Glow Scotland

December 5th, 2011

Panda-monium as Sweetie and Sunshine land in Edinburgh

pcurrie

Comments: none Tags: Tags: CfE, China, Chinese, early years, edinburgh, environment, Events, Glow, Glow Meet, Glow TV, Literacy, pandas, Tian Tian, video, Yang Guang, zoos
 : Categories Curriculum for Excellence, Early Years, Events, Glow, Learner Resources, Literacy, Pupils

Our Glow TV team had an unusually early start to their Sunday as they braved the cold and snow and made their way to Edinburgh zoo for the arrival of two very special black and white guests. Known as Tian Tian and Yang Guang, or ‘Sweetie’ and ‘Sunshine’ the Pandas arrived just after lunchtime on Sunday 4th December to an excited throng of flag-waving well-wishers and a tartan-clad pipe band playing ‘Scotland the Brave’.

The pandas’ arrival marks the start of a ten year stay at Edinburgh Zoo, which many people hope will result in a baby panda. Baby or not, the new residents are sure to bring the zoo many new visitors, keen to catch a glimpse of these endangered bears. They arrived at Edinburgh airport, having made the 12 hour journey from China in a special ‘panda express’ Fed Ex plane with panda livery and a crew dressed in kilts.

Our Glow TV team of junior reporters, Callan, Cammy, Daniel, Emma and Evan, were at the zoo’s Education centre all morning, making Chinese lanterns and watching a panda presentation as well as capturing interviews with zoo staff. They, and lots of other children were then given special black and white jackets and hats and Scottish, British and Chinese flags to wave, before making their way down the hill to welcome the pandas from the airport.

The panda reporters did, of course, capture lots and lots of footage of the arrival excitement for Glow users and this week sees Glow TV turn into ‘Pandamonium’ as we bring you as much panda-related content as we can. Pam Currie from the Glow team will kick this all off on Tuesday at 2:30pm as she gives viewers a taste of what’s to come and provides sneaky early details of an exciting panda competition we will be launching. After that, on Wednesday morning at 10:00 am, Pam is joined in the TV studio in Glasgow by Louise and Melissa from the Daily What News, our Glow news service for schools. They will share panda facts, discuss the related news articles and resources, and give more details and tips on the competition to win ‘Pandaphernalia’, or ‘cute black and white panda stuff,’ if you are groaning at our panda puns by now!

Later on Wednesday, at 2:30 pm Glow TV viewers can watch our ‘Pandamentary’ which offers a truly behind-the-scenes look at all the zoo arrival excitement we captured on Sunday. Watch our intrepid panda reporters take part in fun panda activities and see the zoo keepers’ panda presentation from the Education centre. We even managed to grab a real scoop, when our reporters were relaxing with a hot drink in the cafe, only to see Yang Guang’s truck being reversed alongside us as the zoo staff prepared to unload him to his new home. As true reporters would do, they quickly grabbed their cameras and ran back out to the cold to try to get some sneaky footage of Yang Guang in the back of the truck.

‘Pandaphernalia’ competition details will be revealed in all of these Glow TV broadcasts this week and entries will run until December 16th. Tune in and find out how to enter. A good few black and white panda prizes to be had, including two cuddly panda toys, panda wristbands, panda rock, panda sweets, panda pens and a panda keyring, as well as some limited edition Glow TV t-shirts.

Education Scotland has set up a special ‘UK Pandas’ blog to celebrate the arrival of Sweetie and Sunshine and suggest CfE learning ideas as an inter-disciplianary resource. The blog also contains integrated links to the Chinese Embassy’s excellent ‘Panda Pals’ site, the Fed Ex blog that tracked the journey from China, the Edinburgh zoo homepage and a special Edinburgh Zoo panda site as well as videos and a host of other links.

September 2nd, 2011

Screening Shorts – New Moving Image Education Resource

GerryQ

Comments: none Tags: Tags: CfE, CPD, Creative Scotland, Education Scotland, English, Expressive Arts, film, Glow, Glow Groups, Learning and Teaching Scotland, Literacy, media literacy, moving image education, National glow groups, video
 : Categories Curriculum for Excellence, Expressive Arts, Glow, Glow Groups, Learner Resources, Literacy, Media Literacy, Moving Image Education, National Groups

The team is currently busy working on Screening Shorts, a major new online resource to help teachers exploit moving image education in the classroom.

