be uploaded and shared.

The second Document store was created through the Advanced Settings link, in order to have a fresh, new, empty web part, rather than just a duplicate of the original Document store on the Documents page. This Document store was named Video Files and was added to the ‘Our Videos’ page. A folder was created for each of the schools, along with a fifth folder for SLF. Schools could use this to upload videos of their LEGO models in action, since the ‘We-Do’ kit includes software enabling the models to be programmed to move and make sounds. Find out more about how this Document store was used in Part 4 of the cookbook series.

Discussion Board

A discussion board was added to the Discussions page. This was originally intended for staff to ask questions about preparations for SLF and for pupils to discuss the activities they had been doing with the LEGO kits. However, the discussions about these activities naturally transferred themselves to the final page of the Glow Group, the Glow Blog.

Glow Blog

A page was created to host the Glow Blog.

The Glow Blog web part on the page enabled pupils to make quick posts about the activities they were doing. It was also used during the Scottish Learning Festival and afterwards. Find out more in the ‘Focus on’ section below.

In the next section, we will focus on one of the elements briefly described above. The others will be focused on in the other three parts of this cookbook series.

Focus on: Glow Blogs

Click to view

In order to aid communication and collaboration, the Glow Blog web part was added to the Blog page in the Glow Group. A blog was then created and named LEGO Blog.

Within the web part, pupils could make quick posts by giving their post a title, typing in the main body of the text, and clicking ‘Publish’.

For those who wanted to add additional content to their posts, such as images, the link to the blog dashboard could be used. However, in order to make this even more accessible, a Page Viewer web part linking directly to the Dashboard was added to the page, enabling staff and pupils to see this in full.

The text editor web part was used to give a visual link to the blog itself.

An image was added to text editor and ‘hot-spotted’ to the blog posts, where all the posts could be read and commented on.

The blog proved to be an excellent way for pupils to record their achievements by writing about the models they had created. It was also a great way of connecting the schools and Joanne, who was able to comment on the photos that the pupils had uploaded to the Picture Library or respond to posts made by the pupils.

During SLF, the blog was used to write posts about the schools that were there (as each attended separately for a half day each) and the activities they were doing. As only 8 pupils per school actually attended the Scottish Learning Festival, this could be read by the rest of the class, making them feel part of the event too.

After SLF, pupils used the blog to write about their experiences there and to say how much they had enjoyed it. As well as writing their own posts, they were able to comment on one another’s, as well as have people comment on theirs, making it a very interactive mode of communication and peer assessment.

We can see some of the blog posts in the following short video

Video – A look at the SLF LEGO Glow Blog (3:16)
LEGO activities at SLF – Part 3: Using Glow Blogs

Ingredients

In order for the East Dunbartonshire schools attending the Scottish Learning Festival to be able to access and use the SLF LEGO Glow Group, and in particular, use the Glow Blog, the following was done:

-     A Glow Group was created at Local Authority level
-     Teachers and pupils from the schools were made members of the Group
-     The Glow Blog web part was added to a page in the Group
-     The blog itself was created.

In addition, the following ‘non-essential’ work was done:

-      Page viewer web part was added and linked to the blog dashboard, to give pupils access to this
-      Text editor was added and an image uploaded and hot-spotted to link to the blog articles already posted

Other work was also done to create the other elements of the Glow Group. These will be covered in the other parts of this cookbook series.

Recipe

In the following videos we will look at how to replicate some of the elements mentioned above. In particular, we will look at creating and using a Glow Blog.

How to add a Glow Blog to a Glow Group and create the blog (6:12)
LEGO activities at SLF – Part 3: Using Glow Blogs
How to make a quick post in a Glow Blog (2:10)
LEGO activities at SLF – Part 3: Using Glow Blogs
How to add an image to a blog post (7:10)
LEGO activities at SLF – Part 3: Using Glow Blogs
How to embed a Youtube video in a blog post (4:33)
LEGO activities at SLF – Part 3: Using Glow Blogs
Viewing the Glow Blog dashboard through the Page Viewer web part (3:55)
LEGO activities at SLF – Part 3: Using Glow Blogs
How to read and comment on posts in a Glow Blog (6:15)
LEGO activities at SLF – Part 3: Using Glow Blogs
 

Impact

Using the Glow Group has had a great impact on the schools involved in the LEGO activities.

They have had a place for communicating and sharing their learning.

Pupils have been able to share with others, both in their own school and outwith, the models they have built, through use of the picture library, Document store for videos, and through their blog posts.

Staff have been able to use the Group to meet virtually using Glow Meet and to plan using this, so eliminating the need to travel to actual meetings. Glow Meet has also enabled the pupils to speak to one another and to the Glow Team, prior to attending the Scottish Learning Festival, which helped reassure them before attending such a large event.

The use of the picture library provides and excellent means of formative assessment, showcasing the work pupils have done and providing an opportunity for peer review.

In all, the Glow Group has been highly beneficial to all who have used it.

You may also be interested in reading the other parts of this cookbook series:

Part 1: Focus on – Hidden Pages

Part 2: Focus on – Glow Meet

Part 4: Focus on – Pictures and Videos

Overview

Recently, four schools from East Dunbartonshire volunteered to attend the Scottish Learning Festival to their pupils to take part in a range of activities. To support their preparation for this, a Glow Group was created at Local Authority Level to enable the schools – Bearsden Primary, Killermont Primary, Lenzie-Moss Primary and Oxgang Primary – to communicate, collaborate and share their learning.

In order to look at how the Group was used, this cookbook has been split into four parts., This part, Part 2, looks at the use of Glow Meet. Part 1 looks at the use of hidden pages in the Glow Group, Part 3 will focus on how the Glow Blog was used and Part 4 on Pictures and Videos. All four parts will contain the same overview in the ‘context’ section, with the different elements being explored in the ‘Focus On’ and recipe sections.

