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.

In this cookbook we will look briefly at how West Lothian used a Glow Group to support a project across the authority. In particular we will look at how they used a Glow Blog to share the learning across the authority.

Context

At the beginning of term West Lothian Council’s Chief Executive Alex Linkston and colleagues took part in the Auld Alliance Charity Bike Ride from Edinburgh to Paris to raise funds for schooling in Malawi. Laura Compton, the Glow Key Contact for West Lothian thought that this would be an excellent opportunity for schools in West Lothian to embrace the Curriculum for Excellence and demonstrate how Glow can be used as a tool to support this. Initially Laura worked with her colleagues from West Lothian and the National Glow Team to brainstorm what would be the most effective way to use Glow to enhance the project. They worked together to set up a Glow Group with four main areas:

Listen to Laura explain the project. [0.56]

Sharing the Learning Using a Glow Blog

Follow the journey

This area was at the centre of all the excitement and gave pupils and teachers the opportunity to follow the cyclists. In this section a Twitter feed allowed Alex and his team to keep the pupils up to date with what was happening on their journey. There was a tracker so the pupils could see where they were on their journey and video diaries from the cyclists. Two schools even completed a cycling challenge in their classroom where the pupils had to cycle the same distance as Alex and his team; one school streamed live into Glow, so that everyone could see what was happening. This section also included a sharing area, where schools could share the Glow Groups they had been working on in their classrooms in relation to the project. The event kicked off with a Glow Meet, where over 30 classes logged in to ask Alex and his colleague Sue Cook questions before they set off on their bike ride. A recording of the Glow Meet was uploaded into this area.

What’s it all about

This section included a brief overview of the project and links to websites that teachers and pupils might find useful. It also included a Sign-up sheet for the project so schools could see which other schools were involved, so they could begin to make links with them.

Teacher Resources

This area allowed teachers to collaborate for lesson ideas. Teachers could upload lesson ideas and plans that they had completed with their classes. They uploaded and tagged their resource to a Custom List, which meant teachers could easily search for resources. Teachers only, could access this area.

What’s happening in your classroom

This area was at the hub of the project. In this area pupils and teachers could share what they had been learning in their classrooms in a Glow Blog. On the Noticeboard teachers found instructions on how to create a post on the Glow blog and add a photo. Then teachers and pupils could go in and create a post for the blog and there was also a section to view the blog. Pupils took part in numerous class activities including; Glow meets between classes to share the learning, learning about different parts of a bike, using Purple Mash to create cyclist profiles, Early Years Glow Meet, making monuments from Paris using Knex and Lego, running and cycling activities, and lots more. The Glow Blog was made public so that parents and carers could view it. To view the blog click here.

Listen to P4 pupils at Harrysmuir describe some of the learning that took part in their classroom. [0.39]

Sharing the Learning Using a Glow Blog

Listen to P5 pupils at Harrysmuir describe some of the learning that took part in their classroom. [0.31]

Sharing the Learning Using a Glow Blog

In this cookbook we will look at the What’s happening in your classroom Glow Group.

What does the What’s Happening in your Classroom area look like?

XML Web Part

On the Noticeboard there were instructions in text and video detailing how to add a post to a blog and how to add an image to your post. This was created using Wix. When you create your Wix you are given an embed code which can be copied and pasted into an XML Web Part.

Glow Blog

In this area the teachers and pupils could create a blog post about what they had been doing in their classroom. The blog was set up with categories relating to CfE areas and levels. Teachers were also asked to tag their post with their school name. Pupils and teachers could also view the blog in this area.

Page Viewers

Two page viewer web parts were used. One as a direct link to add a post within WordPress, so it was easy for the teachers to find where they actually added the post to the blog. The other was used to display the blog.

Ingredients

What did Laura need to set up the West Lothian CfE Development Glow Group?

1. Glow Group at Local Authority Level
2. Several Pages
3. XML Web Part
4. Wix
5. Glow Blog
6. 2 Page Viewer Web Parts

Recipe

In the following videos, we will take a look at the What’s Happening in your Classroom Glow Group and find out how to replicate its structure and content.

What does the What’s Happening in your Classroom Glow Group look like? [2.23]

Sharing the Learning Using a Glow Blog

How to create a Wix. [1.41]

Sharing the Learning Using a Glow Blog

How to add a Wix to a XML web part. [1.22]

Sharing the Learning Using a Glow Blog

How to create a Glow Blog. [1.39]

Sharing the Learning Using a Glow Blog

How to add a header image to your blog. [1.19]

Sharing the Learning Using a Glow Blog

How to add a ‘sticky’ to your K2 blog. [1.46]

Sharing the Learning Using a Glow Blog

How to add categories. [1.41]

Sharing the Learning Using a Glow Blog

How to create a blog post. [1.47]

Sharing the Learning Using a Glow Blog

How to add an image to your blog post. [1.44]

Sharing the Learning Using a Glow Blog

How to add a Page Viewer web part of the ‘add post’ area to the Glow Group. [2.14]

Sharing the Learning Using a Glow Blog

 Impact

Impact of the project

This project provided the opportunity to investigate the potential of running one cross curricular project across a number of schools, stages and curricular areas. Laura Compton wanted a project that was fluid and encompassed the experiences and outcomes of CfE as well as utilising the tools of Glow.  She wanted to show what Glow had to offer in terms of CfE as well as demonstrating that sharing between teachers and learners does not need to be onerous. Glow allowed ‘realtime’ response and reaction within the classroom.  Although third party tools like Twitter and Google Latitude were used they were easily pulled into the Glow Group and accessed from there. Using the Glow tools meant that the opportunity was created for different levels of access for staff and pupils in different areas of the project. For example, the ability to have a Staff Area worked very well whereas the Blog meant pupils could post easily and quickly to share their learning and celebrate their success.

Listen to Laura explain how Glow was used to support the project. [3.11]
Sharing the Learning Using a Glow Blog

Listen to some P4 pupils from Harrysmuir Primary tell us how they used Glow to help with the Auld Alliance Project. [0.48]

Sharing the Learning Using a Glow Blog

Listen to some P5 pupils from Harrysmuir Primary tell us how they used Glow to help with the Auld Alliance Project. [0.31]
Sharing the Learning Using a Glow Blog

Impact of the Sharing the Learning Glow Group.

