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

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.

Click to enlarge image

This cookbook is a follow up to an earlier cookbook where Bruce McMaster, a teacher of Biology at Broughton High School in Edinburgh, took us through how he uses Glow to support the learning and teaching of Advanced Higher Biology. You will find a link to the earlier cookbook below.

In this cookbook, Bruce shows us how he uses Glow Learn to further support the learning and teaching of Advanced Higher Biology (Glow Learn is the virtual learning environment available to Glow users).

Context

With the introduction of Glow to Broughton, Bruce was keen to investigate how best to use the tools and functionality to further enrich the learning experiences of his Advanced Higher pupils.  He quickly developed a Glow Group that provides an easy access point to a variety of information sources, stimulus to deeper learning, opportunities for collaboration, peer evaluation and assessment.  Following the successful introduction of Glow to his class, Bruce has gone on to incorporate the use of Glow Learn into his teaching. In this cookbook, Bruce talks us through how he integrates the use of Glow Learn to further support the learning and teaching of Advanced Higher Biology.

What Bruce uses to integrate the use of Glow Learn into his Glow Group:

1. A Glow Group
2. Glow Learn
3. Glow Learn Learning Space web part

Video Clips

In the first video below, Bruce demonstrates how he uses Glow Learn and talks about the positive impact it is having on his pupils. In this video we see Bruce connecting to Glow Learn from a Glow Group. A Glow Group that links to Glow Learn is called a Learning Space. The second video, ‘What is a Learning Space?’, describes how you can create a Glow Group that connects to Glow Learn and the potential benefits of doing so. For support on using Glow Learn, see the links at the end of this cookbook.

Impact

Glow Learn enables Bruce to organise his resources, replicating the structure of the Advanced Higher Biology course as it progresses. Pupils benefit from being able to access specific resources that support their learning at a particular time during the course and, because of the structure, are able to dip back into particular units of work as required. By combining the resource structure of Glow Learn with the tools and information sources of the Glow Group, Bruce has developed an environment which he feels has positively impacted on the attainment levels of his pupils.

Follow the link below for the earlier cookbook outlining how Bruce uses Glow to support his Advanced Higher biology class: 

For 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

Robert Anderson is a Technology teacher at Penicuik High School in Midlothian. Many of the learning and teaching materials that Robert uses with his classes are digital resources, such as Powerpoint slides and pdf versions of reference guides. Currently these materials are stored on the school network, but Robert is uploading many of them to Glow Learn. The advantages that he sees are that pupils then have access to the resources beyond the school day, encouraging pupils to learn at a time and pace that suits them. Additionally, Glow Learn allows Robert to set assignments that pupils complete and return online, to set assessments which are marked automatically, and to combine the tracking benefits of Glow Learn with collaborative Glow tools such as discussion boards.

In the video clip below, Robert shows how he organises resources in Glow Learn. He has chosen to upload his resources to the school shared area in Glow Learn, which means that the resources can be seen and used by any member of staff across his school. Using the school shared area from the outset (rather than uploading to the ‘My Resources’ area) offers many benefits: encouraging inter-disciplinary working, the sharing of good practice, and reducing the need to ’recreate the wheel’. Robert explains how, in order to keep resources organised systematically, the school shared area is structured according to department, subject and level.

* Robert Anderson gives a tour of his Glow Learn resources and coursesStoring, tagging and sharing resources in Glow Learn

click image to enlarge

Robert also emphasises the benefits of linking (’tagging’) resources to specific curricular objectives. Tagging gives an indication of the content of the material and the level it is intended for and is particularly valuable if resources are being shared within a school or authority or nationally. Other staff looking for content to support their teaching can then use Glow Learn’s search facility to find resources, not only by entering a keyword (as in Google), but by selecting a specific curricular objective. As the store of tagged resources in shared areas in Glow Learn develops, this will become a very powerful method of searching for content.

click image to enlarge

Note that since Robert’s video and the how-to clips below were recorded, Curriculum for Excellence has been added to the Glow Learn list of frameworks. It’s now possible to tag resources to  CfE outcomes and therefore possible to search through all the shared areas in Glow Learn for content relevant to specific outcomes. Click the image to the left to see an example of the display of CfE outcomes in Glow Learn.

Recipe

If you’re interested in starting to use Glow Learn, the clips below will help you to get started. Further information is also available through ‘Learning about Glow’ area of the GlowScotland website.