Context

Jan Pollok, Quality Improvement Officer and Glow Key Contact for East Dunbartonshire Council sent out a Targeted News item from the Local Authority site in Glow, asking for schools to volunteer to attend the Scottish Learning Festival (SLF) to take part in LEGO activities. Jan had initially wanted to choose two schools, but after responses came in from schools, she decided to invite the four schools named above.

Jan met with Joanne Connolly, one of the Glow Educationalists from the National Glow Team, to discuss how Glow could support the schools before SLF and also how it could be used during and afterwards.

As a result of this conversation, Jan created a Glow Group at Local Authority level to enable the four schools to have direct sight of it. The layout was then designed and built, after consultation with the schools.

Initially, the Primary 7 teachers from the schools met with Jan and Joanne to discuss the activities that the pupils would be undertaking at SLF and to give their input to the Glow Group structure and content. It was agreed that the Group would contain hidden pages, with only the Noticeboard Page visible and links to the hidden pages provided there. This gave the Group a sleek and simple look and made it very easy to navigate around. (find out more about hidden pages in Part 1 of this cookbook series)
We can look at the Group and its layout in the following video:

Tour of the SLF LEGO Glow Group  (11:48)
LEGO activities at SLF: Part 2 – Glow Meet
 

Elements of the Glow Group

The Glow Group was created with hidden pages, and links to these were provided by hot-spotting an image in the text editor web part.  A range of different web parts were then added to the hidden pages in the Glow Group:

Glow Meet

The first part of the Glow Group that was used was the Glow Meet page. It was agreed at the initial meeting that a Glow Meet would be held to enable the children to introduce themselves and become more familiar with Glow Meet. It also provided an opportunity for the schools to check their equipment was working. You can find out more details about it in the ‘focus’ section of this part of the cookbook series.

Picture Library

Both before and after the Glow Meet, the pupils spent time in their classrooms using the ‘We-Do’ LEGO kits that they had been given to allow them to practise prior to attending SLF. They took photos of the models they built and these were uploaded to the Picture Library on the ‘Our Photos’ page of the Group. Find out more in Part 4 of the cookbook!

Document Stores

There are two Document Stores in the Glow Group.

The first is on the Documents page. This was there to give pupils a place where they could perhaps write instructions on how to build a particular LEGO model and share those with others by uploading to the Document store. It was also discussed that pupils might do creative writing about the models they built and those pieces of writing could also be uploaded and shared.

The second Document store was created through the Advanced Settings link, in order to have a fresh, new, empty web part, rather than just a duplicate of the original Document store on the Documents page. This Document store was named Video Files and was added to the ‘Our Videos’ page. A folder was created for each of the schools, along with a fifth folder for SLF. Schools could use this to upload videos of their LEGO models in action, since the ‘We-Do’ kit includes software enabling the models to be programmed to move and make sounds. Find out more about how this Document store was used in Part 4 of the cookbook series.

Discussion Board

A discussion board was added to the Discussions page. This was originally intended for staff to ask questions about preparations for SLF and for pupils to discuss the activities they had been doing with the LEGO kits. However, the discussions about these activities naturally transferred themselves to the final page of the Glow Group, the Glow Blog.

Glow Blog

A page was created to host the Glow Blog.

The Glow Blog web part on the page enabled pupils to make quick posts about the activities they were doing. It was also used during the Scottish Learning Festival and afterwards. The use of Glow Blogs is the focus of Part 3 of this cookbook series.

In the next section, we will focus on one of the elements briefly described above. The others will be focused on in the other three parts of this cookbook series.

Focus on: Glow Meet

Glow Meet was used in the Glow Group on several occasions and for a range of purposes.

Once the Glow Meet web part had been added to the Glow Group and the Meeting Room created, the first use that was made of it was for the teachers in the four schools simply to test it out. The teachers wanted to check that they could access it successfully from their classroom machines. This was particularly important for two of the teachers who were using new computers. They needed to check that they still had the correct version of Java on their machine as Glow Meet requires a specific version of Java (version 5.11) to be installed for it to work. (You can find out more about this in this Helpsheet:  Java for Glow Meet  )  This was particularly useful and meant that teachers could hold a meeting without needing to take time to travel.

The second use of Glow Meet was for the pupils from the four schools to introduce themselves to one another and to show the LEGO models they had been making. This Glow Meet session was recorded and subsequently added back into the Glow Group. This was done by using screencapture software, uploading to an online hosting site and then embedding the video into the Text Editor web part. You can find out how to do this in the ‘how to’ videos below.

By adding the recording of the Glow Meet, pupils were able to access this from home and show heir parents what they had been doing in school that day.

During the Scottish Learning Festival itself, Glow Meet was used to broadcast back to the East Dunbartonshire schools, the activities being undertaken by the pupils who were there. The four schools attended for half a day each and only eight pupils from each school were able to attend. By using Glow Meet, the other classmates were able to watch the activities live, and still feel part of the event. All four sessions were recorded and the recordings will be uploaded to the Glow Group so that they can be watched back at any time.

Ingredients

In order for the East Dunbartonshire schools attending the Scottish Learning Festival to be able to access and use Glow Meet in the SLF LEGO Glow Group, the following was required:

-    The Glow Meet web part was added to one of the hidden pages in the Glow Group and a meeting room was created
-    Schools required web cams, microphones and speakers
-    Computers to be used for Glow Meet needed to have the correct version of Java installed (v5.11)

Additional work was done to create the other elements of the Glow Group which have been touched on in the ‘elements of the Glow Group’ section above. These will be covered in the other parts of this cookbook series.

