Glow Scotland

October 8th, 2012

Migration of Glow to Office 365 – October Update

ggallacher

Comments: 2 Comments » Tags:  : Categories Glow, Glow Blogs, Glow Component, Glow Groups, Glow Learn, Glow Light Images, Local authorities, Pupils, Technologies, Uncategorized

As you are aware, the Migration of Glow to Office 365 has been developing over the summer and we are now at a key stage where we feel it is important to outline where matters are as well as the key milestones you can expect. Over the last few months staff in Education Scotland, Microsoft and RM have been engaging with various stakeholders, in particular ADES and Local Authority representatives, to plan the most appropriate way forward for the project. We will continue to do this and, as you know, ADES has arranged for an ICT in education conference on 1 November where further, more detailed information will be shared. In the meantime we hope that this briefing keeps you and your staff up to date with progress to date.

Migration

RM Unify
RM Unify consists of three core components, a Launchpad, the App Library and the Bus.
1. The Launchpad: Access applications and services centrally and launch via a single logon
2. The App Library: Discover what’s out there and bring together the best services and applications to support teaching and learning
3. The Bus: Manage users through simple, seamless and secure provisioning of accounts

Piloting RM Unify
RM Unify piloting started w/c 1st of October. The pilot will be carried out with specific schools from Edinburgh, North Ayrshire, Scottish Borders, East Renfrewshire, West Lothian, North Lanarkshire and West Dunbartonshire. The pilot runs from 1st of October until 24th of October.

Feedback will be encouraged from all and will come in to the national Glow Group – using a survey, forum and paper on the day. We will collate and use this feedback before proceeding to the next stage.

In this pilot we will be piloting RM Unify only, not Office 365.

Office 365 for Education
RM Unify needs to be in place to pass the single sign-on authentication into the Office 365 for education platform and applications. Once Unify has been piloted and implemented, Office 365 will be connected and further pilots will be organised. Timelines showing the detail of the implementation plan will be communicated as soon as they have been completed and will contain accurate dates and information.

The elements of MS Office 365 that will be available to Glow Users across Scotland are listed below.

• Exchange online with full mobile experience – email, calendar, web-app, 25Gb email storage per user.
• Lync online service – peer to peer video communications, Presence and IM, integration with Exchange and Sharepoint online, usable on mobile devices.
• Sharepoint online – 512Mb personal plus 512Mb pooled data storage.
• Office Web Apps – online browser based versions of the familiar MS Office suite including Word, Excel, Powerpoint and OneNote. This will remove the requirement to have an underlying MS Office installation on a device, however when the apps are on the client, they will work together.
• Blogging and Wiki tools with social networking integration.
• Powerful document collaboration including multi-user editing facilities.

Some of these applications were demonstrated at the recent Scottish Learning Festival.

Client Requirements Document
This gives details of the minimum client requirements needed for the migration of Glow. It is posted in the Migration of Glow to Office 365 national group listed in the Glow Users section below.

Engagement

1.  Glow Stakeholder Focus Group
As part of the migration of Glow we’ve set up a small but key Stakeholder group. The remit of this group is to help inform decisions about the user experience for the current migration project. These include:

•  Setup options for MS Office 365 for education
There are several different setup options for this application
• Email domain strategy
Structure for the new email service. (rollout to authorities is imminent, with all authorities having access to the new email solution before March 2013)
• Migration strategy
Looking at moving legacy services to the new solution. We aim to have all migration to be complete by summer 2013
• Launch pad (Home Page) applications
Look of the RM Unify landing page & applications displayed
• Exemplification
Best way of exemplifying use of Glow in learning and teaching
• Engagement
Preferred methods for engaging with the Glow community

2.  Working with Microsoft – E-portfolio Migration
Education Scotland is in contact with Microsoft to agree the next steps around the migration of the Glow e-portfolio solution, the aim is to work with a Microsoft SharePoint developer and pull together a short-term working group. The group will deliver their findings in due course. WE WILL NOT MIGRATE ANY E- PORTFOLIOS UNTIL SUMMER 2013.