 * uploading a resource to Glow LearnStoring, tagging and sharing resources in Glow Learn

* creating a Glow Learn courseStoring, tagging and sharing resources in Glow Learn

* enrolling pupils on a Glow Learn course
Storing, tagging and sharing resources in Glow Learn

* setting viewing and assessment optionsStoring, tagging and sharing resources in Glow Learn

Web sites constantly publish information that is interesting and relevant for pupils and staff. Finding the time to review the different sources of information for updates is difficult. A news, or web, feed is a service provided by web sites that lets you check updates to web site content without the need for you to visit the actual site. We can publish these news feeds in our Glow Groups.

In this cookbook we will look at how teachers are using news feeds in their Glow Groups and hear the views of Bruce McMaster, teacher of Biology at Broughton High School in Edinburgh, on their use in the teaching of Biology. We will also see how to set up a news feed in a Glow Group.

Click on image to enlarge

Context

Teachers who use technology in their practice have long recognised the benefit to their pupils in having access to a list of useful web links. The Web Links web part in Glow allows staff to easily set up such lists. This method of collecting lists of links is best suited to the situation where the content you want pupils to view is static, not changing. Many web sites, however, provide dynamic, constantly updating services. Regularly checking these sites to find out what is new or relevant can be a time consuming task for both pupils and staff.

The development of news or web feeds (sometimes referred to as RSS feeds*) allows us to view the updates to these changing sources from a single place and that place for us is a web part in a Glow Group.

(* Depending on who you talk to, RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication)

Teachers across Scotland are imaginatively integrating the use of news feeds with other Glow functionality to provide a rich learning environment for their pupils.

Bruce McMaster is a teacher of Biology at Broughton High School in Edinburgh. Through the appropriate use of technology in class, Bruce has aimed to enrich the experience of his pupils during their time in the Biology Department.  With the introduction of Glow to Broughton, Bruce was keen to investigate how best to use the tools and functionality to further enrich the learning experiences of his pupils.

In this cookbook he provides us with an insight into how he makes use of news feeds in Glow.

In this cookbook, we will:

• See examples of how teachers are using news feeds in Glow
• Hear Bruce outline how he uses news feeds in Glow to support the learning and teaching of Biology.
• Find out how to set up a news feed in Glow

Ingredients

To publish a news feed in Glow, we need:

1. A Glow Group
2. An XML web part to display the news feed

Recipe

In the videos below, we will see how teachers are using news feeds in Glow and how to set up news feeds:

Impact

It is the creative use of news feeds in Glow that adds value and impact to learning and teaching. The examples highlighted in this cookbook are providing pupils with stimulus for project ideas, constantly updating sources of real world information for topical discussion and the opportunity to read relevant news articles in a foreign language. By combining news feeds with other Glow functionality, e.g. publishing learning intentions in the News Web part and using Discussion Boards to expand on ideas, thoughts and opinions, teachers are developing engaging and relevant learning environments for their pupils.

Well planned use of Glow will help pupils achieve many of the Curriculum for Excellence learning experiences and outcomes. The examples highlighted in this cookbook can be linked specifically to:

Reading to appreciate other cultures: MLAN 2-09a through to MLAN 4-09a

Understanding, analysing and evaluating: LIT 1-08a and LIT 2-08a

The web site used to generate the JavaScript programming code needed to see the news feed: http://feed2js.org/index.php?s=about

Follow the link below to hear how Bruce uses Glow to support the teaching of Advanced Higher Biology:

Overview

Bruce McMaster is a teacher of Biology at Broughton High School in Edinburgh. Bruce is an advocate of the use of technology in teaching and has operated a successful blog, aimed at enhancing the learning and teaching process, for some years.

In this cookbook Bruce will talk us through how he uses Glow to support the learning and teaching of Advanced Higher Biology.

Context

The mission statement of the Biology Department at Broughton High School contains the following assertion:

• [pupils] are confident with the incorporation of ICT into the teaching of Biology

Through the appropriate use of technology in class, Bruce has aimed to enrich the experience of his pupils during their time in the Biology Department. The introduction of a blog provided his pupils with the opportunity to access advice, information and resources out with the barriers of the traditional school day. The ability of the pupils to leave comments on the blog, asking questions or adding to information, allowed them to become more active in their approach to learning.

With the introduction of Glow to Broughton, Bruce was keen to investigate how best to use the tools and functionality to further enrich the learning experiences of his pupils.

In this cookbook, we will:

• Hear Bruce outline how he uses Glow to support the teaching of his Advanced Higher Biology class.

