The Start of Another Placement

We have finally been given our third year placement schools. After having a fantastic last day at Claypotts Castle nursery, getting my third year school and nursery was a great excitement to be able to know I am going back into school so soon.

This excitement may have taken over a little bit as my desire to go and see the school quickly overcame my lack of motivation to proof read my assignment for the hundredth time. Before I knew it, I was in my car and off on a road trip to go and have a look at the area. I have driven past the signs on the dual carriage way for Kirriemuir countless times however I have never went in past and I knew nothing about the area. I knew that this was an area I need to develop my knowledge on for my placement folder. Therefore, I thought having a drive could do no harm.

I had a bit of a look around Kirriemuir itself. The setting is surrounded by the Angus Glen’s and one of the Cairngorm Mountain ranges. Kirriemuir is an absolutely gorgeous place and I can only hope that my school takes full potential of the setting they are in to develop their outdoor learning.

Just by chance on the way back to Dundee we drove through Kirriemuir town centre and there was a little Tourist Information centre which I thought may have some leaflets or information for me to further develop my knowledge of the town. The two ladies who worked in their could not have been more helpful, they allowed me to look around, take a selection of leaflets about Kirriemuir and Angus in general (as although I drive through it a lot, I did not know a lot about Angus either), and the ladies let me know that the are very accommodating to have classes come to the Tourist Information as they have a lot of resources to help. They were very excited that I had a primary 1 class as they do not often get ‘the little ones’ in to visit and it is normally just primary fours or primary sevens. This is something that I will be well aware of when I am on placement and if the children are learning about something relevant to the town that could spark a trip to the tourist centre then it would definitely be something I would suggest to the class teacher.

Overall, as my previous blog and this one has clearly shown I am so excited to get back into school. The transition project has greatly influenced my confidence and my (lack of) nerves going into this placement. It is one of the reasons I am ready to get back into school. If February could just hurry along, then that would be great!

Blackboard to Glow Transition

After our ICT lecture with Derek on the ePortfolio transition to the VLE Blackboard to Glow Blogs, I have decided to blog the changes. Last year in MA1 we had a bit of a disastrous time using blackboard for our ePortfolio, the lack of engagement with the ePortfolio showed because of this.

The blackboard ePortfolio was a long list of pages with no interconnectivity between them, this meant that the students  had to write and copy and paste anything they wanted to feature in more than one page. However, on the Glow blogs, students can categorise  one blog post onto as many pages as they wish as well as linking each blog post to the professional standards.

The Glow blogs allows easier sifting through posts. In the ePortfolio on blackboard, there was endless pages and posts getting lost throughout the pages which I can only believe made life difficult for the advisor of studies and markers to look through and find the relevance of each post. However, on the glow blogs ePortfolio, the blog posts can be tagged and categorised into different pages and professional standards which means that the posts can be found with a lot more ease in my opinion.

I personally think that adding links, different blogs/ePortfolio’s, media I think is a lot easier on the glow blogs than the ePortfolio from blackboard. I think adding links, videos, pictures is more straight forward on glow blogs than it was on the ePortfolio, I never once added a video or picture to my old ePortfolio but I will not hesitate to add to my new ePortfolio.

Overall, in my own opinion, I definitely prefer the new glow blog ePortfolio over the blackboard ePortfolio and I think this will show especially with the MA2 engagement in the ePortfolio.

Report a Glow concern
Cookie policy  Privacy policy

Glow Blogs uses cookies to enhance your experience on our service. By using this service or closing this message you consent to our use of those cookies. Please read our Cookie Policy.