Overview
Like all Local Authorities, Falkirk Council is always keen to find ways to maximise its resources and enable staff to make the most of their time. Recently Stuart Lennie, one of Falkirk’s ICT Curriculum Development Officers, made an extremely effective contribution towards these things, using Glow.

Context
One element of Stuart’s role is to bring together the ICT co-ordinators for the Authority’s 8 Secondary schools. As part of this remit, Stuart arranges quarterly meetings for the co-ordinators to enable them to share ideas and keep up to date with new initiatives, policies and resources. More often than not, the meetings have not been well attended by the co-ordinators, although not through a lack of willingness. Some have been unable to attend due to conflicting appointments whilst others have been unable to get out of school due to lack of availability of class cover. This has made it harder for Stuart to keep all schools equally up to date.

With schools facing increasing demands in staffing and budgets, Stuart felt that this problem would only be likely to worsen and so decided to use Glow as a way to try to combat the issues facing staff trying to get out of school for the ICT Co-ordinator meetings.

Stuart decided to hold the group’s most recent meeting via Glow Meet. He explains why in the following video clip:

Stuart Lennie: Why we held the meeting via using Glow Meet (1:16)
Maximising time and resources: using Glow Meet for Local Authority Meetings

Stuart emailed the Co-ordinators to tell them the date and time of the meeting, then one week prior to it he uploaded the meeting agenda, minute and other documents to be discussed, into the Secondary ICT Co-ordinators Glow Group. This enabled all 8 Co-ordinators to have access to them ahead of time.

Stuart tells us about this:

Stuart Lennie: Using the Glow Group to share meeting documents (0:18)
Maximising time and resources: using Glow Meet for Local Authority Meetings

For the meeting itself, each teacher remained in their own school and joined the meeting via the Glow Meet web part within the same Glow Group, using their web cams. They were able to take part in the meeting as normal, talk with one another, share information and view the documents being discussed, as Stuart uploaded these to the shared whiteboard within the Glow Meet meeting room.

Stuart recorded the Glow Meet session.
He then embedded it into a Text Editor web part within the Glow Group, making it accessible to all members. This served two purposes: It was still not possible for all 8 coordinators to attend the meeting, despite it taking place online. Those not present no longer have to rely on the summarised minute to know learn about what took place during the meeting, they can watch the entire meeting at a time convenient to them and see the full content. Also, there is a full, permanent record of what was discussed, avoiding any doubt or misunderstanding.

Stuart talks about recording the Glow Meets in the following video:

Stuart Lennie: Recording the Glow Meet sessions (0:35)
Maximising time and resources: using Glow Meet for Local Authority Meetings

Ingredients
Stuart did not need much to be able to hold the virtual meeting.
He needed:
- A Glow Group at Local Authority level to enable teachers from all eight schools to easily access it
- To make all of the ICT Co-ordinators members of the Glow Group.
- Document stores to host the agenda, minutes and other documents
- To add the Glow Meet web part to the Glow Group and create a meeting room
- A web cam, microphone and speakers/headphones. The other people attending the meeting also required these.

Recipe

Let’s have a brief look first of all at the Glow Group where the Glow Meet was held for the Falkirk ICT co-ordinators:

Falkirk Secondary ICT co-ordinators Support Glow Group tour (4:32)
Maximising time and resources: using Glow Meet for Local Authority Meetings
In the following videos we will find out how to replicate some of the elements listed above.

