Category: Local Authority

Google For Education on Tour – Duncanrig Secondary School

Duncanrig Secondary

Join Google for Education at Duncanrig Secondary School in South Lanarkshire to see Google Workspace for Education and Chromebooks in action. The day will open with a keynote from the team, followed by a choice of sessions – including the opportunity to spend time in the classroom and see how pupils use the tools.

12 September 2022 at 9:30 – 12 September 2022 at 13:30 

Download the flyer for more information and registration details

North Lanarkshire Code-Alongs

Following on from the Education Scotland live code-alongs and reflecting on the participation and engagement of young people, we wanted to build on this momentum and give learners in North Lanarkshire an opportunity to code along with their peers and dive further in to Computing Science. Knowing this needed to be fun and memorable to engage young people and staff, we planned for a space theme.

Pedagogy is at the heart of North Lanarkshire’s Digital School, and therefore the Code-Alongs, also needed to be planned in line with Curriculum for Excellence, providing learners, and teachers, with a taster session of what computing science could look like in the classroom. We know that Computing Science can be perceived as a challenging area to teach, with staff unsure where to start in planning and skills development. We issued a Microsoft Forms survey to staff in North Lanarkshire, to evaluate how confident they were teaching Computing Science. 15% of teachers in North Lanarkshire who responded indicated that they were confident teaching Computing Science and over 90% of teachers were interested in taking part in a North Lanarkshire code-along.

We planned live sessions for First and Second level, with a further session for those who are confident at Second level to ensure all learners from P4 to P7 had the chance to join. A key consideration was making sure that everyone who wanted to take part, could take part. We chose to use Scratch during the code-alongs as it is easily accessible, and learners are not required to have a login to code. To support continued access and any technical issues all Code- Along sessions were recorded. A Teacher Support Pack was created to prepare staff to support learners with step-by-step instructions and images to ensure everyone was able to complete their project. The Support Pack also contained suggested next steps to inspire teachers to continue their Computing Science journey.

There was tremendous enthusiasm and feedback to the code-alongs. We asked teachers to complete a post code-along survey and found that 40% of teachers were now confident to teach Computing Science.

Moving Forward

The code-alongs were a great success, with over 4000 learners joining over ten sessions and engaging with Computing Science. In our own reflection the following points were a success or would have been helpful for us to include:

1. Create a Teacher Support Pack with step-by-step instructions. This helps teachers prepare in advance, improve their own understanding of block coding and support their learners through the code-alongs.

2. Team up! Make sure you have one or two people involved in the planning and delivery of the code-alongs. A team of 3 is ideal! This means one person can deliver the code-along, another can provide any technical support whilst a third person can engage with classes through the chat bar.

3. Record the code-alongs in advance. This lets teachers join in at a time that suits them and re-visit the code if any technical issues occur.

4. Keep the benchmarks in mind when you are planning your sessions to ensure they are at the right level for the learners taking part.

5. Looking back, one thing that would have been really useful is a learner help sheet. This would have helped learners be more independent in debugging their code and rely less on their teacher’s support.

We’d like to thank everyone who helped us plan, promote and deliver the code-alongs and of course, the learners and teachers who took part. We thoroughly enjoyed coding along with learners across North Lanarkshire and look forward to seeing how North Lanarkshire schools continue on their coding journey.

Links

Microsoft Accessibility Tools Quick Guide Posters for Learners by Viewforth High School

At Viewforth High School, we are on a digital journey to ensure all learners and educators are able to benefit from digital technology to raise attainment and improve outcomes for all.  

Most of our students are familiar with Microsoft Teams accessing via Glow and staff have been using it to set work and assignments during previous lockdowns and continue to do so now we are back in school.  

However, some pupils are faced with challenges when trying to access digital learning both in school and at home and to support our pupils in accessing their learning we identified areas where both the skills of staff and pupils needed to be developed. One of these key areas was the accessibility features (and knowledge of these) of digital tools for pupils and ensuring staff know how to use these tools with pupils.  

In response to this, I have created several Quick Guides to support both staff and pupils in accessing and using the features of Microsoft Tools.  

 

I created guides for each of the following tools: 

  • Immersive Reader 
  • Live Captions 
  • Speech to Text  
  • Translate 
  • Office Lens 

These guides have been shared amongst staff and with colleagues in other schools across the country to support them to support their pupils.

Christmas Activity Booklets for Early, First and Second Level – North Lanarkshire Digital Pathfinders

The North Lanarkshire Digital Pathfinder Team have created these digital Christmas Activity Booklets for Early, First and Second level.

Book Creator was used to create the booklets as it allows children to access the books independently at home or in school. The booklets are a more sustainable method to accessing a range of Christmas activities across the curriculum and can help to reduce photocopying. The learners have enjoyed using this resource as it allows them to engage with different digital media. The booklets also provide the opportunity for the learner to consolidate their digital skills and use personalisation and choice when completing the activities.