3.  Glow Key Contacts

KC/ADES Update @ SLF
The Glow Key Contacts and representatives from ADES attended a closed meeting at this year’s festival. The meeting went extremely well and delegates were given a demo of RM Unify and O365 for education. Component migration paths were also shared.

Next Meeting
The next Glow Summit, in conjunction with the ADES – ICT in Education Conference – will be held at the Glasgow Science Centre early November.

Communications

General Update
We continue to use our existing communication channels to promote our Glow messages and updates:

Public Facing
• Education Scotland Online Service
• Glowscotland blog
• facebook/glowscotland
• Twitter.com/EducationScot
• Glow login i-frame

Subscription Based
• Glow & CfE e-bulletin
• e-cards

Glow Users
• Glow Light image
• National Site
• Glow Replacement Project – new national group

Scottish Learning Festival
We received extremely positive feedback from our seminars, presentations and stand demos of Glow.  Delegates were excited to see the changing solution, including the new RM Unify interface and tiles directly linking users to great Learning and Teaching products such as Office-365, RM Books, Twig World, J2E to name but a few.

Useful Links
GlowScotland Blog – GlowScotland Blog
Glow on Facebook – www.facebook.com/glowscotland
National e-portfolio group – *e-portfolio
The Glow national site – Glow National Site

We hope that this briefing has outlined where we have got to and where we are going with Glow and we look forward to an exciting future.

Glow is evolving

July 5th, 2012

Have you seen Beads, Bawbees and Banknotes?

Jennifer McDougall

Comments: none Tags: Tags: banknotes, bawbees, beads, Museum on the Mound
 : Categories Curriculum for Excellence, Glow, Glow Groups, Pupils

This free resource about money can now be ordered from the Museum on the Mound, Edinburgh. The Glow-based version has been available for many months – but the disc provides even more material…

Use it to discover:
What is the oldest form of Money?
Why do we use coins?
What can you find on a banknote?
How do banks keep money safe?

For further information download the Beads, Bawbees and Banknotes PDF flyer.

The resource has been designed for flexible use by teachers and pupils, and can be linked to many areas of the curriculum. Ensure that you visit the Beads, Bawbees and Banknotes Glow Group!

January 25th, 2012

Maximising time and resources: using Glow Meet for Local Authority Meetings

ggallacher

Comments: none Tags:  : Categories Falkirk, Glow, Glow Groups, Glow Meet

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.

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

Find out more in the Cookbook here:

January 24th, 2012

Using a survey for topic evaluation to enable pupil voice

ggallacher

Comments: none Tags:  : Categories Expressive Arts, Glow, Glow Groups, Sciences, South Ayrshire, Technologies

Judith Lennox was P7 teacher at Coylton Primary School in South Ayrshire and is now DHT in the school. When it came to their topic work on Earth and Space, the P7 pupils at Coylton Primary School had lots of ideas about what they would like to learn about. Judith incorporated all of these ideas into the Glow Group she put together for the topic.

Find out more in the cookbook here:

January 23rd, 2012

Debating in Primary 7

ggallacher

Comments: none Tags:  : Categories Glow, Glow Groups, North Lanarkshire, Uncategorized

Jennifer Neill is a teacher at Alexander Peden Primary School in North Lanarkshire. This year Jennifer’s remit has been to share a Primary Two class with a probationer teacher and support the other teachers in the school with the roll out of Glow. To do this she regularly meets with class teachers to discuss what interdisciplinary work they are completing in class and they look at ways in which Glow can compliment and support this. At present all pupils in the school have Glow log ons and are actively using Glow.

In Primary 7 the pupils were studying a topic on Vivisection for Literacy. Within this topic the pupils had a debate as to whether they agreed or disagreed with animal testing. The pupils first of all, after some research, had to consider all the reasons for and all the reasons against in relation to animal testing. The pupils then created short videos, using a video camera, giving an argument for or against animal testing, whichever they agreed with. In this cookbook we will look at how Jennifer and Scott Clark (North Lanarkshire Glow Development Officer) used Glow to support this Literacy activity.