Developed by Creative Scotland and Education Scotland, Screening Shorts will be unveiled at SLF 2011, 21-22 Spetember 2011.

The resource will provide:

• Approximately 50 downloadable short films, free to Glow users
• Film tutorials explaining the core concepts of film language
• Lesson examples in film format showing how short films can be used for a wide variety of classroom activities
• A link to CPD opportunities and activities for teachers wishing to explore how to use moving image across Curriculum for Excellence
• A gateway to the growing Moving Image Education online community on Glow.

Watch this space for more information before and during SLF 2011…

September 1st, 2011

SLF Extra launched today

pcurrie

Comments: none Tags: Tags: Glow, Learning Festival, secc, SLF, slf extra
 : Categories Curriculum for Excellence, Glow, Moving Image Education, Technologies

With only three weeks to go until the event itself, SLF Extra has been launched today, via the National Site in Glow. The Glow group has been designed with Glow users from all over Scotland in mind, not just those who are able to attend the festival.

Glow TV will aim to bring you as much content as we possibly can, with all keynote speeches streamed live through Glow and sign-ups and links available through the GlowTV schedule. Glow TV will also present a number of ‘Best of SLF’ broadcasts from our temporary studio at the SECC, where we aim to capture the key discussion topics from the Keynote speeches and allow Glow users to take part (through the Glow meet chat pod) in our studio discussion with our panel in Glasgow.

If you cannot take part live at the time of broadcast, there is, of course, the ‘Watch Again’ facility in Glow TV, where all broadcasts will be available after the event. SLF Extra also has a discussion forum, with a number of topics already raised to invite Glow users to engage in discussions that SLF raises. In addition to that, the Glow team will be armed with video cameras and audio recording devices to capture as much content as we can and have a festival team lined up to get that content to you through SLF Extra on Glow.

We will blog and we will tweet and, though we will probably end up with sore feet, we will make sure we bring Glow users as much of SLF as we can. SLF Extra is where you go to find it.

July 26th, 2011

Glow TV

pcurrie

Comments: 2 Comments » Tags: Tags: CfE, CPD, Edinburgh International book Festival, Education Scotland, Glow, Glow Featured, Glow Meet, Glowscotland, glowtv, Scotland, Scottish Book Trust
 : Categories Curriculum for Excellence, Early Years, Events, Expressive Arts, Glow, Glow Meet, Health and Wellbeing, Learner Resources, Literacy, Local authorities, Mathematics, modern languages, Moving Image Education, National Groups, Pupils, Religious and Moral Education, research, Sciences, Social Studies, Technologies, Uncategorized

Glow TV is our way of bringing the National Glow Meets to you from the one, easy to find, place. Launching for the start of the new term, we have a major schedule of ‘programmes’ planned for the coming session, including, hopefully, a whole series of programmes on topics such as: CfE, SQA, Glow, Glowing Thursdays, World of Work Wednesdays, Creativity, Games Design and Moving Image Education.

This is, of course, in addition to the many exciting events we already broadcast through Glow, such as the author events from the Scottish Book Trust and Edinburgh Book Festival, as well as those hugely popular one-offs like the Dr Who event and the NASA astronauts one, for example. All of these Glow national events will now be accessed through the one central place, Glow TV.

We are now using new software for Glow Meet (Adobe Connect) and this software allows us access to a recording of a Glow Meet, instantly from within Glow. That got us thinking that we could really develop the idea of Glow Meets further and offer a kind of ‘Watch Again’ facility, a bit like the online efforts of the major TV channels. Okay, so we don’t have the equipment or resources that the major TV channels do, but we have created an area in Glow that provides users with a schedule and allows users the opportunity to add programmes to their own, personal, schedule when they sign-up for events.

Signing-up for these events/programmes is easier now, too. Instead of having to complete a sign-up form for every event you want to take part in, all you have to do is register once for Glow TV and then choose your username from a drop-down list whenever you wish to sign-up to a specific event. Easy.