Recipe

In the following videos we will look at how to replicate some of the elements mentioned above. In particular, we will look at the use of Glow Meet, recording sessions and embedding the recordings in a Glow Group.

How to set up a Glow Meet in a Glow Group (5:36)
LEGO activities at SLF: Part 2 – Glow Meet
How to join and take part in a Glow Meet (3:38)
LEGO activities at SLF: Part 2 – Glow Meet
How to use the video, audio and chat facility within a Glow Meet meeting room (6:19)
LEGO activities at SLF: Part 2 – Glow Meet
How to record a Glow Meet (2:09)
LEGO activities at SLF: Part 2 – Glow Meet
How to play back a previously recorded Glow Meet (3:22)
LEGO activities at SLF: Part 2 – Glow Meet
How to embed a video of a recorded Glow Meet into the xml web part (8:45)
LEGO activities at SLF: Part 2 – Glow Meet

Impact

Using the Glow Group has had a great impact on the schools involved in the LEGO activities.

They have had a place for communicating and sharing their learning.

Pupils have been able to share with others, both in their own school and outwith, the models they have built, through use of the picture library, Document store for videos, and through their blog posts.

Staff have been able to use the Group to meet virtually using Glow Meet and to plan using this, so eliminating the need to travel to actual meetings. Glow Meet has also enabled the pupils to speak to one another and to the Glow Team, prior to attending the Scottish Learning Festival, which helped reassure them before attending such a large event.

The use of the picture library provides and excellent means of formative assessment, showcasing the work pupils have done and providing an opportunity for peer review.

In all, the Glow Group has been highly beneficial to all who have used it.

You may also be interested in reading the other parts of this cookbook series:

Part 1: Focus on – Hidden Pages

Part 3: Focus on – Glow Blogs

Part 4: Focus on – Pictures and Videos

Overview

Recently, four schools from East Dunbartonshire volunteered to attend the Scottish Learning Festival to enable their pupils to take part in a range of activities. To support their preparation for this, a Glow Group was created at Local Authority Level to enable the schools – Bearsden Primary, Killermont Primary, Lenzie-Moss Primary and Oxgang Primary – to communicate, collaborate and share their learning.

In order to look at how the Group was used, this cookbook will be split into four parts. Part 1 will look at the use of hidden pages in the Glow Group, Part 2 at the use of Glow Meet. Part 3 will focus on how the Glow Blog was used and Part 4 on Pictures and Videos. All four parts will contain the same overview in the ‘context’ section, with the different elements being explored in the ‘Focus On’ and recipe sections.

 Context

Jan Pollok, Quality Improvement Officer and Glow Key Contact for East Dunbartonshire Council sent out a Targeted News item from the Local Authority site in Glow, asking for schools to volunteer to attend the Scottish Learning Festival (SLF) to take part in LEGO activities. Jan had initially wanted to choose two schools, but after responses came in from schools, she decided to invite the four schools named above.

Jan met with Joanne Connolly, one of the Glow Educationalists from the National Glow Team, to discuss how Glow could support the schools before SLF and also how it could be used during and afterwards.

As a result of this conversation, Jan created a Glow Group at Local Authority level to enable the four schools to have direct sight of it. The layout was then designed and built, after consultation with the schools.

Initially, the Primary 7 teachers from the schools met with Jan and Joanne to discuss the activities that the pupils would be undertaking at SLF and to give their input to the Glow Group structure and content. It was agreed that the Group would contain hidden pages, with only the Noticeboard Page visible and links to the hidden pages provided there. This gave the Group a sleek and simple look and made it very easy to navigate around.

We can look at the Group and its layout in the following video:

 Tour of the East Dunbartonshire SLF LEGO Glow Group (11:48)
LEGO activities at SLF: Part 1 – Hidden Pages in a Glow Group
 

 Elements of the Glow Group

 A range of different web parts were incorporated within the Glow Group:

Glow Meet

The first part of the Glow Group that was used was the Glow Meet page. It was agreed at the initial meeting that a Glow Meet would be held to enable the children to introduce themselves and become more familiar with Glow Meet. It also provided an opportunity for the schools to check their equipment was working. You can find out more details about it in part 2 of the cookbook series.

Picture Library

Both before and after the Glow Meet, the pupils spent time in their classrooms using the ‘We-Do’ LEGO kits that they had been given to allow them to practise prior to attending SLF. They took photos of the models they built and these were uploaded to the Picture Library on the ‘Our Photos’ page of the Group. Find out more in Part 4 of the cookbook!

Document Stores

There are two Document Stores in the Glow Group.

The first is on the Documents page. This was there to give pupils a place where they could perhaps write instructions on how to build a particular LEGO model and share those with others by uploading to the Document store. It was also discussed that pupils might do creative writing about the models they built and those pieces of writing could also be uploaded and shared.

The second Document store was created through the Advanced Settings link, in order to have a fresh, new, empty web part, rather than just a duplicate of the original Document store on the Documents page. This Document store was named Video Files and was added to the ‘Our Videos’ page. A folder was created for each of the schools, along with a fifth folder for SLF. Schools could use this to upload videos of their LEGO models in action, since the ‘We-Do’ kit includes software enabling the models to be programmed to move and make sounds. Find out more about how this Document store was used in Part 4 of the cookbook series.

Discussion Board

A discussion board was added to the Discussions page. This was originally intended for staff to ask questions about preparations for SLF and for pupils to discuss the activities they had been doing with the LEGO kits. However, the discussions about these activities naturally transferred themselves to the final page of the Glow Group, the Glow Blog.

Glow Blog

A page was created to host the Glow Blog.

