Tag Archives: Glow Resources

Blogs/blogging, Glow Help, School websites

School websites with Glow blogs

June 6, 2013 User deactivated Leave a comment

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

Glow news

RM Unify

January 9, 2013 User deactivated Leave a comment

RM Unify has been in place for staff now for a few weeks. The new launchpad and app library for Glow is a welcome improvement and transforms the way Glow looks and operates.

But Glow’s rubbish, isn’t it?

Glow has had its critics over the years but your Glow login gives you access to so many tools and excellent resources that you may want to reconsider your take on it.

But it’s really hard to use…

Fair enough, Glow groups and the act of navigating through its inner depths was never easy, let alone actually creating the kind of content that 21st century learners and teachers began to require. However, that initial Glow offering has been seriously improved upon in recent times and the Glow we have today is a whole lot better than it may have been the last time you checked it out.

So what should I be using Glow for?

Blogs, wikis, forums and the web conferencing tool, Adobe Connect are all globally-recognised, ‘best of breed’ softwares that you are given safe, secure and free access to using your Glow login. In addition to all of that, you get relevant and dynamic resources like Twig videos, the Daily What and Just 2 easy tools. Collaboration and Creativity is easier now than ever and these are 21st century skills that we all need to embrace. Glow makes this possible with a single login and a secure environment.

What about new Glow?

Well, it’s complicated! Microsoft and RM are working in partnership during 2013 to launch the RM Unify alongside Office 365 suite of tools. Office 365 provides email, blog tools, forums, wikis and cloud versions of its core products: Word, Powerpoint and Excel. In some ways, it is a lot like Glow, because it also gives you Sharepoint for collaboration within a group structure. Sharepoint is actually the software used for the clunky old Glow we are moving on from, albeit in a much, much earlier (2003) form.

What about after 2013?

The RM/Microsoft contract runs until December 2013 and, after that, present Glow will be switched off, so to speak. The Government has appointed a working group (ICT Excellence group) to propose what Glow should evolve into beyond the present contract and they will implement that solution for 2014 and beyond. Their thinking is that Glow should be a single sign-on to access any tools/resources teachers and learners wish/need to use and that it should not be limited to one platform. In some ways, you can see how we are moving towards that already, with the App approach in RM Unify and all the different tools that are accessed using a Glow login.

So will we still have Microsoft 365 and RM Unify in 2014 and beyond?

That is undecided at the moment. It may be that we only have Microsoft 365 for this one year, 2013, and then the core suite of tools may be provided by someone else, like Google’s Apps for Education suite. It may be that, since they are both free, a Glow login in 2014 would allow you to choose to use either one of those and others. Edmodo is becoming very popular as an extremely easy way to share to classes and it may be that Glow in 2014 and beyond would include such tools as that. Dropbox is the most popular file-sharing platform out there and it may be that Glow uses something like that for its file-sharing.

So should we just forget about training and development of Microsoft 365 in 2013?

No. Absolutely not. These changes are very welcome and a tremendous leap forward. What you need to remember is that the tools we have nowadays have a lot of common features and most content can be shared between services/platforms fairly easily via a simple export/import. Web email via Office 365 Outlook will have many benefits, as will online softwares in the cloud. One Note will be available as an online interactive notebook and that will have massive opportunity for classroom use. It is beginning not to matter so much what platforms we use, as long as we become familiar with Cloud computing and storing stuff online, rather than on devices. Think of the way Apps can be on any device/platform and you begin to understand how a Glow login may work, a bit like the ‘sign in with Facebook’ process that may web services have, you will see how Glow logins will become more and more valuable as a way to use one account to access a host of different tools and resources.

We are getting there!

English/ Literacy, Expressive Arts, featured tiles, Glow Resources, Health and wellbeing, Languages, learning/teaching resources, Mathematics/numeracy, Religious and Moral Education, Sciences, Social studies, Technologies

National 4/5

January 7, 2013 User deactivated Leave a comment

Education Scotland has been working with ADES to co-ordinate development and publication of exemplar learning and teaching materials for staff to use when working towards a qualification at National 4 and 5.

These materials are being developed from a variety of sources, with many being developed locally in schools and local authorities. Materials will be available for all N4 and N5 qualifications by spring 2013.

The materials provide suggestions on approaches to teaching and learning which will promote development of the necessary knowledge, understanding and skills for each subject and level.

Audio, Expressive Arts, featured tiles, Glow, Glow Resources

Gigajam on Glow

December 20, 2012 User deactivated Leave a comment

Another superb resource for pupils and staff alike, Gigajam allows you to study online to learn various musical instruments.

Gigajam is a unique, interactive method of learning to play a musical instrument. Gigajam includes over 100 multimedia lessons, instructional videos of each exercise, award-winning interactive play-along software, and real-time analysis of your playing.

space

How Gigajam lessons work

Read easy to follow lesson notes.
Watch videos of exercises and techniques.
Play your instrument alongside our pre-recorded, professional band while Gigajam Xtractor software records exactly what you play.
Gigajam Analyzer software reviews your performance and shows you exactly what to work on to improve your technique.

Gigajam is provided free to Scottish schools by Education Scotland as part of Glow.

featured tiles, Glow Resources, learning/teaching resources

BBC Class clips

October 25, 2012 User deactivated Leave a comment

Find educational clips from the best of BBC programmes in the Class Clips video and radio archive. BBC Class Clips (http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/)

Class Clips is the BBC’s archive of educational video and audio material for use in primary and secondary schools. Working with teachers across the UK, the best of current BBC programmes and back catalogue of schools television and radio the best range of clips to help with classroom teaching are chosen.

