Category Archives: Glow Help

Blogs/blogging, Glow Help, School websites

School websites with Glow blogs

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Can you build our website for us?

In short, no! But we can help. One of the most common requests we get is that we can help schools build new websites in Glow and it is something that requires a sustainable and online support, rather than schools being reliant on someone from ECS . Here is the sustainable and online support!

Getting started

This site is a good place to start. It provides some rationale about why you want to use Glow blogs for a school website and contains help guides and working examples. It is an old site and hasn’t been updated in a long while, but still relevant as an overview of where to start.

A great guide from City of Edinburgh

Kate Farrell and Marco Capriglione of City of Edinburgh Council have written this superb guide: Glow-Blogs-guide-v1-2 (3) for their authority when using Glow Blogs.  Katie and Marco consented to this document being shared nationally. Our thanks to them for allowing this.

Look at other sites as you go

There are some really great school websites around Scotland, the majority of which have been created by schools themselves using just the online support that is available for Glow blogs and WordPress. There is a lot of that, right enough…

Here are some we recommend looking at:

https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/wl/harrysmuirps/

https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/st/FallinPrimary/

https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/pk/perthcitycampus/

https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/pk/AbernytePrimarySchool/

https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/pk/PitcairnWebsite/

https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/pk/Forgandenny/

Plan your layout and keep it fresh

The most successful school websites are active and updated regularly, thereby conveying something of the life of the school. For this reason, Glow blogs are great because they can be updated at any point, by anyone who is made admin of the Glow group that hosts the blog web part and the update posts automatically filter to the most recent content first. This is called ‘dynamic’ content, rather than ‘static’ because it works from a database filtered into categories that will always display content allocated to that category.

It’s all about posts and categories, NOT pages!

To further explain the point above, each bit of content is called a post and that post needs to be added to a category in order that it will appear on your site under your chosen menu categories. For example, this post here will be added to the categories ‘Glow help’ and ‘school websites’ so you should be able to click on either of those categories on this site’s menus and see this post there. Easy!

Categories are what should be used for web content that will be updated regularly and, remember, it’s good practice to have content like this. Why not have each class in your primary school provide weekly update posts of what they have been doing? Or how about having a category for each department in a secondary school, so that they can add departmental news and updates that will filter to their menu category.

When would you use pages?

Pages do not update like categories of posts do, so they should be used for content that will not need to be changed too often. This might be a school ‘About Us’ page or maybe a ‘Contact Us’ page because you will create those pages once and not need to update them again.

What about tags?

Tags are like labels. Let’s use a supermarket analogy to help you understand all of this better. Tesco has aisles of content with big banner headings above each aisle, explaining what is in that aisle: fruit and veg, for example. Think of those as the categories in your main menu. They are filled with products (posts) and those products (posts) are also given a label to explain, specifically what it is. The labels are your tags and users of your site can use them to click and find all posts labelled in the same way. Tesco might tag its tomatoes with the following labels: ‘tomatoes’, ‘Spain’, and add it to the category Fruit and Vegetables.

All modern websites work like this

In fact, if you look at any website you should be able to see it working exactly like Glow blogs do, with regularly updated content (posts) being added to categories so that the website can display them in the correct place. Try Amazon as another example. It has hundreds of categories with other categories underneath them, almost like generations in a family. This is useful to think of as you can, again, have multiple levels of categories in your blogs. Keeping the family analogy going this time, the main, top-leve categories are called ‘Parent’ categories and any sub-categories underneath that are called ‘child’ categories. Get it?

Video help for this

More help here specific to Glow

https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/glowblogs/GlowingHelp/?tag=basic-blogging

Click the icon to download the full guide from City of Edinburgh

Collaborative tools, Glow, Glow Help, Wikis

User roles and wikis

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Glow Wikis have to be created in a Glow group or school site, they cannot be placed on role based sites (e.g. Staff Home, Pupil Home)

The role a user has in a wiki is defined by their role in the area of Glow that is hosting the wiki, most commonly their role in the Glow group to which the wiki web part was added.

Glow Group Role Wiki Rights
Administrator Edit existing pages, add new pages, delete pages, rename pages, view page history
Web Designer Edit existing pages, add new pages, rename pages
Contributor Edit existing pages, add new pages, rename pages
Reader with Discussions Read only access
Reader Read only access
Forums, Glow Help

Forum moderation

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Moderation may be needed from time to time

Glow Forums are linked to Glow groups. The administrator of a Glow group is also the moderator of Glow forums which allow them to make changes to posts made by other people.