Using a blog gave the pupils and teachers an area to celebrate what they had been doing in their classrooms. As the blog was public facing, pupils could home and show their parents/carers what they had been doing in school that day.

Listen to Laura explain the benefits of using a blog to support this project. [2.22]

Sharing the Learning Using a Glow Blog

Listen to P4 pupils from Harrysmuir Primary explain why the benefits of using the blog. [0.39]

Sharing the Learning Using a Glow Blog

Listen to P5 pupils from Harrysmuir Primary explain why the benefits of using the blog. [0.45]
Sharing the Learning Using a Glow Blog

To view the Auld Alliance Glow Blog click here.

Overview

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

Context

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The day culminated with another Glow Meet to all schools.

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

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

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

Ingredients

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

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

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

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

 Recipe

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

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

Impact

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Overview

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away (well, in Bathgate, West Lothian) the Primary 1 and 2 teachers in Windyknowe Primary School set themselves a huge task. They embarked upon a ‘Joining the Learning’ Fairyland activity that involved every one of the 100 Primary 1 and 2 pupils taking part in an Enchanted Forest project which culminated in them having a Glow Meet with a dragon!

Context

The teachers were keen to provide an engaging and enjoyable learning experience for the pupils and so did a lot of preparation and planning in advance of embarking on the 6-week project. Firstly, they visited other schools who had already been involved in the project to get advice and ideas from them. This allowed them to clarify the things they would like to do themselves.

They decided then that they would like to mix up the children from the P1 and P2 classes to enable them to select the activities they would like to take part in and so provide opportunities for personalisation and choice.

A letter from a Dragon!

The project started after the Easter holidays with a letter arriving from a dragon! This was accompanied by dragon dust (which strangely resembled glitter!), footprints on the floor and scorch marks on the letter itself. All of the 100 children were gathered together to be read the letter from the dragon. Immediately they were captivated.  In his letter, the dragon asked the pupils to turn the rooms into an Enchanted Forest. He left articles for the children and these were then used as a basis for the themes that the classrooms were given.

Initially the children went away and thought about the items that the dragon had left. They were asked to consider why he might have chosen these things. Each group of items was linked to a different classroom and each classroom had a different theme and colour scheme, so the pupils had to think about how the rooms and the items were linked. After learning more about the items, the pupils selected which room they would like to work in to find out more about that theme. They picked names for their chosen room, to reflect its theme. The rooms were then named The Armoury Room, The Waterfall Room, The Cottage, The Royal Room and the Great Hall.

The entrance to the area where the P1 and P2 classrooms are was transformed into an Enchanted Forest, just as the dragon had requested. In addition, the pupils then decorated their chosen room to reflect its theme. They undertook different activities in their groups within their chosen room throughout the week and in addition there was always one joint community activity each week.

Hear the pupils talk about the dragon and some of the different rooms in the following video clips:

Signs of the dragon (1:39)
Glow Meet with a dragon!- Early Years Fairyland topic
Which rooms were there? (2:19)
Glow Meet with a dragon!- Early Years Fairyland topic
The Armoury Room (0:43)
Glow Meet with a dragon!- Early Years Fairyland topic
The Royal Room (1:21)
Glow Meet with a dragon!- Early Years Fairyland topic
The Waterfall Room (0:36)
Glow Meet with a dragon!- Early Years Fairyland topic
Making Cinderella’s cake (1:01)
Glow Meet with a dragon!- Early Years Fairyland topic
Being a knight (1:01)
Glow Meet with a dragon!- Early Years Fairyland topic
 

Curricular activities

Each week, a new letter arrived from the dragon and this letter introduced a new fairytale to the children. The first was “The Princess and the Pea” by Hans Christian Andersen. To link with this, every pupil made a fabric square which the staff then lovingly sewed together to form a patchwork quilt. Each story that the pupils read was accompanied by a joint activity. For example, when they read “Snow White and the seven dwarfs” by the Brothers Grimm, they made a woodland freeze for the Cottage Room;  for “Cinderella”, each group made one tier of a cake which they then assembled to form one giant cake.

Other activities were also undertaken and used to embed learning from all curricular areas. For example

• The children wrote stories. The teachers were amazed at the length of the stories and the level of vocabulary that the children were using.  It was clear that they had picked up language from the fairytales that they had read.
• Spelling included words from fairytales – such as beanstalk!
• There was a huge amount of ICT usage incorporated throughout the range of activities – the children took photos and filmed what they were doing, as well as using the internet for research. They also became familiar with video conferencing and web cams through using Glow Meet.
• They learned about castles and in particular looked at Edinburgh and Stirling castles.
• In the Waterfall room, the children learned about the lifecycle of frogs
• The 7 dwarfs were used to help pupils learn number bonds as part of their numeracy learning.
• Outdoors, the pupils worked together in groups to build castles
• There was a lot of drama and role-play, with the children frequently dressing up as knights or princesses

There were some large-scale activities planned for the children too. There was

• a ‘Ball in the Hall’ where the children learned to dance
• a Knights challenge where the pupils who had chosen to work within the Knights room took part in tasks to becomes a knight. This then led to a knighting ceremony.
• a ‘Sleeping Beauty’ Assembly presented to the rest of the school
• an open day, when parents were invited in, by Royal Decree, to visit the enchanted forest. Over 200 parents and siblings visited.

 Who is this dragon?

Throughout the weeks, the dragon mysteriously visited the school and the children frequently spotted signs that he had been there. Tell-tale signs were seeing dragon dust, or footprints in the enchanted forest, or scorch marks in the playground!

The children were extremely intrigued by the dragon and whilst there were initially a couple of sceptics, after a while all of the children were hugely engaged in trying to discover more about him. They used books and the internet to research different types of dragons and the Primary 2’s even interviewed the staff to try to find out more. They were desperate to know if the dragon was a boy or a girl (as dragon dust had been spotted in both the girls and boys toilets!).

