Category Archives: Learning and Teaching

Staff Digital Leaders

Many thanks to those of you who have volunteered for the Staff Digital Leader Programme for Education.

We are now sitting at over 50 members of staff who are keen to support schools with using Technology to enhance Learning and Teaching. These people will liaise with the Learning through Technology Team to coordinate training sessions and pass on information re technology in the classroom and the National Digital Agenda.

We will be officially launching our programme on the 15th September in Committee Room 5, Woodhill House. This day will be a mixture of planning, discussions and hands on workshops.

We have a Glow Site with more information about the programme and a Yammer group for ongoing discussions.

Staff Digital Leader Glow Site

The session will be advertised via Aberdeenshire Events as soon as they move to the new Aldo system after July.

Please get in touch with the Learning through Technology Team if you would like to enroll in this new exciting programme.

james.mclean@aberdeenshire.gov.uk

susan.sey@aberdeenshire.gov.uk

STEM Survey

You may be aware that Government Ministers launched a consultation at the end of 2016 on a National STEM Education and Training Strategy for Scotland. The many responses received clearly articulated the importance of having a coherent strategy for career-long professional learning for practitioners in STEM subjects (Sciences, Technologies, Engineering and Mathematics).

Education Scotland and Scottish Government are currently undertaking further engagement with key stakeholders to help shape the actions for career-long professional learning to appear in the final strategy to be published later this year.

We’re very keen that these considerations are guided by the views and experiences of practitioners across the country. We’d like to gather practitioners’ views about their professional learning needs and the most effective way for them to access professional learning.

I’d be grateful if you could  complete the following online survey: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/7YF22GR

We’re keen for this to be completed by practitioners at all levels in early learning and childcare, additional support needs, primary and secondary school settings.

The survey should only take a few minutes to complete but will be of enormous value helping us to support practitioners more effectively and to improve outcomes for learners in relation to STEM.

The survey will remain open until Thursday 22nd June.

Modern classroom collaboration with Office 365 for Education

Microsoft Teams available Summer 2017 via Glow.

Microsoft Teams for Education,

  • Create Assignments, track progress and grade student work
  • Create tabs and channels within your class team
  • Teams will already be populated with classes from Seemis
  • Dynamic, intuitive interface
  • Add third party apps like Flipboard and Kahoot

https://blogs.office.com/2017/05/02/modern-classroom-collaboration-with-office-365-for-education/

https://youtu.be/3ZPN435Mppw

Support sessions will be available in August 2017 via Aberdeenshire Events.

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/ukschools/2017/05/16/getting-started-with-microsoft-teams-guides-for-it-admins-teachers-and-school-leaders/

National Digital Learning Week 2017

Deputy First Minister Set to Launch National Digital Learning Week

National Digital Learning Week is 15-19th May. This year the theme of the week is ‘Digital Difference’ and throughout the week you’re invited to share and celebrate the digital approaches which make a positive impact on your classroom practice.

Deputy First Minister John Swinney will be launching the week via a short video. Visit DigiLearnScot from Monday 15th May to hear Mr Swinney address teachers, pupils and parents about the benefits digital makes in education and officially launch the week.

Exclusive National Collaborative Story Telling Activity Launched

Share what’s happening in your school via the Aberdeenshire Learners’ Site.

Aberdeenshire Learners Site in Glow Link

 

Microsoft Classroom

We learned today that Microsoft Classroom is to be discontinued and replaced with Microsoft Teams. This will affect all users across the world.

At our twilight events we made mention that the version in Glow was a Beta version and we were looking forward to the new features,  we understand that MS Teams will extend the features that existed in MS Classroom to give a more improved product.

Susan and I had planned 3 Twilight sessions in June to prepare schools in setting up Classroom for the new academic year, this was also to be supported by Education Scotland who would have pulled through the classes from SEEMIS into Classroom meaning there were no setup times for schools. The training sessions will go ahead, but instead will focus on how you would use Teams. We will be assisted in this by RM and Education Scotland colleagues.

We look forward to the new Teams application being an improved product , supporting both teachers and students

H2L2 Team

Free Online Computational Thinking course from Google

The goal of this course is to help educators learn about computational thinking (CT), how it differs from computer science, and how it can be integrated into a variety of subject areas. As a course participant, you will increase your awareness of CT, explore examples of CT integrated into your subject areas, experiment with examples of CT-integrated activities for your subject areas, and create a plan to integrate CT into your own curricula.

What: A free online course helping educators integrate computational thinking into their curriculum

Who: Humanities, Math, Science, and Computing educators
When: All of the course materials are available as a self-study program.

Click here for access

Famous Five Literacy Competition

JOIN THE ADVENTURE WITH THE FAMOUS FIVE

2017 marks the 75th anniversary of The Famous Five, Enid Blyton’s best-loved and phenomenally successful book series.

To celebrate this landmark year, all 21 books in the Famous Five series are being re-released in May 2017 with brand new contemporary illustrations from rising star Laura Ellen Anderson.

We’re also inviting you to take part in our exciting competition below as a Literacy Project for your class or an after school club project. We can’t wait to see your stories!

 

The Literacy competition is open to Primary 5 pupils and they need to create a Sway.

Please click on the link below for more information,

https://education.microsoft.com/famousfivesway