It is always wise to reinforce the expectations you have of anyone using a forum, mainly to use appropriate language and be respectful to others.

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The video below shows an introduction to the moderation options available to you:

Remember:

  • Lock topic – keep the topic there but stop any changes to it
  • Delete topic – remove the topic and all its associated posts
  • Move topic – move the topic and its posts to another board that I administer
  • Split topic – instead of one topic, create two and then decide which posts should go in each
  • Merge posts – take 2 posts from the topic and merge them in to one
  • Merge topic – take the posts in this topic and put them in to another topic
  • Copy topic – take this topic and its associated post and put them in another board but leave the original in place (live move but it leaves the original in place)
  • Change to sticky – this topic will always appear at the top of the lists of posts, regardless of activity (normally the topic at the top of the list is the one with the most recent post)
  • Change to announcement – this will take the topic and take it out of the topic section and move it to the higher Announcements section
  • View logs – this allows me to see activity in the topic and the overall board
Collaborative tools, Forums, Glow Help

Forum profile avatars

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You can change your own profile in Glow Forums so that other people seeing your posts can know a little more about you

forumsignature

In the post above you can see an avatar – this is the image on the left hand side (in some Glow Forum themes it can appear on the right hand side).  You can also see a signature (this is the text under the post text (name and role in this case))

If you change this then it will change in every post you have made including all the ones you have already done.

Watch the video below to see how to set up your own avatar and signature

*Remember, this will be seen by everyone who shares a Forum with you, on some forums this could be hundreds of thousands of users so keep both things appropriate!

Forums, Glow Help

Why use a forum?

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And if you prefer to read, here’s an outline of what a forum is and how it can be used:

This article provides an overview of Glow Forums, further posts provide more detail in how to create a forum, post entries in to a forum and moderate other users.

Key points about a Glow Forum are:

A Glow Forum has to be linked to either a site (local authority or school) or a Glow group. They are created by adding a web part to the relevant page and then using the functionality of the web part to create the forum. The web part is called Glow Forum.

A Glow Forum can also be called a discussion board. A discussion board is made up of one or many topics.

A topic can be started by anyone. To start a topic the user creates a new post in a new topic. Other users can then join in the topic by making their own posts and replying to existing posts.

When viewing a discussion board the user is shown all the topics. The order in which the topics are displayed depends on when a user last posted – the topic with the most recent post will be at the top of the list. Shown against each topic is the number of times anyone has looked at it and the number of posts in the topic.

Some topics can be given a special status by the moderator – perhaps the topic is an announcement(so it is shown above all the other topics) or it is a sticky (it is shown with the other posts however it will always be returned at the top of the list, regardless of when last posted to)

A moderator of a board is the administrator of the Glow group.

One last thing is that it is possible for any user to view all the boards they are active in by using the Board Index link. This shows only those boards the user has ever accessed, not all the ones they are a member of by virtue of being a member of the Glow group.

What does all this mean in real life?  This scenario attempts to clarify

An English teacher in a school may wish to set up a Glow Forum to allow his pupils to discuss the current class text.  The web part is added to the class Glow group by the teacher and he creates the Forum.

The teacher writes the first post telling the class what the point of the Forum is – he writes a post and because he always wants everyone to see it, he sets that post to be an Announcement – he can do this because he is the Glow group administrator.

The pupils then use the Glow Forum – a first post is entered by one pupil asking for help on one question – this pupil is creating a new topic. Those that can help post replies to this post, all these replies are in the one topic.  At the same time, a different pupil may ask a different question and so they write a new post in a new topic – a separate discussion is underway but all in the same Glow Forum.

One pupil asks a particularly important question about exam technique, the teacher wants this discussion to continue but wants to make sure everyone sees it – the teacher sets this topic to be a Sticky – it is always at the top.

The teacher is interested in this Glow Forum along with others such as in his school’s staff Glow group, in an authority All English teachers group and also a CPD group at national level – by going to the board index he will see all these forums listed along with the recent activity.

Blogs/blogging, E-portfolios/profiles, Glow Help

E-portfolios

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Background

Many schools and LA’s are looking to use learning logs, or e-portfolios, to record pupil assessment and attainment (Visit the e-portfolio Glow group).

This post explains how to set up a simple e-portfolio using a pupil’s My Glow area and the Glow Blogs webpart.  It uses the K2 blog theme (What is a blog theme?) and is considered by us to be an informal e-portfolio.

Other set ups will be available shortly, including a more structured template and one using a different blog theme.

