Alison McCook

Accessing Google Additional Services with your Glow account.

You may have seen announcements that Google are making changes to their approach to Additional Services from 1st September 2021. To clarify the situation for Glow users, Additional Services include YouTube, Google Earth and Google Maps have been switch off in Glow since 2019. This is due to requirements for consent on the collection and use of personal data obtained in connection with Additional Services. You will not be able to access these services using your Glow Google account.

As the services don’t require users to be signed in this should not be an issue, but may require users to ensure their browser is not signed in with their Glow credentials before they try to access these services. This can be checked by clicking on the user icon in the top right corner of the browser. The user icon is a circle that may have a profile picture, letters or a silhouette dependant on the account being used. Using an incognito or private browsing window will solve most access issues or signing out of the account.

As a reminder if you are signing up to any resource outside of Glow you should not select the option to use your existing Microsoft or Google account. You should select the sign up with email option and from there you can use your Glow email address, as long as the resource you are signing up for is an approved digital tool. Remember to check the RAG list in the weekly bulletin before creating any new accounts.

Mind Yer Time – Supporting Young People’s Healthy Use Of Social Media

Designed by children and young people from Children’s Parliament and the Scottish Youth Parliament to empower other children and young people across Scotland to use screens and social media in healthy ways Mind Yer Time is an online set of resources.

It has useful links for adults, children and young people, provides advice and guidance on topics such as: body positivity, children’s digital rights, online bulling and videogaming addiction.

There is no account or sign up required. You can find all the great resources at – https://mindyertime.scot/

Are you using Internet Explorer to access Glow?

As of mid-August 2021 Glow users will no longer be able to use Internet Explore and the Edge legacy browsers to access some services in Glow, such as Office 365. We recommend using Chrome to access Glow when in school to have access to all your applications. Using your Windows devices at home you can chose between Chrome or an up to date version of the Edge browser, if you have them available, as both will work with with your Glow account.

More information on how support for IE and edge legacy are being phased out can be found here: Microsoft 365 apps say farewell to Internet Explorer 11 and Windows 10 sunsets Microsoft Edge Legacy – Microsoft Tech Community

Digital Learning Support Offer for Moray Educators

The Moray Digital Learning Team are continuing to provide support and training opportunities to educators and schools move into a phased return. Below are details of all the primary resources we have available to educators to help them develop their own digital skills.

SharePoint Site – The Moray Digital Learning Team site has lots of resources for Glow, the software within and more in their site. It contains short how to videos, guidance documentation and links to our previous digital learning webinars. We also post daily digital learning tips, updates and more. Please note you must be logged on to Glow to access this SharePoint site

Moray Digital Drop In Team – This is a Microsoft Team community where we post

relevant updates to functionality within Glow or other approved software
links to new resources
details of any known issues

You can ask for support on anything Digital Learning and Teaching related in the Ask the Team channel.

The Drop In Sessions channel is where we run our webinars – the upcoming schedule and places should be booked on Gateway CPD Manager.

Moray Educators can request to join the Team by clicking – here

Blog – This blog is where the Moray Digital Learning Team post our updates, announcements, details of upcoming CPD and other useful information.

Other great sources of information and support are available from the Education Scotland Digital Learning Team.

DigiLearn Scot blog – This is a fantastic resource from the Digital Team at Education Scotland. Here you can find all of their upcoming webinars and previous recorded webinars as well as other really useful resources for Glow and the software within.

Glow Connect– this is the national Glow website with additional information about Glow, what it offers and details of any service interruptions can be found here.

It is also worth remembering that there is lots of information and guidance available outside of Glow, so it is accessible for parents/carers or educators on the fly via any device with a internet access –

Digital Support Site – The website created to help parents/carers support learners in accessing Glow and staying safe online has recently been updated. The aim of this resource is help understand what Glow is and what it offers and how learners can access their learning in Microsoft Teams or Google Classroom.

Sill can find your what you are looking for?

If you still can’t find the answer to any of your queries please make sure that you direct your question or request to the correct team.

The graphic below lays out which teams deal with different types or issues or requests related to Glow and Technology.

Updated Glow Connect Guidance

Information for parents and carer on Glow Connect has been updated recently to clarify the guidance around accessing their child’s Glow account.