The pupils regularly declared that they had caught a glimpse of the dragon, either at the window or flying up in the sky. However, during the Ball in the Hall, the dragon finally did in fact make a real appearance! For just a second, he peeked in through the hall window. He was spotted by a few of the children, and the excitement that this generated amongst the entire P1 and P2 cohort was tangible. The teachers had carefully arranged it so that it was clear to the pupils that the dragon was not one of the teachers, as they were all present at the time he was spotted, and traces of dragon dust were placed outside by the support staff to confirm his presence.

Meeting the dragon

As it was nearing the end of the 6 week project, the teachers decided that now was the time for the pupils to finally see the dragon.

Another letter arrived from the dragon, suggesting that he would like to speak with the children. He explained that he was very familiar with Glow and that he would therefore like to use Glow Meet to see and speak with them.

One of the teachers arranged for her son to play the part of the dragon.

Since he had been hearing all about the dragon and the adventures that had been happening in the Enchanted Forest at home, he enthusiastically agreed!

A leafy backdrop was created in an area of the school separate from where the P1 and P2 classrooms are, and ‘the dragon’ sat there to do the Glow Meet.

The pupils had prepared questions for the dragon beforehand and took turns to speak to him during the Glow Meet. They even sang ‘Puff the magic dragon’ to him!

At the end, the dragon explained that his Kingdom was now ready for him to return to and that he would be leaving the children to move back.

This brought the entire project to a fitting end.

(The children did add one more activity of their own though, by making Goodbye cards for the dragon!)

Watch excerpts from the Glow Meet with the dragon in the following videos:

Question and Answer session with the Dragon (8:47)
Glow Meet with a dragon!- Early Years Fairyland topic
Singing ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’ to the Dragon (2:44)
Glow Meet with a dragon!- Early Years Fairyland topic
 One pupil tells us her thoughts about meeting the Dragon (0:19)
Glow Meet with a dragon!- Early Years Fairyland topic
 

Curriculum for Excellence Experiences and Outcomes

The topic enabled the teachers to cover an extensive range of Experiences and Outcomes with the children. Amongst many others, they covered:

Literacy and English

LIT 0-01b / LIT 0-11b I enjoy exploring and choosing stories and other texts to watch, read or 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.
LIT 1-20a / LIT 2-20a I enjoy creating texts of my choice and I regularly select subject, purpose, format and resources to suit the needs of my audience. 
LIT 1-21a I can spell the most commonly-used words, using my knowledge of letter patterns and spelling rules and use resources to help me spell tricky or unfamiliar words.

Mathematics and Numeracy

MNU 0-03a I use practical materials and can ‘count on and back’ to help me to understand addition and subtraction, recording my ideas and solutions in different ways.  

Expressive Arts

EXA 0-01a / EXA 1-01a / EXA 2-01a  I have experienced the energy and excitement of presenting/performing for audiences and being part of an audience for other people’s presentations/
EXA 1-02a  I have the opportunity to choose and explore a range of media and technoligies to create images and objects, discovering their effects and suitability for specific tasks
EXA 0-10a  I have opportunities to enjoy taking part in dance experiences.
EXA 1-10a  I am becoming aware of different features of dance and can practise and perform steps, formations and short dance.
EXA 0-12a I have the freedom to choose and explore how I can use my voice, movement, and expression in role play and drama.
EXA 0-16a I enjoy singing and playing along to music of different styles and cultures.  

Technologies

TCH 1-03b I can access, retrieve and use information from electronic sources to support, enrich or extend learning in different contexts.
TCH 0-04a I enjoy exploring and using technologies to communicate with others within and beyond my place of learning.
TCH 0-04b I enjoy taking photographs or recording sound and images to represent my experiences and the world around me.
TCH 1-04a / TCH 2-04a I explore and experiment with the features and functions of computer technology and I can use what I learn to support and enhance my learning in different contexts. 

Ingredients

The teachers used a school Glow Group called the Enchanted Forest to host their Glow Meet. Assisted by another teacher in the school, Laura Gingell, the Glow Meet web part was added to the Glow Group and a Meeting Room created within it.

In order to provide the experience of the Glow Meet with the Dragon, the teachers needed the following:

• A Glow Group
• A Glow Meet web part added to the Glow Group with a Meeting room created in it
• Web cams – for the dragon and for the room where the children were congregated
• The computer in the children’s room to be connected to a projector to display the Glow Meet on a whiteboard for all to see
• Microphones, for the dragon and for the children
• Speakers for the dragon and the children

In the following videos we will learn how to replicate some of the elements of the Enchanted Forest Glow Group, in particular, the Glow Meet elements:

How to set up a Glow Meet in a Glow Group (5:36)
Glow Meet with a dragon!- Early Years Fairyland topic
How to join and take part in a Glow Meet (3:38)
Glow Meet with a dragon!- Early Years Fairyland topic
How to use the video, audio and chat facility within a Glow Meet meeting room (6:19)
Glow Meet with a dragon!- Early Years Fairyland topic
How to record a Glow Meet (2:09)
Glow Meet with a dragon!- Early Years Fairyland topic
How to play back a previously recorded Glow Meet (3:22)
Glow Meet with a dragon!- Early Years Fairyland topic

Impact

There were many benefits realised from this project, both for the pupils and the staff:

- The children developed in confidence, mixing easily with pupils from the other P1 and 2 classes. This was evident during the school concert when they performed in front of an audience with far more confidence than they had previously
- Their ability to work in groups and share was improved and they played together very well, as they had to get to know one another.
- They became more independent
- There was more of a community feeling within the P1 and P2 area in the school as they worked as one, rather than as separate classes
- The children had the benefit of regularly working with a range of teachers instead of just their own class teacher
- The pupils were very engaged in their learning
- The inclusion of the dragon was an extremely motivational element throughout the project. Any mention of the dragon sparked great interest and proved to be a great way to encourage the pupils to do things – they were happy to do it if the dragon asked them to!
- The language work that the pupils produced was incredible. The length of the stories they wrote and the vocabulary they used was far beyond what the teachers would normally see from P1/2 pupils.
- When a new letter arrived from the dragon, the pupils were very good at suggesting ideas about what they should do to meet his requests. 
- Their interest in reading has been sustained and the children regularly choose to read a fairytale from their reading corner.