Ingredients

What Bruce uses to support the teaching of his class:

1. A Glow Group
2. News web part to post learning intentions, project ideas and support notes
3. An XML web part to display a Voki and a news feed from the BBC
4. Web links web part
5. Discussion web part
6. Documents web part
7. A chat room
8. A Page Viewer to give students access to the Biology Blog from within the Glow Group

Recipe

In the videos below, Bruce talks us through how he uses Glow to support his class teaching:

Impact

From his commentary, it is clear that Bruce is very positive about the ability of Glow to support his teaching. Bruce makes use of a number of Glow tools to add impact:

• The News web part allows Bruce to publish lesson learning intentions, provide advice on projects and attach support documents for homework and project work
• Web Links web part provides a quick jump point to frequently used web sites
• Archived support materials – as the term progresses, Bruce is populating the document store with worksheets, homeworks and assessment materials all providing the pupils with anytime, anywhere access to resources
• The Discussions and Chat Chat web parts provide opportunities to explore topics more deeply, allow the pupils to peer evaluate and peer assess one another’s work
• A news feed that is updated automatically giving the pupils access to up-to-the-minute sources of relevant, research information

In making use of a variety of Glow tools, Bruce has developed a Glow Group that is engaging and relevant for his pupils. The group provides an easy access point for a variety of information sources, stimulus to deeper learning, opportunities for collaboration, peer evaluation and assessment.

Follow the link below to see how to set up a news feed in Glow: 

Overview
All Local Authorities are required to have in place, measures to ensure continuity of learning for pupils. They are required to provide learning and teaching opportunities should a pupil or pupils be unable to attend school. This may be required for an individual pupil who is absent due to long-term illness, or for all pupils in the event of a school closure due to adverse weather, failure of the school heating system, or some other reason.
West Lothian has been looking at Glow as one way of addressing this.

Context
West Lothian has been keen to explore a range of ways in which Glow can be used to support pupils. Whilst this has been initiated by the need for continuity planning in the event of non-school attendance, there is also a desire to support pupils more generally.
Laura Compton, the Glow Key Contact for West Lothian, met with a small group of classroom practitioners and a member of the National Glow Team, to discuss the variety of ways in which they might use Glow for this. Within their discussions, the group was very conscious of the need to minimise the amount of work that this might involve for teachers.
Since all schools in West Lothian had previously had support in their implementation of Glow, many teachers were already creating Glow Groups to use with their own classes. The group therefore decided to capitalise on this in order to provide support across the Authority.
Rather than new Local Authority Glow Groups being created for each subject area, West Lothian decided to utilise existing school groups, with their initial focus being to provide support for pupils approaching SQA examinations.
All of West Lothian’s 11 Secondary schools were asked to nominate teachers who were already using Glow with their classes, and who already had learning and teaching resources held within a Glow Group. The teachers were asked if they would be willing to open up these Glow Groups to pupils from across the Authority, to enable them to have access to materials from not only their own school, but from others too. This meant that if, for example, a pupil studying Higher English did not have access to a Higher English Glow Group within their own school, they would be able to access one in another school.
It was then decided that a Glow Group would be created at Local Authority level, with all pupils and teachers from all school having contributor rights. Within the Group is a page for each subject, with links on the page to the existing school based Glow Groups. Pupils have reader access to the Groups that are not in their own school.
Also on each page is a Document store with learning and teaching resources, and a Web Links web part with links to useful subject-specific sites. Pupils will be able to receive remote tuition or advice from a teacher in any school across the Authority using the communication web parts, since each page also contains a Glow Chat, a Glow Meet and a Discussion Board.
Not all subject areas or levels will be covered initially, but it is hoped that the range available will increase as more teachers become involved. Also, provision will be extended to lower Secondary and to Primary pupils too.
In this cookbook we will look at
• The West Lothian Pupil Study Support Glow Group
• How to set up a similar Glow Group

Ingredients
What did West Lothian need to set this up?
• A Glow Group, accessible by all staff and pupils in the Local Authority
• Membership for all pupils to Glow Groups in schools other than their own
• The support of teachers

Recipe

In this section, we will look at the current structure of the West Lothian Pupil Study Support Glow Group and then find out how to set up a similar type of Group.

Video Clips:

What does the West Lothian Pupil Study Support Glow Group look like? (4:02)
Continuity of Learning and Emergency Closure Planning

How to create new List web parts (5:39)
Continuity of Learning and Emergency Closure Planning

Local Authority Thoughts
Listen to Laura Compton, Glow Key Contact for West Lothian, talk about the Authorities reasons for using Glow as part of their business continuity planning:

Interview with Laura Compton (2:00)
Continuity of Learning and Emergency Closure Planning

Next Steps
At the point of writing this, the Glow Group is still in the process of being populated and has not yet been opened up to pupils.
West Lothian is also considering the potential of Glow Learn to provide similar Authority-wide support for pupils. This will require further support for staff though to enable this to happen.