It is hoped that a lot of the programmes we bring you will include live debate/discussion on important topics in Education, as well as many online training programmes.We have managed to procure a little room in Education Scotland’s Optima office in Glasgow and turn it into our very own Glow TV studio, which even has a couch and a coffee table, so that our presenters look like true TV professionals in the making!

So, with a whole schedule of programmes you can tailor to your own personal guide, easy sign-up and channel categories to make it easy to find recordings and watch again, Glow TV is a brilliant addition to Glow’s assets. To register for Glow TV and then be able to have your own personal schedule and easy sign-up for programmes, click here.

February 4th, 2011

A weekly round-up from The Daily What

Gail Cairns

Comments: none Tags: Tags: Glow, Glow Groups, National glow groups
 : Categories Glow, Glow Groups

The Daily What News is an exciting news service for schools. Launched in September, The Daily What News is written by journalists in a way that is suitable and accessible for children aged 9 and above, the site offers teaching ideas and suggestions, including interactive quizzes and animated illustrations that extend the life of the news stories. 
 

The Daily What recently hit its first milestone, publishing its 100th edition – issued on Thursday 3rd Feb. The popular resource has had over 30,000 visitors since it was launched and to support  The Daily What’s growing success, the resource has now created a weekly round-up of the week’s top stories. The round-up is available to all Glow users, will be issued to subscribers every Monday.

Sign-up now to receive the weekly Daily What update by visiting the national Daily What Glow Group. The sign-up is open to pupils and staff alike. Email information will be kept confidential, so users will not be aware of other users’ email information.

December 8th, 2010

Glow in the snow – Inspiring stories

Gail Cairns

Comments: 2 Comments » Tags: Tags: Glow
 : Categories Aberdeenshire, Dundee City, Falkirk, Fife, Glow, Glow Groups, Scottish Borders, Shetland Islands, Stirling, West Lothian

As the bad weather continues to close schools throughout Scotland, teachers all over the country have continued to use Glow to stay in touch with their class. Local authorities have been utilising Glow in a variety of ways.

In a West Lothian Primary School, teachers are using a local authority level Glow Group to support snow activities, as well as poetry competitions, snow photographs, snow science, animation and other general snow day tasks. Teachers are using the West Lothian Council Glow noticeboard to leave messages for pupils asking them to go to their class’ Glow Group to find work. West Lothian teachers are also using Glow messenger for staff meetings.  

St Margarets Academy in West Lothian are using Glow for support and resources for many subjects including, Physics, Business, Biology, Administration, Geography, Maths, Chemistry, Modern Studies and Sociology. Login to Glow to visit the West Lothian – Sharing Our Learning Blog and find out more about how West Lothian teachers have been using Glow in the Snow.

Dundee also created a local authority Glow Snow Day Group where teachers can upload work for pupils. Teachers have also created simple individual groups called Snow Days allowing other members of staff to contribute work for pupils.

Other Authorities using Glow in the snow include:

• Aberdeenshire – Aberdeenshire launched the M2C Snow Glow Group. Now open nationally, this Glow Group offers a huge range of snow based online and offline activities. Other resources available in this Group include an advent calendar, weather research, art, snowmen photographs, symmetry using snowflakes, templates and instructions for creating a snow journal and guidance on measuring snow depth.

• Scottish Borders – Teachers in several departments in Hawick High School have put work up on Glow for schools.

• Shetland Islands – Burravoe Primary School in Shetland have been using Glow tasks and blogs to keep in touch with pupils

• Fife – Several schools in Fife have been encouraging home access to Glow.

• Falkirk – Glow Blogs are being used by pupils at Carronshore Primary School while the school is closed.

• Stirling -  Open to everyone, Stirling Council has made a fantastic Glow blog for pupils to use. Newton Primary in Stirling have also been using Glow to set work for pupil during snow days.

To find out more about using the tools within Glow, visit the Glow Help Blog or alternatively you can  e-mail Glow Admin.

October 29th, 2010

Scotland on Screen – a Moving Image Education resource

GerryQ

Comments: none Tags: Tags: CfE, CPD, Creative Scotland, English, Glow, Glow Groups, History, Learning and Teaching Scotland, Literacy, moving image education, National glow groups, National Library of Scotland, Social Studies
 : Categories Curriculum for Excellence, Glow, Glow Groups, Homecoming, Literacy, Moving Image Education, National Groups, Social Studies

Scotland on Screen is an exciting educational resource that puts hundreds of important historical film texts online, providing a rear-view mirror on our society over the past century.