The Glow Blog web part on the page enabled pupils to make quick posts about the activities they were doing. It was also used during the Scottish Learning Festival and afterwards. Learn more about this in Part 3 of the cookbook series.

In the next section, we will focus on one of the elements briefly described above. The others will be focused on in the other three parts of this cookbook series.

Focus on: Hidden Pages

It was agreed that to make the SLF Lego Glow Group look good and be easy to navigate, it would be build with hidden pages.

When a Glow Group is created, there are four default pages – Noticeboard, Discussions, Documents and Glow Groups. The last three of these pages were deleted to leave only the Noticeboard.

This means that only the Noticeboard page is visible.

In order to access the hidden pages, links to them have been made on the Noticeboard.

Creating hidden pages

Hidden pages are created using the Advanced Settings link in a Glow Group. This is only accessible to the Administrator of a Glow Group.

Once created, hidden pages can contain any content that a ‘normal’ Glow Group page can hold.

In order for users to be able to access the hidden pages, a link to them has to be provided. This can either be hyperlinked text, or a hot-spotted image.

In the SLF LEGO Group, the links were provided by hot-spotting different areas of an image which had been uploaded into the text editor web part.

Once on a hidden page, users simply click on the Noticeboard tab to return to there and can click on an image and choose a new page to go to.

You can see how this looks in the video tour of the Glow Group in the context section above, and learn how to create and link to hidden pages in the recipe section below.

Ingredients

In order for the East Dunbartonshire schools attending the Scottish Learning Festival to be able to access and use the pages in the SLF LEGO Glow Group, the following was done:

-         A Glow Group was created at Local Authority level
-         Teachers and pupils from the schools were made members of the Group
-         Hidden pages were created
-         An image was uploaded to a text editor web part on the Noticeboard page
-         Different areas of the image in text editor were ‘hot-spotted’ to link to the hidden pages

Additional work was done to create the other elements of the Glow Group which have been touched on in the ‘elements of the Glow Group’ section above. These will be covered in the other parts of this cookbook series.

Recipe

In the following videos we will look at how to replicate some of the elements mentioned above. In particular, we will look at creating hidden pages and linking to them:

How to remove pages from a Glow Group and close web parts from a page (2:22)
LEGO activities at SLF: Part 1 – Hidden Pages in a Glow Group
How to create a hidden page and hyperlink text to access it (10:39)
LEGO activities at SLF: Part 1 – Hidden Pages in a Glow Group
How to hotspot an image and link it to a hidden page (6:22)
LEGO activities at SLF: Part 1 – Hidden Pages in a Glow Group
 

Impact

Using the Glow Group has had a great impact on the schools involved in the LEGO activities.

They have had a place for communicating and sharing their learning.

Pupils have been able to share with others, both in their own school and outwith, the models they have built, through use of the picture library, Document store for videos, and through their blog posts.

Staff have been able to use the Group to meet virtually using Glow Meet and to plan using this, so eliminating the need to travel to actual meetings. Glow Meet has also enabled the pupils to speak to one another and to the Glow Team, prior to attending the Scottish Learning Festival, which helped reassure them before attending such a large event.

The use of the picture library provides and excellent means of formative assessment, showcasing the work pupils have done and providing an opportunity for peer review.

In all, the Glow Group has been highly beneficial to all who have used it.

Read the other parts of this cookbook series:

Part 2: Focus on – Glow Meet

Part 3: Focus on – Glow Blogs

Part 4: Focus on – Pictures and Videos

Title: Using Glow as an Evidence Store
Holy Family PS is situated in East Dunbartonshire Council and was recently inspected by HMIE. This cookbook looks at how using Glow as an evidence store the SMT were able to track information quickly and effectively.
In this cookbook we will look at how all staff used Glow to store information and relevant documents and policies that not only meant that they were easy to locate and source but also ensured that all staff had access to information and ensured that communication within all staff was to a very high standard.

Context
East Dunbartonshire was an early adopter to Glow and in February 2008 the DHT attended Glow training for ICT co-ordinators. Upon her return she decided that she would look at ways to encourage staff to use Glow and also ensure that the reason was purposeful and of benefit to the school. At the training it was suggested that there should be four main folders within the Establishment Site, these should be Pupil Communication, Pupil Curriculum, Staff Communication and Staff Curriculum. The DHT then set up these four Glow Groups and created Glow groups within them.
The Staff Communication folder was used to store all relevant documentation for example school policies, which meant that all satff had access to the most up to date copy of these. All paper copies were removed from classrooms. The Staff Communication folder was created as a store were all information relevant to staff would be placed. All Staff members within the Establishment were given contributor rights to this group so that they could read all the information and contribute by uploading and downloading documents, add to the calendar web part and contribute to discussions.
The Head Teacher displayed her committment to the use of Glow by adding it to the School Improvement Plan and by ensuring it was part of PPR for CPD for the session. Time was given to staff at Stage and Staff meetings to develop their skills in Glow and to share good practice. The use of Glow was also added to the agenda for Forward Planning feedback to evaluate how staff were using Glow and adapt the Staff Communications area as a result.

Ingredients

What did the DHT need to create the elements of the Glow Group?

1. A Glow Group
2. Access to Glow Group for all teaching staff members

It was necessary to ensure staff had Contributor rights within the Glow Group to enable them to make changes to the Calendar and upload and download documents in the document store.

In the next section, we will take a look at the ‘Staff Communication’ Glow Group and learn how to recreate elements within it.

