Hopefully we are all ready to start the bootcamp next week.

We are aware that some Local Authorities will be on holiday for some of the week.
The planned activities are not compulsory but it is important to at least set up the blog and make a post. If you can’t do that in the first week you can catch up or join in later.

We will have a GlowMeet to kick off the bootcamp on Monday 16th February at 2pm
This will be repeated on Tuesday and Thursday at 2pm (if there are a few folk needing a different time we could change the Thursday to the morning.) Do not worry if you cannot make the meet, all the information will be posted here on the blog and I will respond to help requests via email.

the meet will be at:
https://meet.Glowscotland.org.uk/bootcamp

This will only be open at the specific times.

If you want to test Glow Meet in your establishment drop me an email with a few possible times and we can try it out. The room will be open for testing Monday 16th 12:00 midday till 12:15 pm

Safety Considerations

You will be posting material to the internet, it will be viewable by anyone with an internet connection. make sure you are aware of school policy around this.
We will be discussing Internet safety as part of the bootcamp, but teachers should be aware of the issues and their responsibilities.

Tasks for Week 1

Detailed instructions will be posted on the blog by Monday.

• Set up a blog
• Introduce yourself to rest of course: Make a blog post.
• Categorize this post as bootcamp.

Send me a link to that post. This will allow me to get the url for you blog and check the category you are using. You only need to do this the first time. After that we will pull in links to blog post with the bootcamp tag automatically to the bootcamp blog.

Class/ Group Discussion
Why Blog? Talk about why you are blogging, what reasons you could have for posting information or starting conversations on the internet.
You might like to write a post about your discussions, categorize that as bootcamp too.
You may wish to note anything interesting or tricky in the setting up and post that to your blog too.

Watch the blog for updates. Drop me a mail if you have any questions

Still time to signup

You should have by now received a welcome email, it has also been posted to the blog.

We have 90 signups to the bootcamp! A couple of those are for non-participating interested folk, but we might get over 100 before the 16th.

I’ve also posted a very rough outline of the course.

That will probably change both over the next couple of days and throughout the course.

Before you start:
If you are using Glow:

1. Check you can log on
2. Check any pupils who will be posting to the blog can log on.
3. Gather a list of the username of all the pupils who will be posting to the blog.

You Glow admin (ASM) should be able to download a class lists with users names in csv format. you should be able to copy the username column out from excel. Alternatively, create the list manually (perhaps getting pupils to add them to a list on a computer). Send me an email if you are having trouble with this.

If you are using another system make sure you and your pupils can log in.

The Bootcamp will launch with a GlowMeet on Monday 16th of February. Screencasts and supporting material will be posted to the blog. If you cannot make the 16th and would like me to repeat the Meet on Tuesday 17th, please let me know. If there are a few folk/classes that would suit we are happy to do that.

If Glow meet does not work for you do not worry, the supporting material will go over the same ground.
You can ask questions any time via e-mail or by leaving a comment on the blog.

cheers

John
gw09johnstonjohn4@glowmail.org.uk

What is this all about? See the first post to find out about the Bootcamp and to sign up.

This message will be mailed out to all participants:

Hi Folks,
Thanks for signing up for the blogging bootcamp. (if you have received this mail in error please let me know and I’ll take you off the list.)

It is a while before we start but I wanted try and make sure everything works as well as possible for participants when we start.

The hardware needed for the project is minimal. You could do the whole thing with one computer connected to the internet. It will of course help if working with a class to have a projector. I don’t imagine that you would ever need to have a lot of computers/devices to take part.
You will need a way of capturing digital images for some of the activities. An old camera, phone, iPad or table with a camera should work fine.

I imagine that to begin with the activities will be whole class ones, discussion followed by posting to the blog. As you get used to blogging you might like to conduct the whole class discussion and then had over the writing and posting to pairs of children. One of the idea of the bootcamp is to enable a class blog to be maintained with minimum effort on the teacher’s part. Giving children increasing responsibility. You will hopefully find out how to make this work for your class yourself over the week. You will of course be in a much better position to figure out the best way to organize your class than anyone else.

There will be the opportunity to do some digital audio and video near the end of the course. so software to edit this might help (Audacity for PC or Mac, GarageBand for Mac, Movie Maker or iMovie would all be fine). Don’t worry if you have never played with audio & video before, we will help and nothing is mandatory. It should be easy to do as much or as little of the bootcamp as you want.

The majority of participants signed up so far are in Scotland and are using Glow. Make sure that your login and logins of pupils work. If you are going to use another blogging system make sure everybody who needs to can access the system.

You do not need to have a blog created. You can do this in the first week. If you have a blog that is fine too.

The camp will follow a pattern each week.
On Monday afternoon (unless we get a majority that prefer a different day) there will be a glow meet video conference for those that can access glow. (Possibly a simultaneous google hangout for the non glow folk). This will lay out the weeks activities. The conference will be followed by the same material published as a video and as text. There is no requirement to be in the conference but hopefully it will be useful and fun.
There will usually be 3 activities that can be carried out each week. Each will include a opportunity to post to your blog.

The technical guidance will be aimed at Glow blogs but I’ll endeavor to help users of other systems if needed and if I can.

The Blogging Bootcamp site will give you a view of all of the other participants activity. We hope that you will make the project a success by visiting and commenting on other blogs.

A rough outline of the weeks will be posted onto the Bootcamp blog soon and I’ll let you know via email when that is up. I am always happy to discuss ‘this sort of stuff’ so don’t hesitate to send me a mail if you need any help.
cheers

John

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