During the project the six P1 and P2 teachers all worked extremely well together. They all offered and shared their ideas and planned joint activities as a group. Through their discussions, the ideas evolved that were then implemented throughout the project. All of the staff loved the experience of the project and were completely enthused. This enthusiasm was most certainly passed on to the children. One of the teachers involved in the Fairyland topic, Michelle Skene, said of the project: “we’ve loved every minute of it, maybe even moreso than the children!”

The Glow Meet itself had a great impact on the project. It gave a way of bringing the topic to a conclusion and allowed the children to see the dragon that had consumed their thoughts for the previous six weeks.

The children still talk about the dragon now, weeks after the end of the topic. They also still incorporate other areas of their learning from the Enchanted Forest into their everyday work.

The staff and pupils all loved the project and having a Glow Meet with a dragon is something they would most definitely recommend!

Laura Gingell is the Curriculum for Excellence Development Officer for West Lothian Council, these responsibilities take up 0.5 of her timetable. For the rest of her week she is a Principal Teacher at Windyknowe Primary School in West Lothian.

Context

Within the West Lothian Curriculum for Excellence Team, each Cluster has two Curriculum for Excellence Development Post holders, one primary and one secondary. Laura set up the CfE Development Glow Group as an area which allows for sharing between the Development Post Holders. However, it is also functions as an area all teachers can access and learn from the practice in every cluster. Each cluster is represented by a page tab in the Glow Group. However, the Glow Group also contains information on page tabs such as which schools in West Lothian are involved in piloting the National Assessment Resource; information for in-service days and Building Your Curriculum information. This Cookbook will focus on the cluster page tabs.

Click on the video to find out why Laura set up the Glow Group and what information was in it. (0.56)
Supporting Curriculum for Excellence in a Local Authority

What does a Cluster Page within the West Lothian CfE Development Glow Group look like?

Contact Details

A Text Editor Web Part was used to show photos of the Cluster CfE Development Post holders, their names, schools and email addresses.

Document Library

Within the Document Library teachers and Development Post holders could share information such as action plans, CfE Newsletters, minutes from meetings and any other CfE documents relating to their Cluster.

Web Links

This web part was used to link to the websites of the Cluster Schools. It also has links to specific Glow Groups for that Cluster .

News

Each Cluster page has a News Web Part, so the CfE Development Post holders could keep the teachers within their Cluster up to date with any news, for example events, updates, etc.  

Ingredients

What did Laura need to set up the West Lothian CfE Development Glow Group?

1. Glow Group at a Local Authority Level
2. Several Pages
3. Text Editor Web Parts
4. Document Library Web Parts
5. Web Links Web Parts
6. News Web Parts

Recipe

In the following videos, we will take a look one of the Cluster pages within the West Lothian CfE Development Glow Group and find out how to replicate its structure and content.

What does a Cluster page within the Glow group look like? (1.13)
Supporting Curriculum for Excellence in a Local Authority

How to add a new page. (0.46)
Supporting Curriculum for Excellence in a Local Authority

How to add an image to a Text Editor web part. (2.36)
Supporting Curriculum for Excellence in a Local Authority

How to add two images to a Text Editor web part. (3.01)
Supporting Curriculum for Excellence in a Local Authority

How to create a Document Library and add a folder. (1.49)
Supporting Curriculum for Excellence in a Local Authority

How to create a Web Links web part and change the style. (2.12)
Supporting Curriculum for Excellence in a Local Authority

How to create a News web part. (2.05) 
Supporting Curriculum for Excellence in a Local Authority

Impact

The intended impact of this Glow Group was to improve communication between colleagues within West Lothian and Laura feels this has been achieved. After the initial set up of the Glow Group, the responsibility was handed over to the CfE Development Post holders, so they selected the relevant information to display on their page.

Listen to Laura explain how the Glow Group improved communication. (0.30)
Supporting Curriculum for Excellence in a Local Authority

Listen to Laura explain who was responsible for the Glow Group. (0.33)
Supporting Curriculum for Excellence in a Local Authority

To view a cookbook on how this Glow Group was used to support an Authority Wide In-Service Day click here.

Overview

Katy Vincent teaches one of the Primary 7 classes in Williamston Primary school in Livingston, West Lothian.  This year, she has had four exceptionally bright pupils in her class whom she felt needed to be challenged and supported in maths. The pupils have been working at a level equivalent to the old 5-14 Level F. The topics they have been working on are now covered in 3^rd and 4^th levels of Curriculum for Excellence. Katy approached the Maths Department in Williamston’s associated Secondary School, the James Young High School, for ideas.

Context

Having spoken with John Sexton in James Young’s Maths Department, it was arranged that John would work with the four pupils once a week, via Glow Meet. A ‘Maths Transition’ Glow Group was set up within Williamston and John Sexton was added as a member.

It was agreed that John would work on developing the pupils’ problem solving skills as Katy felt that whilst the pupils knowledge and understanding of maths concepts was sound, their ability to then translate this knowledge to solving problems perhaps needed further support and development.

How the sessions were run

The four pupils worked at a laptop in their classroom and John spoke to them via Glow Meet. He added notes to the shared whiteboard to help illustrate teaching points and give a visual aid for the pupils. He set tasks and challenges for the children, who worked on their solutions, then wrote them on mini-whiteboards which they then held up to the web cam to show John. John was then able to give feedback and comments on how they had tackled the problems.

Whilst the four pupils were working with John, the rest of the class were working on their own maths topics with Katy. However, after a couple of session, they became so interested in what was happening at the laptop, Katy decided to include the entire class in the work that John was doing and for subsequent sessions, the Glow Meet was displayed on the class’s interactive whiteboard for all to see.

The original four pupils that John had been working with then took on a new role. As well as working on the problems and challenges themselves, they then supported the other pupils.