Recipe

Video Clip
*What the Staff Communication Glow Group Looks Like
Using Glow as an Evidence Store

*How to create a Glow Group and add members to the group
Using Glow as an Evidence Store

*How to Add and re-name pages within a Glow Group
Using Glow as an Evidence Store

*How to use the news web part as a daily diary, targeting news to members
Using Glow as an Evidence Store

*How to use daily diary as an archive for learners experiences
Using Glow as an Evidence Store

*How to create a calendar which lists all school events
Using Glow as an Evidence Store

Impact
There was a major impact in creating this Glow group. Its initial purpose of ensuring staff have ‘practice’ with Glow was very effective as all Daily Diary events were posted on Glow and so staff were required to log on daily to see if there was any news. There was also the benefit of them becoming familiar with some of the components within Glow, such as uploading and downloading documents so that they were developing a skill base for use with their own Class Glow groups.
Secondly by using this area as storage and communication area it meant that all staff had the most up to date and relevant documentation and we were able to source and locate information very quickly which was particularly effective when HMIE visited as it was stored on Glow.  Also for the HMIE visit it was easy to locate information on Learners’ Experiences through the use of the calendar web part and see clearly the experiences they had had through clubs, visitors, outings, residential trips collated on this web part.

By using Glow to store Forward Planning materials it meant that staff were able to work from home on planning and help fulfil the McCrone agreement, anytime, anywhere working.

Through using Glow the amount of paper required through photocopying has also decreased as there is now no need to print out masters of policies and Forward planning so this has had a financial benefit as well as help support our eco-schools status.

New planners which are created by staff to incorportae CfE are uploaded to this area so that this work is saved and archived and can be used again in the future which has been purposeful as the school has supported probationers and support staff and it means that the work they create is easy accessed in future years.

The Staff Communication area is an evidence store as well as a working area which has been to benefit of all.

A key part of this Glow group was the use of discussion boards. They were used to allow pupils from each primary school to ask questions of the teachers in 6 of the Academy’s departments and also a group of prefects from S6. This required the use of multiple discussion boards in the one group and this cookbook outlines how this was done.

Context

A key part of this project was to allow the pupils to ask questions which would then be answered by teachers from the Academy and by S6 pupils.  It was important that the questions were kept separate from each other – this would allow the English teacher to see all questions meant for them without having to filter through all questions to all departments.

Discussion boards were also seen as the appropriate solution.  Glow Chat would have allowed the same question and answer session however it is real time and it was important in this project that schools could ask the questions at different times from each other.  Also by using discussion boards all pupils could see the questions set by other pupils.

Ingredients
A page for each department and a page for the prefects
A separate discussion board on each page

Recipe
Set up the pages – Glow groups by default come with 4 pages – Noticeboard, Discussions, Documents and Glow Groups, This set up was not appropriate for the Transition Glow Group and so Mrs Mackenzie removed all the pages other than Noticeboard (this cannot be deleted) and added pages – one for each department and one for the prefects.

Watch the video to see how pages can be added and removed from a Glow group:
Using Glow In Primary to Secondary Transition (part 2)

Create a separate discussion web part for each instance required – if you drag the discussion board on to each page then they are just different views of the same discussion board. This was not appropriate for this group as the questions had to be kept separate from each other. Instead Mrs Mackenzie created 7 discussion boards through the Advanced Settings and then dragged each Discussion board on to the appropriate page.

Watch the video to see how different discussion boards are set up and then used:
Using Glow In Primary to Secondary Transition (part 2)

This project is going to run again this year and interest is being expressed by every department in the Academy!

This Glow group provided the mechanism for:
• P7 pupils to use the discussion boards to have their questions answered by S6 pupils
• Secondary subject teachers to introduce their subjects through Glow Meet to the pupils and answer questions specific to their subjects

This cookbook will show how the group was set up with membership from a number of schools and also how multiple discussion boards were set up in the Glow group to allow separate Q and A sessions to take place with different teachers and the S6 pupils.

Context

Mrs MacKenzie saw Glow as being ideal for developing and building upon the existing transition process.  To move things forward she met with Jim Melrose the DHT of Lenzie Academy and Jan Pollok the schools link QIO.  6 departments in Lenzie Academy were identified as participants and then links were made with the other 4 associated primary schools – Lenzie, Lenzie Moss, Millersneuk all from East Dunbartonshire and Auchinloch from North Lanarkshire.

After getting agreement from all schools involved regarding the approach,  Mrs MacKenzie went ahead and created the group which was sited at Local Authority level and membership given to the relevant people from all schools including those in the different local authority.

All 6 departments (English, Science, Art, PE, Maths and Business Ed) all agreed to follow the same basic format of their Glow page:

• An Ask the Teacher discussion forum to allow the pupils to ask questions about the subject
• A Glow Meet to introduce staff and/or launch a challenge for the P7s.

English: Mr McKinstry delivered a spooky story writing lesson to all P7 pupils using Glow Meet and then set a competition.  The children had to write a 100 word spooky story that was then uploaded to Glow.  Glow Meet was then used to announce the winners at each school and  the overall winner.  Unbeknown to the children Mr McKinstry was actually in the overall winner’s school.  When he announced this and that he would be opening the door of the winning classroom the tension was palpable.  It was even better when he opened the classroom door and the children let out an enormous roar!

PE: Mr Imrie used the Glow page to advertise PE festivals and let the children know the type of after school clubs they could be involved in.  Over 100 questions were asked by the pupils and Mr Imrie managed to answer them all.  The discussion forum was only open for a month to reduce the workload on the secondary staff.

Maths: Mr Jarman used the Glow pages to launch a monthly maths puzzle.  A Glow Meet for all P7 pupils was held to tell them about the puzzles.  The children could then post the answers to the group and Mr Jarman also included useful maths websites, maths clubs in Lenzie Academy and answered questions in his Ask the Teacher discussion forum.