You can find the updated information – here.

The guidance makes it very clear that parents and carers should support users in their use of Glow but should not be logging into to the child’s Glow account independently.

As a reminder below is the guidance which was previously issued –

It is important for all Glow users, both learners and staff, to remember that their account details should be kept private. School staff should remind learners and parents/carers that Glow is for the use of learners and teachers/support staff with the appropriate security checks only. We ask that parents/carers do not access Glow directly by logging in with their child’s details, but would encourage them to engage with their children to find out about and support the learning they are doing within Glow.

To meet the requirements of the Glow agreement that allows our users to access Glow, login details should only be provided to the user themselves. This can be done either in person, over the phone or other agreed alternative methods of communication with the appropriate checks to verify the users identity. This is in order to maintain the security of the system and safety of all users. Providing log in details to non-Glow users, including parents/carers could put the Glow environment and users at risk.

In the event of a security breach Glow passwords for the whole school have to be reset and if action was not taken quickly, every pupil in the school could have their Glow account disabled. If a reset is required learners should be assigned unique passwords to ensure that there is no possibility of learners accessing each others accounts.

You can find Password Guidance on the Glow Connect. Staff should be aware that if they are supporting pupils to choose a new password that it should be unique to each pupil and should not be shared or duplicated, this includes creating a single password for a whole class/year group.

The use of password grids like the one below could be helpful in assisting younger learners to choose a password and can be send home as a reminder for home access. Written codes or reminders can also be helpful.

Support for hearing impaired and deaf learners

Offer for Moray Educations from the Moray Sensory Education Service.

If you have a hearing impaired/deaf child in your class it will be really difficult for them to hear you effectively when you are talking to them via a video or using a Loom; even if they can see your face! This is because the quality of sound output from computers etc is poor when listening through hearing aids and cochlear implants.

Sensory Education Service (SES) works with children who have hearing loss, and visual impairments, and most of our young people will use subtitles in the home when watching television. We are now adding subtitles to videos, and Looms, for pupil’s online home learning and then sharing it with them, using a link to our private YouTube channel.

If you intend making a loom or video and know you have a hearing impaired child in your class; please send us the link and it will allow us to support you in ensuring equality of access.

Our contact email address is – mses@moray.gov.uk

For more details on the Moray Sensory Education Service click – here

You can also find details on the accessibility tools in Microsoft Office 365, which we use in Moray through Glow –

Teams Breakout Rooms

Microsoft have released breakout room functionality within Teams Meetings. This allows meeting organisers to create breakout rooms, and allocate meeting participants for small group working within the main meeting.

Glow’s guidance (https://glowconnect.org.uk/teams-in-glow/teams-meetings-with-learners/) is that for learner safety we recommend that additional staff members are present within meetings and that learners should not be unsupervised within Teams meetings. The introduction of breakout rooms makes this more challenging to achieve, and there is the increased risk of learners being unsupervised with video enabled within breakout rooms. On that basis we strongly recommend that breakout rooms are not used with learners unless staff members are able to constantly be present in all breakout rooms created.

The existing guidance (https://glowconnect.org.uk/teams-in-glow/managing-a-teams-meeting/) is also that the end meeting option should be used by the meeting organiser to remove all participants at the end of a Teams meeting. Please note that this will not end any associated breakout rooms. The separate ‘close rooms’ option within the Breakout room control panel must be used to close the rooms, and remove participants from the breakout rooms before ending the main meeting.

Details on the Breakout Room functionality and how to assign attendees to different rooms can be see in the video below-

Please remember that currently in Glow learners do not have access to Chat functionality after the meeting has ended; however the organiser will be able to view everything.

Glow Teams Functionality Update

Insights

Insights is an app available within Teams which allows educators to see how and when students are engaging with you, course materials, and their peers, as well as how they are performing on assignments. After feedback from educators the a Class Overview is now available within the Insights app in Glow Teams. This new functionality allows teachers to add a personal app to their left app bar menu that provides an overview of all their Class Teams all in one place. The insights app must be added to each Class Team via the top navigation for them to appear in the overview.