How to set up a Glow Meet in a Glow Group (5:36)
Maximising time and resources: using Glow Meet for Local Authority Meetings
How to join and take part in a Glow Meet (3:38)
Maximising time and resources: using Glow Meet for Local Authority Meetings
How to use the video, audio and chat facility within a Glow Meet meeting room (6:19)
Maximising time and resources: using Glow Meet for Local Authority Meetings
How to use the shared whiteboard in a Glow Meet meeting room (8:25)
Maximising time and resources: using Glow Meet for Local Authority Meetings
How to record a Glow Meet (2:09)
Maximising time and resources: using Glow Meet for Local Authority Meetings
How to play back a previously recorded Glow Meet (3:22)
Maximising time and resources: using Glow Meet for Local Authority Meetings
How to embed a video hosted online into the Text Editor web part (14:08)
Maximising time and resources: using Glow Meet for Local Authority Meetings
How to create a new Document Store (5:36)
Maximising time and resources: using Glow Meet for Local Authority Meetings

Impact

Stuart feels that there are great advantages to holding meetings via Glow Meet.
He talks about these in the following video:

Stuart Lennie: Advantages of holding meetings via Glow Meet (0:56)
Maximising time and resources: using Glow Meet for Local Authority Meetings

Feedback from those participating in the meetings has also been very positive and this has encouraged Stuart to hold future meetings virtually. He talks about this:

Stuart Lennie: Feedback from meeting attendees (0:27)
Maximising time and resources: using Glow Meet for Local Authority Meetings

In fact, it seems to be so advantageous that Stuart is now working with others within Falkirk Council to find out how they too might benefit from using Glow Meet for their meetings and how it may help maximise resources:

Stuart Lennie: Next steps (0:21)
Maximising time and resources: using Glow Meet for Local Authority Meetings

In all, using Glow Meet for the Secondary ICT Co-ordinator meetings has been and extremely positive experience and one which has delivered many benefits. Time and money have been saved by cutting out the need for travel; cover requirements have been reduced as there has been no need to cover anything other than the duration of the meeting (no travel time to be covered); paper (and therefore money) is being saved as there is less need to print out copies of minutes, agendas and documents; no catering has had to be supplied, again saving money.

Staff, who were previously not able, have been able to attend the meetings – even if just for part – as they do not need to travel. One of the ICT Co-ordinators was previously unable to attend due to having other meetings immediately before and after the ICT meeting, meaning he could not travel to Stuart’s meeting. He can now join via Glow Meet and take part, whilst still attending his other meetings. Another teacher commented that it was extremely advantageous to be able to start her class at the beginning of the period, which she was unable to do previously when she had to be out of school to attend the meeting.

Stuart hopes that these and other benefits can be extended to other areas of the Local Authority’s Education Department too.

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Overview

Gerry Munro is Head Teacher of Longhaugh Primary School in Dundee. As part of Longhaugh’s process of continuous improvement, Gerry set out to develop a Glow Group aimed at improving communications within the school. In this cookbook, Gerry will talk us through how the Longhaugh Staff Area Glow Group has become the first point of contact for staff when: looking for important information and documentation, sharing ideas, collaborating on planning activities, showcasing examples of practice or discussing where to go for the end of term lunch!

Video Clips

Ingredients

What Gerry used to develop the Longhaugh Staff Area Glow Group:

1. A Glow Group
2. Multiple Discussion Board web parts
3. Page Viewer web parts
4. Multiple Documents web parts

Impact

The Longhaugh Staff Area Glow Group has achieved Gerry’s aim of becoming :

A one stop centre for crucial information and staff development.

On a daily basis, staff access the group to:

• view administrative information
• share ideas
• collaborate on planning
• participate in CPD activity
• showcase learning and teaching practice from the classroom

In the video clip below, Gerry comments on how the Glow Group has become integral to the day-to-day running of the school.

Context

Allan Reid (formerly Moray Glow Development Officer) and I were looking for a way to give schools more autonomy in managing their Glow Accounts. As a result of a change as part of the ongoing Glow Refresh, we are now able to give staff in schools the ability to manage the passwords of other members of staff without assigning full Accounts Service Manger (ASM) permissions.

The Glow roll-out began in Moray in Spring 2009 and over the course of a year the vast majority of staff in schools in the authority had logged into Glow. As of June 2010, ASMs had been trained in only a small number of Moray schools so requests for staff Glow accounts to be unlocked and passwords reset were dealt with centrally. As Glow is being used more and more regularly by staff in Moray, the number of support calls about forgotten passwords or locked accounts was increasing and it was felt that that this could be managed in a more efficient way. The facility to assign members of staff in schools with the permission to manage other staff passwords became available and this was the ideal way to achieve our goal.

