Recently, a large amount of Spanish content was added to Glow Learn. This content comes in the form of Sonica Spanish activities and is relevant for both Primary and Secondary pupils. There are approximately 150 activities,  particularly suitable to second and third levels.  

Context
The Spanish activities are located in two places in Glow Learn – in the Resources Tab and in the Courses Tab. Where you access the activities from will have an impact on how you can use them and whether or not pupils will have access.

Resources Tab:

National Resources

In the Resources tab, the Spanish resources sit within the National Folder. Click the plus sign to open this folder and you will see three sub folders. The third is called Sonica Spanish by RM Education.

Spanish Topics – Click to enlarge

Within the Sonica Spanish folder, there are sub folders for a range of  topics commonly covered within the Modern Languages curriculum at second and third levels. The topics are listed alphabetically. Inside each of those folders are folders are the activities. 

Resource information – click to enlarge

Each activity has accompanying teacher notes is tagged with the appropriate Curriculum for Excellence levels. This was kindly done by an experienced Modern Languages teacher.

You can learn how to find the tagging information in the ‘how to’  videos later.

Courses Tab:

The activities have also been made into courses.

Using the Sonica Spanish activities

The Spanish activities can be accessed and used in a range of ways.

It is important to know that the computer being used to access the resources has to have Adobe Shockwave Player installed in order for the activities to launch and run.
This can be downloaded free from http://get.adobe.com/shockwave/ 

Whole Class Teaching

If you have access to a data projector and interactive whiteboard, you can use the Spanish activities as a whole class teaching resource. By launching one of the activities from within the Resources tab, the whole class can engage with it.  These activities can add enjoyment and challenge to lessons and can help to engage children, as well as offering opportunity for discussion and for teaching points to be made and explored.

Pupil Access

Pupils have no access to the Resources tab in Glow Learn.

Pupils can therefore only access Spanish resources which have been added to a course which the pupils are then enrolled onto. Here are a couple of suggested ways of doing this.

Recipe

Watch the videos below to learn how to access the Sonica Spanish activities and how to enable pupils to access them.

Accessing the Sonica Spanish activities from the Resources Tab (3:54)
Spanish Resources in Glow Learn
 Copying the Sonica Spanish Course for class use (4:33)
Spanish Resources in Glow Learn
 How to create a Glow Learn course (5:36)
Spanish Resources in Glow Learn
 Adding Sonica Spanish activities to your Glow Learn Course (5:08)
 Spanish Resources in Glow Learn
Adding your own resources to a Glow Learn course (9:34)
Spanish Resources in Glow Learn
 Enrolling pupils onto a Glow Learn Course (4:38)
Spanish Resources in Glow Learn
 Pupil View of a Glow Learn course (2:19)
Spanish Resources in Glow Learn
 

Impact 

There are many benefits to including the Sonica Spanish activities as part of the range of learning resources made available to pupils as part of their learning.

Adding a range of different resource types can increase pupil motivation and promote learning. Using the Spanish activities can help achieve this, as pupils often see them as a more fun way of learning. 

By giving pupils access to the activities, they have a resource that they can use as often as they wish, helping with initial understanding, consolidation and mastery of a topic.

Overview

‘Ring in Schools - Music education through handbells, handchimes or belleplates’’ is a National Glow Group. It is administered by Malcolm Wilson who is one of the ICT Curriculum Development Officers for Falkirk council. Malcolm has a background in both Primary and Music teaching and was keen to start up and run the Group as handbell ringing is one of his areas of expertise.

Context

The ‘Ring in Schools’ Group is a sub Group of the Expressive Arts National Glow Group and is open to all Glow users nationally. Glow users can also access it through their My Glow Groups list. The Group comprises a number of pages and gives information on techniques, teaching tips, history and events, as well as including some fun activities too. In addition there is curricular guidance showing how ringing supports the delivery of music education within Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence.  A variety of web parts have been used to add content and enhance the Group.

Text Editor

The text editor web part has been used extensively throughout the Glow Group.

Text Editor is a very versatile web part and offers a range of functionality. This has enabled Malcolm to use it to add text, upload images and embed presentations, music recordings and video clips.

In conjunction with the Text Editor, Malcolm has made much use of free online tools such as ‘Sumo Paint’ to turn images into interesting shapes (such as the bell shape on the Noticeboard page) and ‘Create a Gif’ to make animated slideshows of photographs. He has used ‘Scribd’, another free online tool, to upload a presentation which has then been embedded in text editor. ‘Podbean’, a free podcast hosting site, has been used to create a music recording player and again this has then been embedded in text editor.

 As Malcolm also uses these tools within his Local Authority Glow Groups, he has included instructions on how to use many of them there.  For example, you can find out how to use and embed presentations uploaded to Scribd by looking at the Falkirk Primary ICT coordinators Glow Group, which Malcolm has kindly opened up to all Glow users (staff) nationally.

Documents

There are many Document store web parts within the Glow Group.

These were created separately using the Advanced Settings link, to ensure that the content of each was unique. Had Malcolm simply added a Document Store from the web part galleries using the usual ‘add web parts’ method, every one would have been identical. Creating a new Document Library from scratch and then adding that to a page ensures it is brand new and empty and not a duplicate of an existing one in the Glow Group. Doing this allowed Malcolm to separate out the Documents onto their relevant pages, rather than hosting everything in one Document store.

Discussions

There are two separate Discussion Boards in the Glow Group.

In one, people have the opportunity to ask questions and request information about how and why they might use handbells as part of music education in schools.