Find out more in the Cookbook here.

January 20th, 2012

Using a wiki as an evidence store for pupil e-portfolios

ggallacher

Comments: none Tags:  : Categories Glow, Glow Blogs, Glow Groups, North Lanarkshire, Technologies

Maureen Atkins is a Maths teacher at St Aidan’s High School in North Lanarkshire. She has been making good use of Glow in her teaching. She was involved in the school making the decision to move ahead with using e-portfolios with the S1 year group. Maureen was keen that evidence of pupil achievement that she had captured in the classroom would be available to be used by the pupils when creating posts in their e-portfolios. This Cookbook will focus on the Maths Store Glow Group and on the wiki. You will see a tour of the Glow Group and wiki and also interviews with Maureen where she will explain what she was setting out to do.

Find out more in the Cookbook here

January 13th, 2012

Standard Grade Music – Using a wiki for project work

ggallacher

Comments: none Tags:  : Categories Expressive Arts, Glow, Glow Groups, North Lanarkshire, Technologies

Irene Stewart is a Principal Teacher of Music at Bellshill Academy in North Lanarkshire. She began using Glow quite recently, encouraged by her own son’s use of Glow in primary school. She saw the potential for her secondary pupils to be accessing materials from home and also to be able to ask questions on Discussion Boards for help with their homework. Her son’s obvious enjoyment of using Glow made her think that her pupils would be motivated by using it.

This is the second of 2 Cookbooks which will look at how Irene has started to use Glow with her Standard Grade classes but mainly with S3. This second Cookbook on Irene’s use of Glow will focus on the pupils using a wiki to upload project work for Standard Grade Music.

Find out more in the Cookbook here:

January 13th, 2012

Encouraging deeper learning: pupils creating surveys

ggallacher

Comments: none Tags:  : Categories Fife, Glow, Glow Groups, Literacy, Technologies

Duloch Primary School in Fife began to use Glow in early 2010. To take advantage of pupils’ curiosity and interest in ICT, a Glow Worms group of pupils was established. This group are given additional teaching in basic Glow skills and the pupils then become ‘champions’ for Glow throughout the school. Here Emma McLucas and Moray Dickson describe the plans for the Glow Worms group and the benefits of one of the activities they have already undertaken – creating surveys.

Find out more in the Cookbook here

January 9th, 2012

Jessie Porter Nursery: Sharing and collaborating through Glow

ggallacher

Comments: none Tags:  : Categories Dundee City, Early Years, Glow, Glow Groups

Jessie Porter Nursery School in Dundee is a pre-school centre catering for close on one hundred children aged three to five years. Jessie Porter was recently recognised by HMIE as providing a “positive, supportive and purposeful learning environment” where well planned use of ICT features to “promote links across the children’s learning”.

In this cookbook, Jo Bell, an ICT Staff Tutor (Early Years / Primary), describes how she worked with Jessie Porter to develop a Glow Group aimed at showcasing the work that is going on in the nursery, strengthen Nursery / Primary transition links and to share how they are planning for and developing the Curriculum for Excellence in the early years.

Find out more in the cookbook here

December 6th, 2011

There is still time to enter our Glovember competition

Lesley Sneddon

Comments: none Tags:  : Categories Glow, Glow Groups, Literacy

Now that our amazing Glovember Author Events have finished, Education Scotland is giving you two more weeks to enter your stories, poems and illustrations for the Glovember competition.

All you have to do is go to the Glovember Glow Group within Glow, click on the competition page tab and upload your story, poem or illustration. Be sure to do this before the closing date of Friday 16 December.

Winners will be announced in January, after some of our authors have helped us with the judging.

Winning entries will be published in our eBook and read by one of the Glovember Authors.

You will need a Glow login to access this competition.