Art and Business Education: Mr Cassidy and Mrs Scott  working collaboratively, the 2 teachers asked the children to complete a questionnaire about good logo designs for a health promoting t-shirt.  The children used the survey tool in Glow to do this.  The S1 art pupils then designed logos which were uploaded to Glow and the P7 pupils voted on their favourite.  The S1 Business Ed. pupils then worked out the cost of making the t-shirts and the winning design was printed for the P7 pupils to wear on their Get Active day as part of their induction.  The children also had the opportunity to ask questions about both subjects.

Science: Mr Melrose and Mrs Kerr held a Glow Meet for all the P7 pupils where they carried out a lot of very explosive experiments.  The children were then set a simple science experiment challenge, the answers to which they had to bring with them to their induction days.

A separate page in the Glow Group was then created to allow the P7 pupils to ask the Lenzie Academy Prefects questions about life at Lenzie Academy.  This proved to be very popular.

Ingredients
The elements that Mrs Mackenzie required to complete this task in Glow were:
• A Glow group at local authority level
• Separate pages in the Glow group for each subject matter and for the liaison with the S6 pupils
• Different discussion boards on each page
• Different document web parts on each page
• Access to Glow for her pupils plus access for the teachers and pupils at Lenzie Academy

The Glow group was set up with membership from across all the schools, they had to site this at Local Authority level to ensure it was within the line of sight for all people involved. Line of sight means it appears in their My Glow Groups list. Another option would have been to have the Glow group at school level however if this had been chosen then Vicky would have had to send the link to each school involved who would then have had to paste the link somewhere in Glow. By putting the Glow group at LA level this extra task was not required.

Recipe
How was the Glow group set up?
Using Glow In Primary to Secondary Transition (part 1)

Impact
Vicky ran a survey of her pupils at the end of the project using a survey web part to find out how the project had gone with her pupils. (see the separate cookbook to establish how this can be done).

The results were overwhelmingly positive:
73% of pupils said the project helped them prepare for life at secondary school
76% of pupils found the answers to their questions helpful
70% said the project should be repeated next year
66% said they would be willing to be the secondary pupils next year, helping the next year’s P7

(see the separate Glow Cookbook on this same project to find out how Glow Meet was used and also how the survey tool was used during the project)

Making it Big in the USA was an interdisciplanary project led and deliverd by Vicky MacKenzie and Fiona Donaghey. The project was based on and extended the ideas of Kim Aplin’s Guitar Hero work. It was a collaborative topic between Primary 7 and Primary 6/7.

Interdisciplinary Learning
• Main curricular focus – literacy, technology and social studies
• Minor curricular focus – art, maths
• Integrating International Education and Financial Education into the curriculum

So why Making it BIG in the USA?

The basic premise of this topic was to ensure that Primary 7 pupils were highly motivated and enthused by their final topic in primary school. I wanted the children to have an experience that they would remember for a long time and was completely different to anything they had done before. I also wanted the children to have the opportunity to work cooperatively in friendship groups and have a common goal as a class. Fiona and I also had to include Financial education as part of the school’s existing programme of work. As this focused on exchange rates, including the dollar, we decided to have the children tour the USA and work out all their band income and expenditure in dollars.

Launching the topic
There was a big build up to the topic and Fiona and I worked really hard to build anticipation and get the children excited. Initially Glow was not used as it’s role was central to the actual “tour”! We began by doing the following:

1. Children worked individually to create their rock star character. The children drew portraits and wrote profiles and were told that they would have to be in role as their rock star for the topic.
2. The children were then put into rock bands. There were roughly 3 children in every band. They were then set the following challenges:
a. Decide a band name
b. Decide a band logo and identity
c. Create their own guitars

Once the children had completed these tasks, they then had their 3 day induction at Lenzie Academy which tagged onto the May weekend, resulting in Fiona and I not seeing the children for a week. When the children returned to P7 and we told them they were about to go on tour, they actually cheered and were so excited. It was just amazing as Fiona and I were worried that having been to secondary school, they may have been completely indifferent to the topic. Throughout the topic Fiona and I acted as Band Managers and the children had to negotiate with us what they could and couldn’t do on tour.

Using Glow
It was at this point the Glow came into its own. The children were told that all information about the tour and their finances would be delivered through Glow and therefore it their responsibility to logon everyday to check for updates.

Activity One
The children were taught how to use a spreadsheet (RM Number Magic) to keep a record of their band expenses. Every band was given a starting budget and during the topic would have to record all expenditure and income. The children were told that at the end of the tour the band with the most money would be given a prize. The children uploaded their band budgets to the Band Budgets document store in the Glow group.

Activity Two
The children then had to book flights and accommodation to their first destination. The children used the websites in the Useful Websites section of the Glow group and obviously had to then deduct their expenditure from their expenses. This task was repeated 5 times during the topic as the children flew around the States.

Activity Three
Using Glow Learn the children were set the challenge to create a brochure about the states they were visiting. Information about the task and the criteria were sent by Fiona using Glow Learn. The children had to upload their completed brochures to Glow Learn and Fiona and I used the assessment tool in Glow Learn to give them feedback. The children were awarded bonuses for their budgets dependant on the quality of their brochure.

Activity Four
An ongoing set of tasks was delivered daily using targeted news. Fiona and I would post all sorts of additional challenges using this and it drove the children up the wall! It was hysterical. Once of the funniest, was Fiona’s stroke of genius about hiring security. The children were notified that they had to hire security as they had a stalker problem. They had to decide which security to hire from the Classified Ads section of the Glow group and deduct the costs from their expenses. Unbeknown to the pupils, Fiona had already decided that there would be consequences dependant on which security they hired. The children who hired the cheap security ended up having to go to court as they had a really serious stalker problem and had to pay hefty court fees. It was very funny. We used the targeted news to announce tax charges, bonuses for completing work etc and also for reminding the children about deadlines.