P6 Pupils at Noblehill Primary School are European Runners Up in the Microbit Do Your Bit Challenge

During Term 4 of last session, P6 pupils at Noblehill Primary School in Dumfries and Galloway took part in a Micro:Bit Global Challenge.  Their challenge was to design a ‘gadget’ which would support the work currently being undertaken  around the world to support climate change.  The pupils chose Verity, Lilly and Sophie’s design ‘Shell Cam’ as the winners and this was entered into a global competition.  Shell Cam was designed to be hidden somewhere on the beach and video all the different species that spent time there.  This information would then be sent back to scientists so they could track the movement and number of species. 

We have recently heard the amazing news that the design was chosen as runner up in Europe!!! 

3 learners holding microbits and design for do your bit project

The success has been posted on the Micro:Bit webpage along with the answers to a few questions that our amazing team had to give: 

How do you feel being runners-up in Europe?
– ‘Amazed, surprised, actually can’t believe it, it’s just WOW!’ 

Why did you choose to tackle the problem of animals becoming extinct?
– ‘A lot of animals are becoming extinct and food chains are being damaged so we wanted to think of a way to help.’ 

How long have you been using the micro:bit?
– ‘We have only used them 3 or 4 times but we loved them.’ 

 How has taking part in do your:bit inspired you?
– ‘We want to know more about what the Micro:Bits can do as well as help the environment.’ 

What will you create next?
– ‘Maybe a similar kind of thing but more for plants/ flowers, different types of nature.’ 

Well done team, Noblehill are very proud of you!
Lindsey Kirkwood, Principal Teacher, Noblehill Primary School

 

Using QR codes and ‘Thinglink’ for homework and resources – Early Years

Williamsburgh Primary School Using QR codes and ‘ThingLink’ for homework and resources, to encourage children to lead their learning, develop digital literacy skills, and overcome written communication barriers Aileen Mackey Early Learning and Childcare Officer gw17mackeyaileen@glow.sch.uk  Twitter @mackey_aileen

 

Click on link 👇

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/13wxuGHMd7e8vKcj7ytVJmJv82gEXiPewyt3FX2Uwj8U/edit?usp=sharing

 

 

Noteable – DPIA Information udpate

The Noteable service providing access to cloud based computational notebooks is now available via the App Library in Glow.

Noteable provides a cloud based environment for coding activities using Python and R/R Studio.  This can be used to support the delivery of Computing Science and Data Science based courses as well as Higher Applications of Mathematics.

  • A DPIA will be required before schools in local authorities can access the service. This document should provide most of the information required for Local Authorities.
  • To access the Noteable app in Unify, the Glow Key Contact has to make contact with RM who will issue an application request form.  Once completed and returned, the app will be made available to admins for the authority who can accept the terms and conditions and install across their establishments

DPIA Support

EDINA, at the University of Edinburgh have provided documentation to help with DPIAs.  This documentation is available below.

Noteable Service DPIA (outwith University of Edinburgh)

Additional Questions and Answers asked by LAs

LA QUESTION:
It states that the legal basis is Contract. What is the basis of the contract? Who is the contract with given the Local Authorities haven’t signed anything directly with Edinburgh University

  • EDINA, at the University of Edinburgh holds an agreement with Education Scotland to integrate and supply the Noteable service through the GLOW system to Scottish schools. Contractual agreements to access GLOW apps fall between Education Scotland and the Local Authority. Service level contracts and agreements between EDINA, the University of Edinburgh and service users are relevant and applicable where there is a legal basis to supply the service as a paid subscription.

LA QUESTION:
Does the Local Authority have to request removal of material from the cloud once the qualification is done or doe this happen automatically?

  • Removal of data on the Noteable service is managed by the Data Retention Policy available on the Noteable website: https://noteable.edina.ac.uk/data-retention/
  • Once a user has been tagged with a ‘Suspended’ or equivalent affiliation by the Identity Management System that feeds into the Noteable system through GLOW, using the SAML2 authentication standard, the user’s account will be made unavailable for access and user accounts are deleted one year after the user’s affiliation is set to ‘Deleted’.User account deletion does not include deleting assignment work submitted to Instructors – this data is considered owned by the relevant Instructor and will remain within their Noteable service user space until the instructor account has been Suspended and Deleted according to the schedules described above.

LA QUESTION:
Please describe the technical measures that will be put in place to support the protection the data in the cloud

  • The Noteable service adopts Jupyter technology into its infrastructure stack and does not link to Jupyter project servers that may be based outside of the United Kingdom. The Noteable hardware and software infrastructure stack are run by and within University of Edinburgh’s IT infrastructure. The Information Security Strategy of the University of Edinburgh includes information on Cyber security incident prevention and management requirements and advice for staff members of the University. (https://www.ed.ac.uk/infosec/information-protection-policies/information-security-required-reading/information-security-strategy).
  • To protect data within the Noteable service, The infrastructure that Noteable is built upon takes nightly backups of the virtual machines running the Noteable service. The service itself runs within Docker containers in those virtual machines. The backups are retained for 4 weeks (this information is available within the Data Retention Policy as well).