Process

In this post you will be shown how to:

  • Create a new blog
  • Import a template
  • Add widgets to your blog
  • Change the page settings for the blog

To begin, get your pupils to create a new Glow Blog.

Instructions for creating a Glow blog can be found here (8 mins 55 sec)

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We have created a simple template including an ‘about me’ page and categories.  You can view the template here or have a look at how it might progress here.

This template can be imported straight into the newly created blog, or modified and exported again before putting it in a shared folder where pupils can access.

Templates are imported/exported by visiting the dashboard, clicking Tools on the left hand navigation and then either import or export.  The sample exported file can be found here.  Import it onto your blog to see what is available.

Instructions for importing a template can be found here (2 mins 5 sec)

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Widgets do not automatically appear when blogs are imported from a template.  Widgets are additional boxes of information that can be added to a blog to give the reader more information, such as a calendar, a feed from another website or a list of recent posts. Asking a pupil to put a widget on their blog provides a good opportunity  to discuss with pupils what widgets are and how they are used.  If you are using this template you will want to add on the categories widget and the pages widget.

It may also be a good idea to change the front page to a static page, rather than the latest posts, which is the default setting.

Instructions for widgets and static pages can be found here (3 mins 46 sec)

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It is possible to export a Glow blog too.  You may want to use our template to get you started, modify it, and then export it to share with pupils.  If you choose to do this it would be great if you could share your new template with us.

Glow Help, Web conferencing

Recording a Glow meet

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It is possible for recordings to be made of your Glow Meet session.  You activate the recording within Glow Meet and the recording is made and stored on the Glow servers.  You then have the option of viewing the recordig directly from the server or you could download a copy of the recording on your own local machine.

In Glow Meet a meeting can be recorded by a person who has the role of Host. To be a Host you either have to be an administrator of the Glow group in which the Glow Meet web part is located or you have to be made a Host by someone who already has the Host role.

The document available below gives you full details of how to make a recording and also on how to view it online or download a local copy.

Glow Help, Glow news, Web conferencing

Breakout rooms in Glow Meet

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The Host in the meeting room can create breakout rooms for the attendees. You might want to do this if the main meeting room has too many attendees to allow good collaboration or if you want different groups of attendees to consider different issues at a point in the meeting. Breakout rooms are separate from the main room and have their own selection of pods to work in. The Host can visit the breakout rooms during the session to facilitate activities.

The document above will give you the details of how to create, start and end the break out rooms.  Some other key points are:

Breakout Room Layout
The layout of the breakout room will take the format of the selected room layout in the parent room at the time of the breakout room being created.  Therefore, if you are going to create a number of breakout rooms that you wish to all look the same, the quickest way would be to create that layout in the parent room, open up the break out room section, delete any rooms that are there then create new break out rooms (Add Breakout)

Breakout Room Number Limitations
There are limitations within Adobe Connect which result in 5 breakout rooms being possible and 50people can be assigned to any/all breakout rooms at the one time.

Reviewing Breakout Room Outputs
If you have people in a number of breakout rooms, once they all come back to the main room, you may wish everyone to see what went on in each breakout room.  You can do this by adding a new pod to the main room, from the pod menu you will see a sub menu to the pods from each break out room which you can now add like you would any other pod.

featured tiles, Glow Help, Glow Resources, Web conferencing

Glow Meet

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Why Use Glow Meet?

Glow Meet is Glow’s web conferencing tool. It has been upgraded and now uses a globally-popular software- Adobe Connect. The tool allows you to share documents, talk to a presentation and has collaborative tools like polls, surveys and chat. Glow TV uses Adobe connect, so a good start would be to watch one of the many recordings in Glow TV and see how it is used.

Here’s a video guide to Adobe Connect for e-learning from Adobe themselves:

And here are some help guides, specifically for Glow:

This help guide assumes you are joining a Glow Meet that someone else has set up and you are joining to take part without worrying about how to set the room up.

If you are setting up a Glow Meet room for others to join then this guide will help you with that.

The role you have in a Glow Meet is determined by the permissions you have in the Glow group where the Glow Meet room is situated. Users with Reader or Readers with Discussions permissions in the group will be Participants in the Glow Meet room.

The meeting will be managed by a user with Administrator permissions in the Glow group. They will have the role of Host in the meeting room.

The document below outlines how to join the Glow Meet and get yourself set up and ready to work with others.

If you want to find out more about the room layout and how the Glow Meet links in to the Glow Group then the document below will assist with that.