All of the pupils involved loved the sessions. Katy reported that all of the children were highly motivated and extremely keen to take part. She said that the novelty of learning in this new way, and also the fact that the teacher was one from the High School, really engaged the children.

The topics

John chose topics that would engage and motivate the pupils, as well as challenge them. For example, he looked at curve stitching – a practical activity which allowed for creativity within mathematics. The pupils really enjoyed this topic. They also enjoyed learning about different methods of multiplication, such as the Russian method (find out more at http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A22808126).

John also did a practical lesson on applied Probability theory, looking at Horseracing. This did not involve gambling(!) but involved the pupils playing a dice game, looking at the likelihood of particular totals resulting when two dice are rolled. This then related to the chances of a horse winning the race in the game and the resulting prize money that might be won. This introduced them to the Normal Distribution curve – although this terminology was not discussed.

John was also able to explain that whilst the theory of probability might predict a certain result to be most likely, in reality, that does not always work out to be the actual result. This was illustrated when the pupils played the game, as although rolling 7 is the most likely total when two dice are rolled, when the pupils played, 9 occurred more frequently.

Watch excerpts from this lesson in the following video clip:

Glow Meet maths lesson – Probability game (5:43)
Challenging able pupils: Primary/Secondary Maths Liaison using Glow Meet
 

Follow-up activities

John often set ‘homework’ challenges for the children. These took the form of completing activities they had started with him, or looking at further activities which he provided links to. These activities were not compulsory, but were designed to capture the interest of the children.

There is a Discussion Board in the Maths Transition Glow Group, and pupils were able to post comments on the problems they were trying at home. John was able to respond to these comments and also post solutions to homework, strengthening the link between him and the pupils.

In addition, John used the Group’s Document store to upload a range of resources to support the lessons he covered with the children, such as templates for the curve stitching activities and a Powerpoint presentation used when the pupils were learning about Prime Numbers.

Ingredients

In order for the pupils in Williamston to be able to be taught by Mr Sexton, Katy had to have the following set up:

- A Glow Group at school level
- Add in Mr Sexton as a member of the Glow Group and send him the URL
- Add a Glow Meet web part to the Glow Group and create the Meeting room
- Have a webcam, speakers and microphone
- Have mini-whiteboards for the pupils to write their solutions on

In the following videos, we will find out how to replicate some of these elements:

How to create a Glow Group (2:55)
Challenging able pupils: Primary/Secondary Maths Liaison using Glow Meet
How to give people from another school membership of a Glow Group in your school (6:57)
Challenging able pupils: Primary/Secondary Maths Liaison using Glow Meet
How to set up a Glow Meet in a Glow Group (5:36)
Challenging able pupils: Primary/Secondary Maths Liaison using Glow Meet
How to join and take part in a Glow Meet (3:38)
Challenging able pupils: Primary/Secondary Maths Liaison using Glow Meet
How to use the video, audio and chat facility within a Glow Meet meeting room (6:19)
Challenging able pupils: Primary/Secondary Maths Liaison using Glow Meet
How to use the shared whiteboard in a Glow Meet meeting room (8:25)
Challenging able pupils: Primary/Secondary Maths Liaison using Glow Meet

Impact

Katy feels that the maths lessons had a huge impact on the pupils who took part and were of tremendous benefit. Pupils were enthused and highly motivated – even pupils who were not normally keen mathematicians. She feels that this was largely down to the novelty of learning via Glow Meet, rather than text-based learning. There was far more interactivity in the lessons delivered by Mr Sexton and pupils really enjoyed this.

She also believes that it has been an excellent transition exercise. When the pupils recently visited the High school, they were delighted that they already knew a member of staff and they made a point of stopping by to say hello to John when they were in the Maths Department. John also commented that he really liked this.

Find out in the following videos what the pupils had to say about their experiences of learning maths via Glow Meet:

Pupil Video 1: Why I enjoyed the Glow Meet lessons (0:14)
Challenging able pupils: Primary/Secondary Maths Liaison using Glow Meet
Pupil Video 2: Why I liked the Glow Meet sessions (0:14)
Challenging able pupils: Primary/Secondary Maths Liaison using Glow Meet
Pupil Video 3: I enjoyed the Glow Meets (0:06)
Challenging able pupils: Primary/Secondary Maths Liaison using Glow Meet
Pupil Video 4: Transition (0:14)
Challenging able pupils: Primary/Secondary Maths Liaison using Glow Meet
Pupil Video 5: Homework (0:17)
Challenging able pupils: Primary/Secondary Maths Liaison using Glow Meet

Katy is keen to keep these links with the James Young High school going next session. She would like to try to link it more directly with the maths topics that the pupils will be working on, rather than concentrating solely on problem solving.

The Modern Languages Department in James Young High School in Livingston, West Lothian, is always looking for ways to provide pupils with innovative and interesting resources and activities that will help them develop their language skills.

Sophie Martin and Amanda Lyons have been using Glow Learn this year as a means of sharing resources with pupils.

Context

This year, Sophie and Amanda have created Glow Learn courses to share resources with their Advanced Higher German and Higher French classes respectively. As well as using Glow Learn, they also created a Glow Group for each class. You can find out more about the Glow Groups in the following cookbooks:

Encouraging independent learning in Advanced Higher German

Higher French: Peer support and enhanced communication

Glow Learn

Sophie and Amanda have always been keen to support pupils with their studies outside of the classroom. One of the areas of the Modern languages courses that they have previously found most difficult to support pupils with though, is listening practice.

Often, the audio files that they would wish to use for this are large and so have been difficult to share with pupils. Their only means of doing this was to put the files individually onto pupils’ USB memory sticks, which was time consuming. The alternative of emailing the files to all pupils was also difficult, given the file sizes.

This session, they decided to upload the audio files into Glow Learn.

Sophie created a course for Advanced Higher German and uploaded audio files to support listening practice along with Microsoft Word and Powerpoint files to support reading practice. She was also able to upload Smartboard files that she had saved during her lessons to give pupils continued access to teaching materials. Amanda did the same for Higher French.