It’s a web-based resource developed by National Library of Scotland, Creative Scotland, Learning and Teaching Scotland and Scran.

Scotland on Screen has now been up and running for over a year and has proved to be very popular among teachers and practitioners across Scotland. During 2010, the resource was further developed with the inclusion of a considerably enhanced collection of archive material that can be used across the curriculum.

The website provides short film material and resources for Glow users to use as part of their teaching in the classroom. The public can browse and view the collection of clips on the website but Glow users can log into the site via Glow to also download film clips of interest for reuse in the classroom.

Sitting underneath the main Moving Image National Glow Group, Glow users can access the Scotland on Screen Glow Group – a place to share knowledge, information and content surrounding the resource. Users can also catch up on the latest news and information as well as discuss topics of relevance and interest through the Scotland on Screen Glow Forum. So far, we’ve found that the resource has been of interest and benefit to teachers using it across a variety of subjects and curricular areas including social studies, literacy and health and wellbeing. Scotland on Screen has also been of value to Moving Image Education practitioners.

October 27th, 2010

Languages on Screen – a Moving Image Education resource

GerryQ

Comments: none Tags: Tags: CfE, Creative Scotland, film, Glow, Glow Groups, Learning and Teaching Scotland, Modern Foreign Languages, modern languages, moving image education, National glow groups, video
 : Categories Curriculum for Excellence, Glow, Glow Groups, Literacy, modern languages, Moving Image Education, National Groups

Languages on Screen is a web-based resource developed by Creative Scotland, Learning and Teaching Scotland and Scran. The website provides short film material and resources for Glow users to aid the teaching of Modern Languages in the classroom. The public can only access parts of the website but Glow users can log into the site via Glow to access all its content. This includes the ability to browse and download film clips of interest for reuse in the classroom.

Sitting underneath the main Moving Image National Glow Group, Glow users can access the Languages on Screen Glow Group - a place to share knowledge, information and content surrounding the resource. Users can also catch up on the latest news and information as well as discuss topics of relevance and interest through the Languages on Screen Glow Forum. We hope this resource is of interest to Modern Languages teachers as well as Moving Image Education practitioners.

October 27th, 2010

Moving Image Education – Glow National Group

GerryQ

Comments: none Tags: Tags: CfE, CPD, Creative Scotland, Glow, Glow Groups, Learning and Teaching Scotland, Literacy, media literacy, moving image education, National glow groups, National Library of Scotland
 : Categories Curriculum for Excellence, Expressive Arts, Literacy, Moving Image Education, National Groups

Moving Image Education (MIE) is fast becoming an integral part of 21^st century literacy and modern teaching practice. Using moving image texts as a source in addition to the written word has been proved to vastly increase wider literacy skills, confidence, engagement and fun in the classroom.

Learning and Teaching Scotland is working in partnership with Creative Scotland to make moving image education more accessible and active within Glow

We now have a Moving Image Education National Glow Group which is steadily being populated with information, resources and CPD opportunities. Work is also underway to engage with Glow users across Scotland and encourage them to participate in interesting and relevant topics of discussion through the group’s Glow Forum. There are some Glow Meets planned too.

We look forward to seeing you on Glow.

October 7th, 2010

Glow: Listening to you and improving

Gail Cairns

Comments: 1 Comment Tags: Tags: Glow
 : Categories Development, Glow

Glow has seen many exciting developments over the past six months. Learning and Teaching Scotland has been engaging with Glow users asking them what developments and improvements they would like to see. As part of our continuous improvement of Glow, we have introduced a number of new components and features. These include an easier to navigate homepage known as Glow Light, the opportunity to publish and share information with Glow Blogs and an area to interact with other users in Glow Forums. Other improvements encompass an increased log out time, a new Glow Mail interface and an enhanced search function.

To find more about all the new tools and improvements within Glow visit our support leaflet which can be found alongside a host of support videos on the Improving Glow Section of the Using Glow and ICT homepage.