The children really rose to these challenges and due to many bands having a lack of funds (too many first class flights and 5 star hotels) they started to produce their own merchandise. This was something Fiona and I had not planned but ended up being an amazing success. They created their own CDs, t-shirts, tickets for concerts (which were touted around the room and caused a few arguments), key rings, baseball caps etc. The children ended up making merchandise catalogues and selling to each other from these.

Activity Five
The children were set a music topic as homework and could use the Glow group to upload documents they wanted to print at home.

This was a fab topic that Glow really enhanced. The children had a brilliant time and so did Fiona and I. The topic culminated in an X-Factor type show organised and delivered by the pupils. They organised the programme, collected money and wrote a shopping list for Fiona and I for party food. As the children had been playing Guitar Hero through out the entire topic, the children had to perform as their band. The performances were terrific as the children turned up in costume and lots had rehearsed in their own time.

See the Glow group here
Making It Big In The USA

Overview
Victoria Hogg is a Primary 3 class teacher at St. Andrew’s Primary School in Bearsden, East Dunbartonshire. She has recently started to look at ways that Glow can be used to support teaching and learning in classroom.
In this cookbook we will look at how Victoria used a Glow Group and the web parts within in to support teaching and learning in her class and also to run a Healthy Tuck shop with the learners. The cookbook will exemplar this good practice and shows how to re-create it.

Context
The Primary Three class were studying an interdisciplinary topic with a Health and Wellbeing and enterprise theme. The learners were looking at healthy living and food choices and as a result decided to develop a Healthy Tuck within the school which would offer alternative snacks at break time for the whole school. The Primary Three children run the Healthy tuck and provide the service for the school. In the initial stages they accessed grocery stores through web links in the glow group to look at healthy foods that they could eat at break time. They develop functional writing by writing to local superstores asking for support and ideas for healthy snacks. They completed surveys about which food would make good healthy snacks and ordered and bought their stock on line which was delivered to their class.
They then designed posters to advertise their Healthy Tuck and offered its service to the whole school. They decided to use Glow as a way to collate orders for their tuck shop. Everyday before 10.00 orders are posted by all classes throughout the school to show what their class would like to order that day. This order is then created by the children giving them real life experience of fractions as they count and cut fractions of fruit and pancakes and delivered for break time.
The children collect and count all money and bank this in the money book. They are familiar with the terms profit and loss and how their costs must cover their order price. All profit from the tuck shop is being gifted to Yorkhill Hospital.

CFE Outcomes and Experiences met through this process are,

Representing my class, school and/or wider community encourages my self-worth and confidence and allows me to contribute to and participate in society. HWB 1-12a
Through contributing my views, time and talents, I play a part in bringing about positive change in my school and wider community. HWB 1-13a
I value the opportunities I am given to make friends and be part of a group in a range of situations.
HWB 1-14a
I am developing my understanding of the human body and can use this knowledge to maintain and improve my wellbeing and health.HWB 1-15a
Through taking part in a variety of events and activities, I am learning to recognise my own skills and abilities as well as those of others. HWB 1-19a
I experience a sense of enjoyment and achievement when preparing simple healthy foods and drinks.
HWB 1-30b

Ingredients
What did Victoria need do to use Glow to support this enterprise topic.

1. A Glow Group
2. Access to Glow Group for all pupils in class and teachers from other classes.
3. A printer

It was necessary to ensure users had Contributor rights within the Glow Group to enable them add to the orders for the Healthy Tuck.

In the next section, we’ll take a look at the Popcorn Gang Glow Group and learn how to recreate elements within it.

Recipe
The video below shows the ‘Popcorn Gang’ Glow Group. The videos that then follow show how these elements can be recreated.

Video Clip

*What does the Popcorn Gang Glow Group look like?

The Popcorn Gang – Using Glow to support an Enterprise Activity

*How to copy and paste from Glow to Word
The Popcorn Gang – Using Glow to support an Enterprise Activity

*How to add a Voki to a Glow Group
The Popcorn Gang – Using Glow to support an Enterprise Activity

Impact
There have been a number of impacts from this project. The class teacher is now much more familiar with the components of Glow and now hopes to develop her use to support teaching and learning. She also feels that the children have now had a good experience with Glow and are capable of logging on navigating their way through the web parts confidently so she would like to enhance their experiences.
This experience has also encouraged other staff to log on and use Glow and become familiar with the components of Glow and therefore increase their skill base with the product.
The children are also now successfully running a healthy tuck and this has become an important part of the school’s Health promotion.

Overview

Chatting about a message for the discussion board

P1 pupils in 5 schools in 3 local authorities started using Glow to facilitate a book project on the subject of Julia Donaldson books. Initially St James’s Primary school in Paisley, Renfrewshire, had wanted to undertake a literacy project and thought Glow would be an interesting way to open this up and make links with other schools at the same time. Athelstaneford Primary school in East Lothian was also interested in taking this forward. Through the teachers collaborating within the national Collaborative Projects group within Glow, schools in Renfrewshire, East Lothian and East Dunbartonshire decided to work together over a period of 6 weeks. Although there are many aspects we could focus on for this group, in this Cookbook we will learn what was involved in bring a Picture Library web part onto the page and configuring the settings of this to allow pupil work to be shared across the schools. There was much pupil work that came as a spin-off from the project which wasn’t expected by the teachers involved. In other Cookbooks on this project additional aspects will be investigated.
Although the group was developed as the project continued for the teachers involved, a similar project could be done with very little customisation of a Glow group and very little information added. Throughout this Cookbook we will concentrate on the simple usage of the group for the purposes of making use of the Picture Library web part, although there are obviously options for further development which were taken within this particular group.

