Category: waiting

October 7, 2022

The Future of Digital in Scottish Education with Professor Ken Muir, the University of the West of Scotland

Education Scotland recently hosted three highlight sessions focusing on ‘The Future of Digital in Scottish Education’. In this video Professor Ken Muir, The University of the West of Scotland, explores:

the generational shift and the increasing use of digital amongst young people
the skills and technologies of the future and what this means for learning and work
the Scottish curriculum
noteworthy innovative projects
future developments, such as AI

You can view Professor Ken Muir’s slides with this link Slides for digital presentation.pptx (dropbox.com)

YOU CAN NOW LISTEN TO AN AUDIO ONLY VERSION OF THE CALL

October 7, 2022

The Future of Digital in Scottish Education with Ollie Bray, Strategic Director Education Scotland

Education Scotland recently hosted three highlight sessions focusing on ‘The Future of Digital in Scottish Education’. In this video Ollie Bray, strategic director at Education Scotland, explores:

the future
‘shiny’ v appropriate
COVID
technology in learning
building strong digital communities
practical pedagogies
our digital landscape

YOU CAN NOW LISTEN TO AN AUDIO ONLY VERSION OF THE CALL

September 23, 2022

Be part of Nature Discovery Map Scotland – an education toolkit

Are you interested in developing your skills in technologies and digital literacy? Would you like to collaborative with fellow educators and digital experts?

Join our pilot project September 2022 – March 2023!

NatureScot are looking for educators to help create and pilot a Scottish version of the UK Government Initiative the National Education Nature Park.

The toolkit will be hosted on a webpage and will consist of:

a mapping tool using a free, online application called ArcGIS. This will enable learners to map the nature in their establishment grounds and local greenspaces. It will also allow schools to upload any biodiversity improvements they make;
a dashboard to allow schools to compare the biodiversity of their establishment grounds and local greenspaces with the national picture;
resources to support the teachers and learners to make the most of the map and dashboard.

The toolkit will support learners to:

discover the biodiversity and the ecosystems of their area;
understand the importance of sustainability and climate adaptation;
develop a sense of ownership and pride in their establishment grounds and local greenspaces.

It will support the development of:

practical and knowledge-based skills through biodiversity and climate action;
digital and other STEM skills through geospatial mapping;
improved wildlife habitats and increase in biodiversity in and around educational settings;
real world and outdoor learning opportunities.

What’s in it for me?

A professional learning opportunity to develop your digital skills through a co-design approach.
The opportunity to work collaboratively with other teachers, technical experts and NatureScot staff.
Input to the development a new, innovative teaching resource that could be used across Scotland to support STEM learning.
A platform to help discover and develop nature around your establishment through outdoor learning and Learning for Sustainability.

How do I get involved or find out more?

Check out our Nature Discovery Map Scotland webpage or contact:

Sue Munro (Project Manager) by email sue.munro@nature.scot

Sharon Cunningham by email: Sharon.cunningham@nature.scot

Penny Martin by email: penny.martin@nature.scot

May 31, 2022

The CPD Award in Computing Studies for Teachers

The CPD award in Computing Studies for teachers was created for primary teachers and secondary teachers for 1st and 2nd year pupils to give the confidence and skills to teach computing to pupils. More than 50% of our current cohort are primary school teachers. The course is open to any teacher with the relevant entry qualifications (degree and existing teaching qualification) who have an interest in computing.

There is normally a weekly lecture and support session that lasts for approx. an hour, or more if required, with further e mail support available. The sessions are certainly beneficial as they allow you to ask questions there and then. However, the course is designed to be taught when is convenient for all the students and all lectures and tutorial session are recorded for viewing at your leisure.

There is only one module delivered each semester with no time off required during the school day. The lectures are recorded for students unable to attend in person. All activity is carried out online the majority of which happens asynchronously. The modules have a notional 200 hours per module over the semester. It would depend on your previous experience on whether you needed all that time. If you were able to set aside a day at the weekend or a couple of evenings for study, you would not be far off what is required for achieving the award.

The Coding and Web technologies module will be delivered over 14 weeks and the semester will start Week beginning 29^th August 2022 with an online induction with the course commencing week beginning 5^th September 2022.

You can apply to join the course HERE or searching for the Computing Studies for Teachers CPD award at https://www.uhi.ac.uk/en/ under courses.

The price is £215 per module, and this can be paid on a module-by-module basis. As the modules are 20 credits each if you were to do two in an academic year you may be eligible for SAAS funding. It is suggested contacting SAAS directly if you are planning to start next semester and confirm whether you would be eligible for funding.

The course does not carry any GTCS accreditation.