They then enrolled the appropriate pupils onto the courses, so enabling them to access the resources. The only limitation in pupils being able to hear the files was that they needed to have a media player on their own computer that would play the files. This, however, was not an issue for any of the pupils.

There is much more functionality available within Glow Learn, but as they were just starting out, both Sophie and Amanda wanted to keep it simple.

Pupil access to the Course and Resources
The pupils access the resources within the courses by clicking on the Glow Learn link in the Lefthand Navigation bar. They then click on See My Courses. This shows them all courses they have been enrolled on. Pupils then click on the name of the course they want to view. This gives them access to all resources within the course (unless any resources have been hidden by the teacher, or the teacher has limited the dates that resources are visible. You can learn more about this in the Glow Learn Training Guide (Glow login required), or in other cookbooks.)

Ingredients

To share the files through Glow Learn, Sophie and Amanda had to:

- Create a course in Glow Learn
- Add resources to the course
- Enrol the appropriate pupils onto the course

The following videos will explain how to create a Glow Learn course, add resources to it, and enrol pupils onto it to give them access to the resources. Further information about other aspects of Glow Learn can be found in the Glow Learn Training Guide, or you may wish to explore other cookbooks relating to Glow Learn. These may contain additional videos on other elements, such as the Monitor and Mark facility.

How to create a course in Glow Learn
Écoutez! Using Glow Learn to support listening practice in Modern Languages
How to add resources to a course in Glow Learn
Écoutez! Using Glow Learn to support listening practice in Modern Languages
How to enrol pupils onto a Glow Learn course (5:39)
Écoutez! Using Glow Learn to support listening practice in Modern Languages

Impact

Glow Learn has given Sophie and Amanda a vehicle for easily sharing large files with pupils to support their listening practice. This has given them a form of support that they would not have otherwise had.

Combining this with their ability to use the Discussion Boards in their Glow Groups to ask questions of their teacher and their peers, the pupils now have a means of collaboration and communication and a way of accessing resources that has enhanced their studies.

Some of the pupils from Amanda’s Higher French class talk about the impact that having access to audio files through using Glow Learn has had. 

Pupils: Benefits of having access to the listening files (1:02)
Écoutez! Using Glow Learn to support listening practice in Modern Languages

Amanda Lyons teaches Modern Languages at the James Young High School in Livingston, West Lothian. Keen to encourage independent learning, she wanted to create an environment for the pupils in her Higher French class that would allow them to take responsibility for their own learning and enable them support one another.

Context

Amanda began by creating a Glow Group. She wanted to make the Group as simple as possible for pupils to navigate around, and so decided to create a Group which had only a single page. 

To do this, she used the ‘Glow Group Document Library’ template when creating the Group, rather than the default ‘Full Glow Group’ template.

This simpler type of Glow Group comes with only one page and one web part by default – a Document store. However, Amanda then customised the page to suit her and her class’s needs.

She removed the Document store from the page, and added in two other web parts:

Discussion Board

The Discussion Board in the Glow Group has been used extensively through the year by the pupils in Amanda’s Higher French class. It has been used for two main purposes.

The first purpose has been for peer support.

When pupils have been doing homework and have encountered a problem, such as not knowing how to say a particular English phrase in French, they have been able to post a question on the Discussion Board to ask for help. This help has regularly then come from their classmates, but also, Amanda herself has been able to support pupils in this way too.  This has really opened up the range of people that a pupil can get support from and does not rely on Amanda always being the person that the pupils turn to.

The second purpose of the Discussion Board has been for Amanda to let the class know what their homework is.

She has done this by giving the information in the text of the post, but also, has been able to attach appropriate documents to the post. For example, she has attached Powerpoint presentations to posts and directed pupils to carry out tasks relating to particular slides in the presentation.

This method of advising of the homework tasks has had great advantages. Amanda can ensure that the pupils are clear about the task, rather than risking them perhaps copying the instructions incorrectly into a homework diary; she can supply resources and supporting documents for the homework tasks in a very simple way – previously she would have had to either copy the files onto each pupil’s own USB memory stick, or print out paper copies; the pupils have constant access to the information about the homework, as well as access to the resources, both in school and at home. Even if a pupil has missed the lesson when the homework was issued, they can find out the details from the Discussion Board in the Glow Group without having to ask the teacher.

Web Links

The other web part in the Glow Group is the Web Links web part.

Amanda has used this to direct pupils to useful websites that are suitable for supporting and challenging them throughout their Higher French course. She has modified the display of the web part to show the Notes field. This is a really nice touch as it gives pupils additional information about the website, helping them easily identify which site might best suit their needs at any given time.
 

Glow Learn

Amanda has also made use of Glow Learn to give her pupils access to resources.

She has created a course with a range of different resource types and enrolled the pupils onto the course to enable them to view the resources.  One of the most beneficial things she has found from doing this is being able to upload sound files, which the pupils then use for French listening practice. As sound files can often be quite large, it has previously been difficult for Amanda to find a suitable way of sharing the sound files with pupils. She has found Glow Learn to be an excellent way of doing this and the pupils have really benefited. Learn more about this and the pupils’ thoughts on it in the cookbook ‘Ecoutez! – Using Glow Learn to support listening in Modern Languages’

 
Ingredients

So what did Amanda have to do to create her Higher French Glow Group?

- Create a Glow Group using the Glow Group Document Library template.
- Make all of the pupils in her class members of the Group
- Remove the Document store web part from the page
- Add in a Discussion Board
- Add in the web links web part and modify the view to show the notes field.

- Create a course in Glow Learn
- Add resoures to the course
- Enrol pupils onto the course

In the following videos, we can take a look at Amanda’s Higher French Glow Group then find out how to replicate some of the elements in it in the subsequent videos. In a separate cookbook we will find out how to replicate Amanda’s use of  Glow Learn.