Context

Gruffalo Masks at St James's

Anne Louise Nicholson had originally wanted to work on a literacy project with P1 which could have a different dimension from other projects, she wanted to be able to extend outside of the classroom. Having used Glow for groups within the whole school previously this seemed like the logical next step. Through participation in the National Collaborative Projects group Ms Nicholson had made contact with Lynne Lewis from Athelstaneford Primary in East Lothian who was keen to take this forward with her.
The project was expanded by Anne Louise Nicholson and Lynne Lewis to other schools from East Lothian, Sarah Boyd at Longniddry Primary and Emma Kerr at Pencaitland Primary and also Laura Kerr at Lairdsland Primary in East Dunbartonshire. Eventually the project comprised of 5 different P1 classes across 3 different local authorities. Within the main, each class used only a teacher machine with web cam/microphone and speakers, although St James’s (Paisley) in Renfrewshire arranged for the pupils to use computers individually to contribute to Discussion Boards and to upload their work to be shared. Ms Nicholson at St James’s took the responsibility of setting up the Glow Group with the required web parts.

Naomi's work from the Picture Library

In the main regular web conferencing, or Glow Meet sessions were held with all schools participating. Each of these was led by a different school and the teachers had planned what the content and context of each session would be. All of this was building towards the final Glow Meet session where the schools would join with the author Julia Donaldson. Over a period of a number of weeks pupils were motivated to undertake work outside of the Glow Meet sessions to share with other pupils. Anne Louise Nicholson was surprised by how eager they were to share their work with the other pupils. In this Cookbook we will look at the way an additional page in the group was used to allow the pupil work to be shared with all the schools. The whole project had already taken place when we spoke to the teachers which allowed us to have a complete view of how the entire project had gone and its impact on the pupils and teachers involved. We will concentrate on St James’s (Paisley) in Renfrewshire for illustration in this Cookbook.
In discussion with Ms Nicholson we learned that the project had set out to address many experiences and outcomes from Curriculum for Excellence but we have selected a few of these pertinent to our concentration on using the Picture Library web part to share work:
Experiences – Listening and Talking
• LIT 0-01b– I enjoy exploring and choosing stories and other texts to watch, read and listen to, and can share my likes and dislikes.
• LIT 0-01c – I enjoy exploring events and characters in stories and other texts, sharing my thoughts in different ways.
• LIT 0-04a – I listen or watch for useful or interesting information and I use this to make choices or learn new things.

Experiences – Reading
• LIT 0-07a / LIT 0-16a / ENG 0-17a– To help me understand stories and other texts, I ask questions and link what I am learning to what I already know.

Ingredients
• 5 P1 classes
• Each teacher needed a computer with an internet connection
• Each teacher needed a Glow username and password
• Membership of the National level group which had been set up for the project
• Screen to project onto to enable whole class to see for web conference sessions
• New page added to Glow Group
• Picture Library web part added to the page
• New document web part created and added to the page
• Julia Donaldson books for each class
• Several Glow Meet or web conferencing sessions with all the schools involved
• Participation from the author Julia Donaldson for the last session
• Planning documents for the project shared and agreed on by each teacher

In the next sections, we’ll learn how to recreate the elements of the Glow group that the teachers used for the project. In particular, we’ll find out how to add a new page to a group, add a Picture Library web part and configure this and also how to create and add a new document library to the page. Each video lasts for around 2 minutes and you can choose which section to watch at any time.

Recipe

The Other Work page of the Glow Group

The videos begin by quickly showing the Glow Group with the additional page for “Other Work” added and then develop into explaining how a page can be added to a Glow Group and then move through adding a text editor web part for information and then adding the Picture Library web part and changing the settings of this to allow comments to be displayed. We will then look at creating a new documents web part and adding this to the page to provide a different way for pupils to upload and share their work.

Videos

The finished Other Work page (2:20)
Primary 1 Literacy – Julia Donaldson Books – Pupil Work

Adding the Other Work page to the group (1:43)
Primary 1 Literacy – Julia Donaldson Books – Pupil Work

Adding a text editor web part and adding information and instructions (3:28)
Primary 1 Literacy – Julia Donaldson Books – Pupil Work

Adding the Picture Library web part and changing the settings to allow description and comments (9:55)
Primary 1 Literacy – Julia Donaldson Books – Pupil Work

Creating a new document web part and adding this to the page (3:20)
Primary 1 Literacy – Julia Donaldson Books – Pupil Work

Impact

The videos finish with a longer tour through the Glow Group and an interview with Anne Louise Nicholson on how the project came about, why they needed a page for “Other Work” and how they used this. Anne Louise explains that her pupils were very motivated to work on activities outside of the actual Glow Meet sessions taking place. They were very motivated by the thought of an external audience and this led them to concentrate more fully on the content, the presentation and layout of their work.
Videos
Tour through the finished Glow Group (8:35)
Primary 1 Literacy – Julia Donaldson Books – Pupil Work

Interview with Anne Louise Nicholson on unexpected pupil work (1:44)
Primary 1 Literacy – Julia Donaldson Books – Pupil Work

Additional Interview with Ann Louise on unexpected pupil work (2:20)
Primary 1 Literacy – Julia Donaldson Books – Pupil Work

Interview with Anne Louise Nicholson about how the project began (2:10)
Primary 1 Literacy – Julia Donaldson Books – Pupil Work

Morgan's finger spaces in the Picture Library

Further information on using the Picture Library web part can be found in a number of places: searching on Glow Help at the bottom of every page will bring you information; clicking the Learning about Glow link on the left-hand navigation bar will take you to a menu where you will be able to access a Glow training guide on Glow Groups which contains a section on this web part.