In the other, the participants of the 11^th Annual ‘Ring in Schools’ event were able to give their feedback and evaluate the event.

Having a second discussion board within the same Glow group made Malcolm aware of an issue which others wishing to do the same should be aware of.

The users of the Glow Group had been given ‘Reader with Discussion’ permissions and therefore were able to use the default Discussion Board that came with the Glow Group when it was created. However, Malcolm was a little perplexed that no one was contributing to the Discussions in the new Discussion Board. He knew that people were visiting the relevant page in the Glow Group, as he was able to view the Site Usage Data through the Advanced Settings link, so he was unsure why there were no responses.

Malcolm then learned that when a new Discussion Board is created, the ‘Reader with Discussion’ permission actually only has ‘Reader’ rights. This explained why no one was responding – they couldn’t! Malcolm had to edit the permissions for the new Discussion Board to enable Group members to be able to contribute to it. This is explained in one of the videos later in this cookbook.

Annual National ‘Scottish Schools Ring’ event

The Glow Group was used to broadcast the Annual National ‘Scottish Schools Ring’ event via Glow Meet.

The ‘Scottish Schools Ring’ event itself was hosted by Newton Primary School in Dunblane. Around 150 pupils from all across Scotland took part in making music together, with schools from East Ayrshire, Renfrewshire, Dundee, Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Stirling and Falkirk participating.  With groups using belleplates, handchimes and handbells they all worked together on three massed ringing pieces of music (including one which had all 150 children ringing, singing and processing round the hall).  However, the use of Glow Meet provided the opportunity for others, who were unable to travel to Dunblane, to still take part in the event. 

We can see an excerpt from one of the performances in the following video:

Excerpt from 11^th Annual National ‘Scottish Schools Ring’ event 2010 (0:47)
Ringing the Changes

The Glow Meet web part in the Glow Group can be used by ringing groups in schools around the country at any time, to share a rehearsal with another group or to be supported by a teacher from another school.

Ingredients

In order to have the Glow Group at National Level, Malcolm had to contact Learning and Teaching Scotland who administer the National Glow Groups. He explained his intention and purpose for the Group and having listened to Malcolm’s plans, they agreed to create the ‘Ring in Schools’ Glow Group as a sub Group of the National Expressive Arts Group. Malcolm was added as a member of the‘Ring in Schools’ Glow Group and made an administrator.

Malcolm then required the following:

• To add everyone nationally as members of the Glow Group and give them Reader with Discussion permissions
• Add new pages and rename existing ones
• Create new Document stores in order to have separate and distinct ones throughout the Glow Group and avoid simply having duplicates of the original
• Create new Discussion Boards to have separate Discussion Boards on different pages and avoid having just a duplicate on the original Discussion Board on subsequent pages
• Add the text editor web part many times in order to embed videos, podcasts, images
• Add a Glow Meet web part and create a Meeting Room
• Record the Glow Meet for the Scottish Schools Ring national event.

In the following videos we will have a tour of the Glow Group. You can then find out how to replicate some of the things that Malcolm has done within that Group in the ‘how to’ videos:

Overview of the national Ring in Schools Glow Group (8:07)
Ringing the Changes

 Remember though, you can visit the Glow Group for yourself by clicking HERE (this link will open in a new window)

How to create a new Document Store (5:36)
Ringing the Changes
How to create a new Discussion Board (7:02)
Ringing the Changes
How to edit the user permissions on a newly created Discussion Board (3:48)
Ringing the Changes
How to set up a Glow Meet in a Glow Group (5:36)
Ringing the Changes
How to join and take part in a Glow Meet (3:38)
Ringing the Changes
How to use the video, audio and chat facility within a Glow Meet meeting room (6:19)Ringing the Changes
How to record a Glow Meet (2:09)
Ringing the Changes
How to play back a previously recorded Glow Meet (3:22)
Ringing the Changes

Impact

Malcolm was very interested in using the Glow Group for the National Scottish Schools Ring event, and in particular, using Glow Meet to broadcast it and allow a greater number of schools and pupils to participate.

Since there were schools from all around the country taking part, Malcolm feels that using Glow Meet for the event had an extremely positive impact. Pupils who were too far away to travel to the event were able to take part, and many other pupils were able to watch the event.

Having the Glow Group has also provided a medium for sharing information about using ringing instruments ringing in schools and sharing expertise across the country.

Enabling people to evaluate their experience of the event through the Discussion Board was also a great advantage. The worth of this tool for providing feedback on an event can be seen in this selection of comments left by pupils in the Glow group  a selection of comments from some of the pupils taking part: 
“I enjoyed the Scottish Schools Ring because it was interesting to see all the other schools play”, said Robbie Cattanach. 
“I very much enjoyed my first time at the Scottish Schools Ring in Dunblane.  My favourite song was The Sun Has Got His Hat On.  I liked seeing all the different instruments”, said Sophie Forrester.  
“I enjoyed when we had to find a friend from a different school and talk to them.  I enjoyed listening to other schools’ solo songs.  It was very good and I want to come back again,” enthused Emma McAuslan.  
“I liked everything that went on especially other people playing.  The songs that we did were fantastic!” raved Kristy Adams. 
“I had a great time and the music sounded great!” said Rachel Calvert.  “Fun, fun, fun!  It was awesome!” said Shannon Easton.

Malcolm hopes that the Group will encourage more schools to use ringing instruments in schools and see it as a great way to introduce children to music.