Overview of the Higher French Glow Group (4:56)
Higher French: Peer support and enhanced communications
How to create a single page Glow Group (3:03)
Higher French: Peer support and enhanced communications
How to add members to a Glow Group (5:36)
Higher French: Peer support and enhanced communications
How to create a voki (5:00)
Higher French: Peer support and enhanced communications
How to add a Voki to a Glow Group (5:01)
Higher French: Peer support and enhanced communications
How to add posts to a Discussion Board (2:26)
Higher French: Peer support and enhanced communications
How to add web links and display the Notes field (4:50)
Higher French: Peer support and enhanced communications

Impact

Amanda has found using Glow to be a tremendous benefit to both her and her class.

Channel of communication
She has found that it has provided a great means for the pupils to communicate and collaborate with one another. Most pupils have been very motivated to do this, although less secure pupils were less likely to post in the Discussion Board. They did, however, still benefit from reading posts made by others.

It has also been a good way for the pupils to communicate with Amanda herself. As she is not in school on a Wednesday, the pupils are still able to leave messages for her on the Discussion Board, which she can pick up from home if she chooses, or can answer on her return to school. Equally, if she needs to communicate something to the pupils whilst she is not in school, she can do this through Glow.

The Discussion board has also been very useful to Amanda as a way of issuing homework and sharing resources, reducing the time she needs to spend photocopying worksheets or putting files onto pupils’ memory sticks. She can upload the file once and it is forever available to all.

In the following video, some of the pupils talk about the benefits they’ve had from using the Discussion Board to access and upload homework and to support one another:

Pupils: Benefits of the Discussion Board (1:33)
Higher French: Peer support and enhanced communications

Listening
Perhaps the greatest impact that there has been though is the way in which Amanda can now share sound files with pupils and so give them a means of practising their listening skills. She has found Glow Learn to be extremely useful for this. She has also explored uploading recordings of the pupils speaking in French, so that they can listen back to these and use them as a way to improve their pronunciation.

You can find out more about this in the cookbook ‘Ecoutez! Using Glow Learn to support listening in Modern Languages’

Keith Varty teaches Biology at St Margaret’s Academy in Livingston, West Lothian. He is just approaching the end of his first year of teaching. Despite having had to find his feet as a new teacher, he has taken on the responsibility for creating a Glow Group to support pupils studying Intermediate 2 Biology.

In this series of cookbooks, we will look in detail at the content of the Intermediate 2 Biology Glow Group. In each part, there will be a general introductory overview of the Group. Each cookbook will then focus in on a different element, finding out how this has been used to support pupils studying Int2 Biology then learning how this could be replicated. The cookbook will be split into three parts:

Part 1 – Multiple Document stores
Part 2 – Weblinks and Page Viewer
Part 3 – Using Videos as a memory aid

If you have already read Part 1 or Part 2 of the series, you may wish to move on to the cookbook focus section of this one, as the initial context section is the same as in previous parts (for the benefit of those who have not yet read parts 1 or 2)

Context

Keith was introduced to Glow at the start of the session and was immediately taken with the potential it offered. Keen to embrace this as a way of supporting pupils, he decided to set up a Glow Group that would be accessible to all pupils studying Int2 Biology in the school, not only those in his own class.

Keith has worked extremely hard to make the Glow Group what it currently is – engaging, informative and useful.

There are seven pages in the Group, with a range of web parts on each.

Noticeboard Page:

The News web part is used to keep pupils informed about new resources being added to the Glow Group and give information on events relevant to Int 2 biology, such revision class details.

There is a What’s On web part on the page, which has been renamed as Deadlines
This has been used to advise each of the classes of the dates of upcoming ‘NAB’ assessments, prelim dates and revision sessions. This has helped pupils to plan their studies more effectively by having advanced warning of the dates and being able to organise their studying accordingly.

Keith talks us through the Noticeboard page in the following video:

Keith Varty: Noticeboard Page (2:31)
Supporting Int 2 Biology: Part 3 – Using Videos as a memory aid

Cookbook Focus: Using Videos as a memory aid

Keith has been keen to engage pupils by using a range of different types of learning resource within the Glow Group.

One way he has done this is to embed videos from YouTube into the text editor web part.

The page in the Glow Group where the videos are embedded currently has six videos to view. These have been chosen as they show people carrying out experiments that the pupils themselves have done in class. The videos are therefore a great way of reminding pupils of this. They also allow pupils who were absent when the experiments were done in class, to still see them being carried out.

Next session, Keith plans to video the pupils when they carry out the experiments, then add these to the Glow Group. He talks about this is the following video clip:

Keith Varty: Videos page (1:01)
Supporting Int 2 Biology: Part 3 – Using Videos as a memory aid

Ingredients

Keith initially had to create a Glow Group at school level and make all staff teaching Biology and all pupils studying it, members of the Group. The pupils have contributor permissions to the Group to enable them to take part in Discussions, upload documents and respond to surveys.

Keith added and renamed the pages of the Glow Group to suit his purpose and make the Group easy for pupils to navigate around.

In order to embed the videos, Keith had to add a Text Editor web part for each video clip, then paste the video’s embed code from YouTube into the web part.

In part 1 of this cookbook series, there are videos explaining how to create a Glow Group, add members, and add and rename pages. There is also a video explaining how to create multiple document stores within a Glow Group. In part 2, you can find out how to add web links with the notes field displayed and also how to use the Page Viewer web part.

The following video explains how to embed a YouTube video into the Text Editor web part in a Glow Group :

How to embed a YouTube video into the Text Editor web part (3:47)
Supporting Int 2 Biology: Part 3 – Using Videos as a memory aid

Other features of the Intermediate 2 Biology Glow Group

As well as the pages already mentioned, there are a further five pages in the Group. Three of these have been explored in more detail in Part 1 of this cookbook series, and two are the focus of Part 2. However, you can see Keith discuss the content of these five pages in the following videos, to give you a complete picture of the entire Glow Group:

Keith Varty: Homework Help Page (1:29)
Supporting Int 2 Biology: Part 3 – Using Videos as a memory aid
Keith Varty: Current Class Topic Page (0:38)
Supporting Int 2 Biology: Part 3 – Using Videos as a memory aid
Keith Varty: Archive Page for previous topics (1:47)
Supporting Int 2 Biology: Part 3 – Using Videos as a memory aid
Keith Varty: Exam Help Page (1:42)
Supporting Int 2 Biology: Part 3 – Using Videos as a memory aid
Keith Varty: Web links page (0:43)
Supporting Int 2 Biology: Part 3 – Using Videos as a memory aid

Impact

The Intermediate 2 Biology Glow Group has brought many benefits to the pupils in St Margaret’s Academy.

