posted by Rodger Hill, Service Manger, Schools and Learning

I’m delighted to let you know that registration for SLF 2016 is now open.  Please consider attending as well as encouraging your colleagues and contacts to come along to SLF and participate.

It would also be great for you to promote SLF 2016 via any communications channels you have within your organisation for example, newsletters, email bulletins, websites, blogs etc.

Those who attend SLF have access to:

– inspirational keynote speakers,
– lively Professional Discussions,
– a conference programme with over 100 professional development sessions,
– opportunities for discussion and professional networking with peers and colleagues,
– the largest education exhibition in Scotland.

We are also delighted that the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills will give the opening address.

In addition, there will be keynote speeches from the following internationally renowned speakers:

• Dr Yong Zhao, Presidential Chair and Director of the Institute for Global and Online Education in the College of Education, University of Oregon
• Prof Carol Campbell, Associate Professor, Ontario Institute of Education, University of Toronto
• Mark Beaumont, TV presenter and broadcaster, record-breaking round the world cyclist and ultra-endurance adventurer

As well as professional discussions focussing on:

• Early learning and childcare
• 3-18 curriculum pathways
• The Scottish Attainment Challenge.

The full programme of speakers and seminars along with details of the range of additional activities and online registration are now available on the SLF website.

posted by Rodger Hill, Service Manger, Schools and Learning

We are planning a new release on Glow Blogs in July. This will consist of some improvements to the service, fixes and updates. I hope to post more details soon.

As part of the release we will be removing some themes that are currently disabled. These include the old e-Portfolio themes and 4 Woo themes.

This will have an impact on some existing sites. Sites that using these themes will switch to the TwentyFourteen theme.

We would suggest that it will be better to manually switch themes before the release.

e-Portfolios cam switched to another theme and updated to use the new e-portfolio plugin.

There is help for converting an old them to a new one on the help blog:https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/glowblogs/glowbloghelp/?p=1470

and

https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/glowblogs/glowbloghelp/?p=1453

Of the four Woo themes the only one with more than a very few sites is Spectrum News.  There is a page on the help blog with notes on converting a Spectrum News site to using the TwentyFourteen theme:

https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/glowblogs/glowbloghelp/?p=1226

Please get in touch if you need more information.

I will be sending Key Contact a List of Public blogs using the Spectrum News theme for their LA shortly.

Cheers

John Johnston
ICT Development Officer : North Lanarkshire Council, Learning & Leisure Services
ICT & Technical Services
Towers Road, Airdrie, North Lanarkshire ML6 8PG

posted by Alita Spink, Schools and Learning Support Officer – Schools and Learning

Dear Colleague

I have recently been appointed to work with the Scotland’s Enterprising Schools team and I am keen to  draw your attention to Scotland’s Enterprising Schools – a new resource available for schools to inspire enterprising and entrepreneurial learning across the curriculum.  The resource was developed in partnership with Education Scotland and the Scottish Government and key features include:

• Practitioners have the opportunity to join the professional learning network where they can take part in discussions about enterprise education and collaborate with colleagues to share ideas and resources.
• A professional reflection tool helps practitioners gauge where their school is on its enterprise journey and will support the self-evaluation process.
• The resources and ideas highlighted will be very useful when curriculum planning and will help schools embed Building the Curriculum 4 and Developing the Young Workforce agendas as part of their development plans.
• Any number of teachers from your school can join the professional learning community and members of the network will receive an “Enterprising Schools Proud Member” badge for use on the school website

You will be aware that the newly introduced Career Education Standard (3-18), as part of the Developing the Young Workforce, has enterprise/entrepreneurship embedded throughout and I hope you and your staff will find Scotland’s Enterprising Schools a tool to support you.

Please contact me if you would like any further information.

Anne Malcolm
Scotland’s Enterprising Schools Programme Manager
07901507455

posted by Carol Lyon, Schools & Learning Support Officer (STEM)

Congratulations to all pupils at Rosemount Primary School and Inverkeilor Primary School who participated in this year’s Scottish Engineering Special Leaders Award (SESLA). This annual STEM competition is open to primary and secondary schools across Scotland and asks one, straightforward question: If you were an engineer in Scotland – what would you do? To answer this question, pupils have to interview an engineer, invent a solution to a perceived problem and write a letter to persuade engineers why their invention should be built.

Between them, the pupils chalked up thirty-six merits and twenty-two distinctions. Archie Cooper, a Primary Six pupil at Inverkeilor, was chosen as overall winner for his year group. His invention, the ‘Safety Sole’, fits inside an ordinary shoe and is designed to act as an early warning/notification system for people with high or low blood pressure, and/or those at risk of having a heart attack. The sole contains seven sensors: 3 heart monitors, 3 blood pressure monitors and a G.P.S. tracking system which automatically notifies the emergency services.

As overall Primary Six winner for Scotland, Archie will attend a celebratory event at the University of Strathclyde on 9^th June 2016. There, he will find out if engineering students have chosen his invention, over all of the other winning inventions, to build a prototype of. We wish Archie and the Safety Sole the very best of luck!

*If you have your own STEM success story please share it with us on the Angus Children and Learning Blog.