LA QUESTION:

University of Edinburgh’s website states: ‘Noteable is integrated with Learn to allow for a central launch point into a pre-set environment without the need for a separate login.’ Are you able to explain what Learn’ is?

LEARN refers to the University of Edinburgh’s specific online learning environment, and in the case of schools the word ‘Learn’ would be replaced with ‘GLOW’ as the equivalent. As these are the University of Edinburgh’s specific websites, information about Noteable will be specific to their use case. Further information on Noteable for schools can be found on our YouTube playlist and website.

LA QUESTION:
Noteable – Cookie Policy (edina.ac.uk) – are you able to clarify the third parties you rely on to sub-contract the processing if this includes personal data

    • Noteable uses New Relic and Google Tag manager for gathering performance and traffic metrics. All data is obfuscated for New Relic and used only for performance metric purposes. Google Tag manager is used on the service launch page and there is no personal data that is fed or added to Google Tag manager.

LA QUESTION:
Will personal data be included on any assignments? E.g. teacher name, signature and pupils name, class, schools?

  • Data securely authenticated by Noteable using the SAML2 authentication protocol used with the GLOW system will possibly include student names to track assignments and school name identification on the launch page and for assignment management.

LA QUESTION:
What departmental controls or controls by University of Edinburgh etc. will be put in place to protect personal data? E.g. ‘Student Guide to using Noteable for Assignments’

  • Personal data is protected and managed by the Noteable service data retention policy: https://noteable.edina.ac.uk/data-retention/
  • Backups of data on the Noteable service are outlined in the policy which includes further information on the virtual machines which run the infrastructure of the service.
  • Personal data is obfuscated in all possible instances and solely used for authentication purposes to access the service and a user’s saved environment and files.

LA QUESTION:
What do teachers have access to?

  • Teachers have access to a user-specific instance of Noteable, including computational notebook files and environments they have created and saved previously, including options to choose computational notebook types with Python and R-based notebooks. Teachers have assignment features enabled when they authenticate into Noteable through GLOW, and can create assignments for their class using the Formgrader tab on the Noteable service dashboard. Teachers have access to the Formgrader feature for releasing assignments to their classes from Noteable as well, which will release an assignment file from the source in the teacher’s user space for students in their class to fetch in the Assignments tab of Noteable.

LA QUESTION:
Do you rely on any sub-processors? The storing of data outside the UK would have to be a yes as University of Edinburgh is a Data Processor. We need to understand if anyone else is ?

  • No personal data that Noteable may use is stored outside of Scotland and the United Kingdom. All data is stored on University of Edinburgh hardware.

Using QR codes creatively within Williamsburgh Primary School

The following link showcases how QR codes have been creatively used within our school in order to enhance children’s engagement in learning and play, improve digital literacy across the curriculum, overcome written communication and interpretation barriers, provide opportunities for vertical learning through interactive displays, and deliver a sustainable and efficient method for staff training, to enhance our service provision. Evaluation and feedback on the success of these strategies is also included within this blog post. 

Link to presentation – https://bit.ly/3l0oU3z

 

Using QR codes, videos and drone footage to enhance viewer engagement and experience of Nursery- P1 transition 2021, Aileen Mackey

At Williamsburgh Primary School we have used QR codes, videos and drone footage to enhance viewer engagement and experience of Nursery – P1 transition. By doing so we have  maintained our pedagogical approach, tailored our service delivery to the needs, interests and queries of children and families, encouraged children’s independence and digital literacy by accessing this information, and related theory from ‘Realising the Ambition: Being me’ (Education Scotland, 2020) to our practice. Examples of practice are featured within this post.

View the presentation here

Lenzie Meadow Primary School – HOW TO CREATE HIGHLY ENGAGING CONTENT Lisa Ann Tani

‘HOW TO CREATE HIGHLY ENGAGING CONTENT

Have you ever created a digital resource and felt that it was somewhat uninspiring?

It is easily done. We have all experienced “death by PowerPoint”.

ThingLink is a fabulous (and free) platform created by a Microsoft Gold Partner team which can be used to create highly engaging virtual classrooms, tours and even escape rooms.

Let’s dive in.

Example of primary one homework focusing on rhyme:

Our school’s Senior Leadership Team comprising of Sheona Allen (HT), Lorraine Donnelly (DHT) and Elaine Gardiner (DHT) have been successfully using ThingLink to create weekly virtual assemblies:

One of the most engaging aspects of ThingLink is the ability to create escape rooms. I recently finished developing an escape room for our primary two pupils focusing on internet safety when playing online games. Try it out for yourself:

Get started with ThingLink using the links below:

Tutorial Microsoft Educator Community

Try out ThingLink