Ingredients

1. A Glow login
2. An authority or school ASM to assign the required permission
3. The names of individuals within an establishment to assign the permission to
4. The guide explaining how to manage staff passwords

Recipe

1. Contacting schools

The following correspondence was sent to all schools asking them to identify an individual, or multiple individuals, to be given the permission to manage the passwords of other staff members:

“As part of the ongoing Glow refresh we now have the ability to assign staff the right to unlock other staff Glow accounts and reset staff passwords. In the event of a staff member being locked out of Glow, forgetting their password, or having written it down incorrectly, this could be resolved easily by another member of staff at your school. Whilst staff can already reset pupil passwords, devolving the right to reset staff passwords will allow your school to become more autonomous in managing your Glow accounts.

These rights can be assigned to any number of people in your school although it might make sense for staff who have previous experience of using Glow to be thus empowered in the first instance. Suitable candidates might be a Glow Mentor, IT technician, administrator, senior manager or any member of teaching staff with well developed ICT skills.

If you would like a member or members of staff at your school to be able to manage other staff passwords, please forward their name(s) to us by…”

Once schools had replied, the details of each member of staff identified were added to a spreadsheet and the required permission assigned.

2. How do I assign the permission?

How schools in Moray manage staff Glow passwords

3. Guidance

An email was sent to each named person with a step-by-step guide, detailing how to manage staff passwords. The guidance can be found in the following document:

How to Unlock Staff Accounts and Reset Passwords

Guidance on how to reset pupil passwords was also sent as many staff did not know how to do this or that they had the required permission to do so. Click the following link to download this document:

How to Unlock Pupil Accounts and Reset Pupil Passwords

4. How to manage another staff member’s password

How schools in Moray manage staff Glow passwords

5. Other Associated Changes

Prior to this Glow change a ‘Change other user’s profile’ link could be accessed by all staff from the Glow Settings webpart on their Staff home and could be used to edit pupil profiles. Unless you have been given the new ‘Change other user’s password’ permission by your school or authority ASM, this link will no longer be visible.

To locate and edit a pupil profile, use the Change profile link in your Glow Settings Webpart as shown below:

Handy hint – To locate a member of staff or a pupil, use the advanced search to search by first name, last name and base establishment name.

Please refer to the document above for full guidance on how to do this.

Impact

The majority of schools in Moray have at least one member of staff who can manage other staff passwords. There have been very few support calls for Glow passwords to be reset or accounts to be unlocked so this has been a success.

Ross Watson, Glow Development Officer
M: +44 (0)787 2415354
E: R.Watson@LTScotland.org.uk
Learning and Teaching Scotland
The Optima, 58 Robertson Street, Glasgow, G2 8DU
Moving Education Forward – www.LTScotland.org.uk

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Gemma Pirie and Martin Coutts are staff tutors working for Aberdeenshire authority. Gemma and Martin were tasked with developing and implementing a training model to roll out Glow Learn to secondary schools across the authority.

Context

Seconded to Aberdeenshire authority as staff tutors, Gemma Pirie and Martin Coutts were tasked with developing and implementing a model for delivering Glow Learn training to the seventeen secondary schools in Aberdeenshire. Using the national Glow Learn training programme as a template, Gemma and Martin set about applying the tweaks they felt necessary to fit the local context. A training programme was agreed with each of the high schools where ten staff, providing a spread across all of the secondary departments, would be released for one and a half days of training. The agreed programme consisted of one full day of training followed by a half day, two weeks later.

In this cookbook, Martin takes us through the training model, how it was delivered and the response to date.