Please get in touch if you have any further questions

Gordon.macpherson.ic@uhi.ac.uk

May 26, 2022

Schools Challenge for International Women in Engineering Day – 23rd June

The Civil and Environmental Engineers at Abertay University are running a video competition for INWED22 (International Women in Engineering Day – 23^rd June). The challenge is open to students at Secondary Schools, Colleges, Universities and Graduates.

The challenge is to create a 2 minute video which highlights: a female engineer; a structure designed by a female engineer; &/or showcases the impact of the inventor or her innovation or how it could shape future developments. The winner will receive a £50 amazon voucher. The finalists and winner will be announced at an Abertay event on INWED day (23^rd June).

Deadline for entries 20^th June 2022.

March 25, 2022

Save the Pacific Northwest tree octopus activity

Welcome

We want to alert you to our very important activity this week: we want the learners of Scotland to help us save the Pacific Northwest tree octopus!

This website has lots of great info about the octopus and ways for you to help it:

Octopus website

Once you’ve read a bit more about the octopus – have a think about how you could use your digital literacy skills to find out more about it and use this info to create some posters, slides and websites to raise awareness of the octopus’ plight and help save it!

tree octopus

Let’s get started!

Wait a minute, though… tree octopus?

Before you go making any resources we want you to check some things:

Who created the page and wrote the information?
Does it have pictures or video that show you the tree octopus?
Are there links to other sites about the octopus?
See inside the page

Teachers click here

What next?

Hopefully, you spotted the clues that the tree octopus isn’t real pretty quickly and pointed this out to your teacher!

We think that by learning some of the skills used to make the fake info on this website, you’ll be better prepared to spot other info like this and know how to check it for accuracy.

We want you to create your own fake animal awareness campaign. You’ll need to think of an animal and then imagine it living in a biome, or habitat, that isn’t it’s natural home… like a mountain-dwelling narwhal or Arctic elephant!
Then you’ll need some facts that sound believable, even though they’re not true – so things like what your imaginary animal eats, where it sleeps and how big it is.

Finally, you’ll create some online content, maybe using slides, websites, blogs or even a video.

You can share these with us on twitter: @DigiLearnScot

Activity 1 – fact finding and note making

Use your web browser to find out three (or more) facts about an animal
Then pick a biome it wouldn’t normally live in and find out three facts about that place and how animals normally survive there
Make notes of this info as you go – it’ll come in handy later

teachers might want to use some of these ideas to expand upon the features of fake news and unreliable sources:
Digital Media Literacy: The Blur Between Facts and Opinions in the Media (gcfglobal.org)

Digital Media Literacy: What is Fake News? (gcfglobal.org)

Activity 2 – photo manipulation

The photos on the octopus site were faked and so are many other photos online and in newspapers and magazines too.
Read this page to find out more about manipulated photos

You don’t need fancy software to edit photos, here are some tips:
PowerPoint – remove background
Keynote – instant alpha

Start with a background photo of the place your imaginary animal is going to live – add it to your app
Then add the photo of your animal
Now, use either the remove background in PowerPoint or instant alpha in Keynote, for example, to cut out any background on your animal picture
It should now look like your animal lives in the place you have as the background

Here’s my mountain-dwelling narwhal from earlier:

Activity 3 – making fake news

You now have an imaginary animal, some facts about it and a photo proving its existence – now all you need to do is put it together and share it with the world to convince them of it’s existence!

You could have a look at these:
https://www.beano.com/games/random-animal-mash-up
https://switchzoo.com/newzoo/zoo.htm

There are lots of great tools for creating and sharing content online, here are just some of them:
Sway

Glow blogs

Slides

Sites

We can’t wait to see your fake news imaginary animals on twitter!

ALL CREDIT FOR THE OCTOPUS CONTENT TO THE SITE’S OWNER: Save The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus (zapatopi.net)

March 23, 2022

Cyber Resilience and Internet Safety Activities

Welcome to our cyber resilience and internet safety learning activities. Use the activities below to check your knowledge and understanding of today’s session.

Activity 1: consume create communicate

Activity 2: cyber resilience

Activity 3: internet safety

March 8, 2022

TLP enquiry posters for assessment and feedback

These posts have been selected from the PLL TLP as they focus on assessment, feedback and tracking. You can view the original images on the TLP flickr site by clicking on them. All credit to the post authors.

Interested in participating in the PLL Teacher Leader Programme?

Find out more

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March 8, 2022

TLP enquiry posters for learning

These posts have been selected from the PLL TLP as they focus on learners, learning and engagement. You can view the original images on the TLP flickr site by clicking on them. All credit to the post authors.

Interested in participating in the PLL Teacher Leader Programme?

Find out more

//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

March 8, 2022

TLP enquiry posters for teaching

These posts have been selected from the PLL TLP as they focus on teacher knowledge and skills (pedagogy). You can view the original images on the TLP flickr site by clicking on them. All credit to the post authors.

Interested in participating in the PLL Teacher Leader Programme?

Find out more

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