You can find a full guide on Insights for educators – HERE

Only Me Lobby Functionality in Teams

The ‘Only Me’ lobby will be the default option for creating Teams meetings using Glow from Thursday 26th November. For any meeting arranged with colleagues where you may wish attendees to be able to join the meeting prior to the organiser you may need to update the meeting options. For any meetings with learners please ensure that the default is unchanged to ensure learners do not enter the meeting prior to their teacher. More advice can be found on the Glow Connect website – HERE.

Public Teams

Please be aware that some other local authorities or Glow users may have made the decision to leave a number of their Teams public so anyone can join at will. If learners are joining these Teams they should be reminded that any posts will have their Glow username logged and are easily traceable.

By default Class Teams are created as private Teams; however other templates used to create Team may have public as the default. The creator of the Team should ensure the setting applied is what they intended.

Professional Learning Opportunities

Please see below some professional learning opportunities that are now available from the Education Scotland Professional Learning and Leadership Team

Coaching & Mentoring

The 1:1 coaching for headteachers matches them to a professional coach for a series of online coaching conversations at a time of their choosing. The social enterprise organisation KnowYouMore are coordinating this work. For further details about this visit ‘Coaching and Mentoring Matters’. This online resource provides a link to the 1:1 coaching offer as well as to the other professional learning opportunities around coaching and mentoring

https://professionallearning.education.gov.scot/learn/coaching-and-mentoring-matters/

Support for teachers in their first four years post probation

The Stepping Stones programme supports teachers in their first four years post probation. It includes a calendar of online events including webinars and informal ‘blethers’ as well as a dedicated Stepping Stones Teams space for participants to network with each other and share resources. The teachers on the programme are also offered a series of online 1:1 coaching and mentoring conversations with a current middle leader to support them through this time, again supported by KnowYouMore.

Further details about the programme can be found on the dedicated programme area

https://professionallearning.education.gov.scot/learn/programmes/stepping-stones/

Reflective supervision support for school staff

Place2Be are offering its Place2Think programme to teachers and school leaders across Scotland. Participants will join a small group of peers remotely on a monthly basis, to reflect on how they are impacted by their work in school, and how emotional factors can impact learning for some young people.

Place2Be will also be supporting schools staff wellbeing through a series of webinars covering a range of topics including ‘recovery and self-care’ and ‘understanding and managing anxiety in uncertain times’.

https://education.gov.scot/improvement/learning-resources/strengthening-support-for-school-staff/

Barnardo’s Scotland are offering a workshop programme for school staff who wish to develop Spaces for Wellbeing, which will support the mental health and wellbeing of staff.

Links to this support will be added to the following webpage as they become available:

https://education.gov.scot/improvement/learning-resources/strengthening-support-for-school-staff/

There is also an offer to headteachers to join the Columba 1400 programme. This is currently sold out so we have started a waiting list

For further details on all the above information here’s the link:

https://education.gov.scot/improvement/learning-resources/strengthening-support-for-school-staff/

Updates to Loom account for Educators – screencasting service

Loom have announced some changes to educator accounts which were upgraded to Loom Pro during the initial stages of lockdown. Loom have created a specialised Education account which all previously verified accounts will be migrated over to automatically. The next time existing users log in they may see pop-ups explaining the changes. Loom will remain free for verified educators to use and new Loom Education accounts will also be free.

Loom is a screencasting service which allow educators to record their computer screen, webcam and audio simultaneously to created pre-recorded lessons, greetings or presentations. These can downloaded or be shared via a link in a Team, Google Classroom or other platform. Screenscating is a technique that can be used for in flipped, blended, hybrid or remote learning. For examples of how Loom could be used click – here

Just as a reminder Loom has been signed off for use by educators in Moray; however only via the Chrome extension. The desktop application can not be used on the network; however educators may chose to use it on their own personal devices. Please remember an education email must be used to create your account, this can be either your Edunet or Glow email address. You can find details on how to create and verify your Loom account, and install the Chrome extension – here.

Foe existing account holders the main changes educators should be aware are –

45 minute video recording length
New Teams libraries
Ability to capture screen shots

The new Loom for Education accounts will continue to have

Unlimited videos
Unlimited Viewers
Calls-to-action functionality
Face, Cam and audio recording
View insights

Loom have also updated their branding, including the new Loombeam logo. You may notice the change of symbol in your Chrome browser if you have installed the Loom extension. More details about all the changes being made to Loom can be found – here.