For the pupils, they now have a ‘one-stop-shop’ for all of their Biology resources, notes, homework exercises and exam revision materials. This gives them access both at home and at school to everything they might need when going over classwork, doing homework or studying for assessments.

They have a Discussion Board within the Group which gives them a place for asking questions and getting support, both from their own teacher, other teachers in the Department, or from other pupils, so widening their range of help sources.

The Modern Languages Department in James Young High School in Livingston, West Lothian, is always looking for ways to provide pupils with innovative and interesting resources and activities that will help them develop their language skills.

Sophie Martin is one of the teachers within the Department. She took an early interest in using Glow after being introduced to it by the school’s Glow Mentor, setting up a Glow Group within the Modern Languages Department, giving information to pupils on all of the courses taught there.

This then led her to create separate Glow Groups for the classes she teaches.

In this cookbook we will look at the Group that Sophie created to support her Advanced Higher German class.
In a second cookbook, we will look at how Sophie used Glow Learn to share listening and reading resources with the pupils.

Context

Sophie’s Advanced Higher German class this session had five pupils in it. She was keen to support them not only in the development of their language skills, but also to prepare them for the independent study that they will face when they go to University. She wanted to create an environment for the pupils that would enable them to support one another, as well as being supported by her as their teacher.

Sophie was keen to keep things simple, so rather then using the ‘Full Glow Group’ template when creating her Group, she chose instead to create it using the ‘Glow Group Document Library’ template.  This is a single page Glow Group which by default comes with only one web part – a Document store. Sophie then added additional web parts to the page. All of the Group’s content sits on this one page, making it very easy for the pupils to find what they are looking for.

Sophie made all of the pupils in the AH German class members of the Group, giving them Contributor rights.

There are a range of web parts on the page, all serving very specific purposes:

 Text Editor web part

The Text Editor web part was used to display photos of the many trips and activities that the class took part in. These activities really helped to bond the class.

This gives the class a great way of remembering the places they’ve visited, as well as adding interest and colour to the page.

Discussion Board

The Group has a discussion board which was used extensively by the pupils during the year.  They used it to post their thoughts and feelings about exams and to talk about their learning in general. They also used it to tell one another of resources that they themselves had come across and had found useful. This was a great way of facilitating peer support.

Document Store

Sophie used the Document Store in the Glow Group to upload many useful documents for the pupils, which they could then access throughout the year, both in school and at home.

These resources would have previously been shared with pupils by saving them individually onto each pupil’s USB memory sticks or by printing out paper copies, so uploading them to the Group made sharing resources simpler.

Class notes were also uploaded. Inevitably in S6, pupils often had to miss class for events such as University open day visits. Having access to the notes meant that they were not missing out completely on what had been taught and could catch up in their own time. They could also refer back to these notes when revising or doing homework.

The pupils themselves used the Document store to upload their essays for marking. They could do this from home and so not have to worry about remembering to bring in their homework the next day!

Web Links web part

Links to useful website, appropriate to Advanced Higher German were added to the Web Links web part.

Sophie altered the display of the web part to enable the Notes field to be displayed. Here she has added comments about each of the sites, helping pupils know the content and purpose of each. This saves them visiting lots of sites needlessly, as they can simply go to the site that Sophie has indicated as being appropriate.

Glow Learn

Sophie also made use of Glow Learn to support the pupils. She built a course and uploaded resources into it then enrolled the pupils on it to give them access to the word documents, powerpoint files and other resources that were there.

One of the main things that the Glow Learn course was used for though was to give pupils access to sound files, which they used as listening practice in preparation for their exams.

Sophie found this to be really beneficial, as did the pupils.

Find out more about this and the pupils’ thoughts on having access to audio files, in the cookbook ‘Ecoutez! Using Glow Learn to support listening in Modern Languages’

Ingredients

To be able to provide this range of support for the AH German class, she needed to do the following:

- Create Glow Group at school level, using the ‘Document Library’ template
- Give the pupils contributor rights to the Group
- Add in further web parts: Web Links, Text Editor, Discussion board
- Modify the web links web part to show the Notes field

- Create courses in Glow Learn
- Upload resources to the courses
- Enrol pupils onto the courses to give them access to the resources

In the following videos we will take a look at the AH German Glow Group in James Young High School then find out in the subsequent videos how to replicate some of the elements within it. There will be a second cookbook looking at how to create a course in Glow Learn as a way of sharing resources with pupils.

Overview of the AH German Glow Group (2:32)
Encouraging independent learning in Advanced Higher German
How to create a Glow Group using the ‘Glow Group Document Library’ template (3:03)
Encouraging independent learning in Advanced Higher German
How to add members to a Glow Group (5:28)
Encouraging independent learning in Advanced Higher German
How to add web links and display the Notes field (4:50)
Encouraging independent learning in Advanced Higher German
How to add images to the Text Editor web part (8:49)
Encouraging independent learning in Advanced Higher German
 

Impact

Sophie feels that the Glow Group brought real benefits to the pupils studying Advanced Higher German.

She feels that the Glow Group really brought the class together. They used it in the same sort of way as they might use a social networking site like ‘Facebook’, but for educational purposes. In their discussions, they were very open with one another when talking about how they were feeling about exams. This was a great help to the pupils as it gave them a means of talking about their worries and concerns and enabled them to get support from their peers.

Using Glow also enabled Sophie to give pupils access to audio files which allowed them to practice their listening skills. Since audio files can often be quite large, they can often be difficult to share, so Glow gave a means of doing this easily.

In general, Sophie feels that using the Glow Group provided a great channel for communication and collaboration, both between her and the class and also between the pupils themselves.