For further video support on using Glow Learn, follow the link below:

Glow Learn cookbook videos

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

Glow Learn guide and helpsheets

Impact

It is clear that Gemma and Martin’s efforts have paid off and that secondary staff in Aberdeenshire enjoyed a valuable, worthwhile CPD experience in Glow Learn. The introduction of Glow is helping to develop a new era of cooperation and sharing in Scottish Education and through this cookbook, local authorities, schools and teachers across Scotland can benefit from the work done by Gemma and Martin in Aberdeenshire.

Theresa O’Hanlon is Headteacher in St Mary’s Primary School in Bannockburn. Keen to foster and maintain a strong school community, she always looks for ways to involve all staff, pupils and parents in the life of the school and looks to give them the opportunity to voice their thoughts and opinions on the school, welcoming contributions from all.

 Context

St Mary’s has used a range of ways in the past to encourage members of the school community to share their opinions on aspects of school life. Theresa O’Hanlon is particularly keen to enable pupil voice to be heard and so approached P7 teacher and Glow mentor, Jennifer Toft, to find out if there might be a way to use Glow for this purpose.

Jennifer had already been using Glow Surveys with her own class for formative assessment (learn more about this in the cookbook ‘Formative assessment in P7 French – using Glow Surveys’). She realised that a Glow survey would be a great way to encourage pupil voice.

After discussions, it was decided that the school would use the HMiE pre-inspection pupil questionnaire from the HMiE website, to find out pupils’ thoughts on the school.

Setting up the survey
Jennifer created a Glow Survey, entering the questions from the HMiE questionnaire as multiple choice questions, and adding a final ‘multiple lines of text’ question at the end to give pupils the opportunity to make any additional comments they wished. She configured the questionnaire to ensure that pupils could only respond once, so as not to skew the results and also set it up so that the responses were anonymous. This helped achieve more honest results, as pupils felt secure knowing that no one would know who had said what.

The survey was then added to the Noticeboard page of the school site, to enable everyone in the school to see it.
In addition, the pupils’ permissions on the school site were upped from the default ‘Reader’ to ‘Contributor’, as this is the minimum level of permission required to enable users to respond to a survey.

Responses
The response to the survey was far greater than it would have been had a paper questionnaire been issued, based on previous experience. Since only pupils in P5, 6 and 7 currently use Glow within the school, they were the only pupils asked to respond in this way. (Pupils in P1-4 did also complete the survey, but did so in paper format). Within a week, over 60 responses had been submitted through the survey, and to date, there have been 92.

The responses are viewable in graphical format, with the percentages calculated for the number of respondents choosing each possible answer. This gives Theresa, as Headteacher, a quick and easy way of analysing the results, without having to do lots of statistical analysis and collation of results by hand. She can easily see areas where the pupils feel the school is performing well, and areas that may require improvement.

Jennifer talks about the survey in the following video:

Jennifer Toft: pupil voice whole school survey (1:03)
Enabling Pupil Voice – using a Glow Survey

 
Ingredients

It did not take much work to have the questionnaire available for pupils to respond to. Since the survey sits on the school site though rather than in a Glow Group, the work was done by Jennifer using the Site Collection Administrator account. This included:
- Raising the pupil permissions on the school site to Contributor
- Creating a new survey
- Adding the survey to the Noticeboard page of the school site
- Changing the view of the survey web part to make the ‘Respond to this survey’ link visible in the web part

In the following videos, we will take a look at the survey on the St Mary’s Primary school site in Glow, then find out how this can be replicated.

Looking at the survey on the St Mary’s school site (3:48)
Enabling Pupil Voice – using a Glow Survey
How the SCA changes users’ permissions on the school site (3:29)
Enabling Pupil Voice – using a Glow Survey
How to create and configure a survey (14:16)
Enabling Pupil Voice – using a Glow Survey
How to respond to a survey (5:19)
Enabling Pupil Voice – using a Glow Survey

Impact

The school has seen many benefits in using a Glow Survey to give pupils a voice.

The response rate to the Glow Survey was far higher than the return rate would normally be for paper questionnaires issued.

The results are easily accessible, with the statistical analysis and graphical displays automatically done, saving the Headteacher time and giving a permanent record of responses. Since no paper is used, there is no need to file the questionnaires, and money is saved.

Headteacher Theresa O’Hanlon has the following to say about pupils’ usual response to questionnaires, their response to the Glow Survey and the impact it has for her and the school staff:

“The children are not very enthusiastic usually about filling one in by hand and see it as another chore. However the children were much happier to be able to complete it on line. It was a quick and efficient way to find out the children’s thoughts and this will influence next sessions Improvement Plan for the school. “

Overview
Margaret Vass is currently seconded as Curriculum Support Teacher for Falkirk Council and as part of her remit she has supported the introduction of Glow to her colleagues. Margaret has created a Glow group for staff to find support and share ideas with each other on their Glow experiences. As a visual learner Margaret has created support guides for Glow to help staff to use the components within Glow.

Context
Margaret has received training in Glow and found that she wanted to create easy ‘How to’ videos for the components within Glow to suit her learning style. She has received some training in the use of Hotpots in Glow and thought that this tool was a great way for other sto use Glow in their school groups.
Hotspots are images or words which are hyperlinked to other Glow pages and Web sites and allows easy access for the user to a range of resources predetermined by the creator of the group.
When Margaret received the training for this she wanted to create a step by step guide for others to use as an easy to access resource. She considered using Powerpoint for this however she quickly realised that for some users Slide share can take a while to load and as a result created a Prezi resource which is easily uploaded and viewed by others.

*Margaret gives a tour of her work
Staff Support – Using Hotspots

Ingredients
*Glow Username and Password
*Authorised to create Glow groups at Local Authority Level

Recipe
*How to add members to a Glow group
Staff Support – Using Hotspots
*How to add, remove and change the title of pages
Staff Support – Using Hotspots
*How to add hotspots to an image
Staff Support – Using Hotspots
*How to upload a Presi into Glow
Staff Support – Using Hotspots

Impact

*Margaret talks about impact of using Glow
Staff Support – Using Hotspots

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Alan Thomson is an ICT Development Officer working in Midlothian’s ICT Development Team. In this cookbook Alan describes how he is helping the Numeracy Development Officer for Midlothian, Helen Martin, develop a Glow Group structure aimed at supporting Numeracy across the curriculum in Midlothian.

Context

With Alan’s help, Helen had set about developing a comprehensive Glow Group for supporting numeracy. As the group developed, two issues needed to be addressed:

• a great number of Page Tabs were being created in the group to house the wealth of content to be published. In Alan’s view this was resulting in an unwieldy group that lacked structure
• complications were arising in planning for who (staff, pupils, parents) would be able to access what. The developing structure made it very difficult to limit access to particular Page Tabs

Click to enlarge image

In re-planning, Alan and Helen recognised that what was actually required was a ‘portal’ solution where a numeracy ‘home group’ that all the stakeholders could access, would contain links to either hidden pages within the group or to other Glow Groups. This would allow Alan to better control, through Glow Group membership, who could access what. To streamline the navigation through the new structure, Alan created a single page Glow Group to act as the ‘home group’. Contained in the single page are buttons that link to the hidden pages or other Glow Groups.

In this cookbook, Alan will show us what has been achieved to date. We will also see how to go about replicating what Alan set up.

Ingredients

To replicate Alan’s structure and graphical user interface, you will need: 

1. A Glow Group with a single page
2. Text Editor web part
3. Hidden pages to link to
4. Other Glow Groups to link to

Recipe

In the first video below, Alan talks us through the work that he and Helen have done to date. The other two videos outline how to replicate the navigational structure demonstrated in the numeracy group.

Impact

Through careful planning, Alan and Helen have developed a Glow Group structure that facilities seamless navigation to resources, areas of interest and information regarding numeracy in Midlothian schools. Managed by Glow Group membership, the structure allows for communal access to some areas for staff, pupils and parents while restricting other areas, for example Staff Only. The inventive solution illustrates how Glow has provided the platform to become the ‘one-stop-shop’ for supporting numeracy in Midlothian.

David Lines, Senior Officer (Curriculum) in Midlothian’s ICT Development Team, is the driving force behind the use of graphical user interfaces in Glow to streamline navigation. David has created a CPD tutorial aimed at showing users how to create engaging user interfaces using commonly available tools and the Text Editor in Glow. The tutorial is contained within a Glow Group and David has opened the membership of this group to all staff in Scotland. The link to the group is below (Glow login required).

Creating a Graphical Interface

Overview
Fiona Meney is a Principal Teacher at Forehill Primary School, South Ayrshire. Last year she school developed a storyline approach to learning for one topic in the year with colleague Lynn Robertson, who is also a PT at Forehill. They began by looking at the work of Linda Bancroft of Aberfoyle Primary on the Enchanted Forest and developed a topic for infant stages from this. Fiona and Lynne then went on to develop several other topics using the storyline approach for stages throughout the school. The hard work of the staff and pupils in the planning, organisation and delivering of these topics was recognised within South Ayrshire and they were asked to showcase this work.  The Head Teacher found that Glowing Potential within the National Glow Site was also looking at ways of showcasing good practice within Scotland.  It was suggested that the work be uploaded to a Glow Group within the school and shared thoughout Scotland through Glowing Potential.

This Cookbook will look at the work covered by the school using the Storyline approach and how this was stored as evidence and as a resource file within Glow.

Context

Watch Fiona’s tour of the Glow Group and the excellent work her school as completed using the Storyline approach.
Using Glow to Support Storyline Approach in Primary schools

Ingredients

What did Fiona need to use to support this project.

1. Administrator rights for a Glow Group

Recipe
Fiona has now made the work she has stored on Glow available for access on the National Site.
*How to access Forehill Primary School’s work on the National Site, Glowing Potential
Using Glow to Support Storyline Approach in Primary schools

Impact
There have been a number of impacts from this project. The Storyline approach is now being developed again this year and the new work is continuing to be uploaded to the Glow Good Practice site within the school and is able to be accessed through Glowing Potential. Fiona feels that as all teachers are using Curriculum for Excellence and Glow then it would be a great support to each other to share developments and good practice in order for practioners to support each other throughout the country.
*Watch Fiona talk about the impact of this project.
Using Glow to Support Storyline Approach in Primary schools

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Louise Henderson is an Educational Support Officer for ICT in Dundee with a remit for early years and primary. The Top Tips for Early Years Glow Group developed by Louise and her team aims to provide staff in Dundee with ideas, guidance and resources for Glow use in the early years.

In this cookbook, we will:

• Hear how Louise makes use of a Glow Group to provide stimulus and support for Glow use in early years.

Ingredients

What Louise used to develop the group: 

1. A Glow Group
2. Text Editor web parts to display various messages that combine text and graphics
3. Image and Picture Library web parts to give examples of how work can be displayed. The same parts are also used to provide explanations on how to do it.
4. Web Links web part to provide quick links to resources
5. Text Editor web part is used to show how to link to a web site from an image.
6. Page viewer web part to show how to bring favourite web sites into Glow.
7. Documents web part for storing help sheets
8. The Learnnewsdesk web part.

Recipe

In the first video clip, Louise talks us through her Glow Group.  The other video clips will take you through how to replicate some of the activities that Louise demonstrates in the group.

Impact

The Glow Group developed by Louise and her team not only provides ideas for Glow use in the early years but also the just-in-time CPD support that busy staff can tap into when needed. Other benefits include:

• Ideas for activities in Glow, resources for the activities and ‘how to’ guidance all contained and easily accessible through the Glow Group
• Central guidance and support on linking Glow resources to activities and experiences and outcomes from the Curriculum for Excellence

Follow the link below to see how Louise and her team use a Glow Group to celebrate and showcase the work being done in early years establishments across Dundee: 

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.