There are currently more than 10,000 clips in the Class Clips archive, all searchable by level, subject, topic and keyword and all accompanied by notes from teachers on the content and how it could be used.

From major factual series such as:

Wonders of the Universe

Human Planet

and A History of Scotland through to old favourites like Around Scotland and See You See Me, clips cover a wide range of subjects across all age levels, many with broad potential for cross curricular learning.

Class Clips is also home to new, specifically-created educational video.

Talkie Time

is a set of innovative videos for Early and First levels, that let you and your class interact with on-screen characters while learning about Numeracy, Literacy and Health and Wellbeing. Blethering Scots features famous faces discussing Scots language and its place in history, poetry, media and the playground.

All content on Class Clips is free to access and can be streamed directly into class. We’re also in the process of making all our clips embeddable, making it even easier to include them in blogs and web pages.

To find out what clips are available to help with your classes, visit Class Clips and start searching.

Glow news, Glow Resources, Images

Scran

October 17, 2012 User deactivated Leave a comment

Scran is a charity & online learning resource base with over 360,000 images & media from museums, galleries, archives and the media. If you haven’t had a play around with scran, you might be surprised by the gems that can be found. There are thousands of useful photos and bits of audio and video, as well as full learning packs that can be used as an independent resource.

English Teacher?

A great example of the kind of resources that could prove very useful is some excellent Edwin Morgan content that English teachers will find extremely useful. There are audio recordings, images and video all related to, arguably, the most popular Scottish poet taught in our secondary schools.

Art or Design?

Scran also has numerous learning content packs and associated resources on modern-day designers such as Alessi and there is a wealth of content related to the study of Art and Art history and design through the ages.

Video Introduction *remember that you access through Glow, not the method outlined in video!

Animation, Glow news, Glow Resources

Just 2 Easy

October 10, 2012 User deactivated Leave a comment

J2E offers a whole set of online software tools just for schools and it’s all available for FREE through Glow. This is just the kind of addition to Glow that you are missing out on if you do not use your Glow account.

Here’s a nice video introduction to ONE of the many tools J2E offers through Glow:

featured tiles, Glow Resources, learning/teaching resources, Mathematics/numeracy, Sciences, Social studies

Twig videos

October 1, 2012 User deactivated Leave a comment

A Dynamic Teaching Resource

Here’s the Our Cloud video guide:

click the big round pink logo to go straight to Twig>

Over 800 outstanding 3-minute films on science, maths and geography
Tailored to the Curriculum for Excellence at levels 2, 3 and 4
With keyword search and curriculum links
Researched and written by academics, producers, scientists and mathematicians
Footage from the very best film archives
Supported by teaching & learning packs with diagrams and quizzes
Bringing subjects to life with stunning visuals, music and clear graphics – not just outdated programme clips

English/ Literacy, Expressive Arts, Glow news, Glow Resources, Health and wellbeing, Languages, Mathematics/numeracy, Religious and Moral Education, Sciences, Social studies, Technologies

Daily What News

September 25, 2012 User deactivated Leave a comment

The Daily What News is a top quality Glow resource that your account gives you access to.

A news service just for schools in Scotland, The Daily What News provides a sophisticated and interactive news service for Glow users, with articles written by a specialist news content editor especially for a schools’ audience. Articles are published every school day and there are two versions of each article. In addition, three articles each week which are published in Gaelic.

The articles are arranged in news categories and are tagged according to CfE subjects and experiences and outcomes. The articles are archived and searchable from the main homepage, giving users a rich learning resource that offers learners the opportunity to make meaningful and relevant connections across different curricular areas. Many of the articles feature an interactive activity that provides Glow account holders with a fun way to extend or cement users’ learning on the story’s topic. Users can also use their Glow logins to take part in forum discussion topics for each article.

Teachers will find the Teachers’ Area Blog an excellent resource. Beneath each daily news article there is a link to a blog post that provides Glow users with a wealth of lesson ideas and suggestions for several curricular areas from the one news story. The posts are written by a specialist education content editor who links the news story to CfE outcomes and experiences and provides links to other interesting and relevant content.

A recent article in the Sport category focused upon Rangers’ fans’ trip to Manchester and how their behaviour was better than on a previous occasion that had led to trouble in the city centre. The article would surely be a popular one with young people and, because they are known for their reluctance in reading, it is of note that it would be of particular appeal to boys. There is even an interactive activity attached to this article which invites learners to test their knowledge of SPL club nicknames. What better way to engage reluctant learners in purposeful and relevant learning? In theTeachers’ Blog, lesson suggestions were offered in a number of CfE subject areas (Social studies, Health +Wellbeing, English+Literacy) and links were provided to video content and discussion stimuli that would encourage even the most reluctant learner to engage with such relevant and meaningful subject matter.

This is, of course, just one example. There is already a good stock of interesting content on the site, with stories ranging in topic from the floods in Pakistan, for a World focus, to how young people made an impression on the Scottish Parliament, for a story that is closer to home. Each school day sees another story added to the archive, so we are building a wealth of content that Glow users can benefit from.

Whatever the story’s subject-matter, it is always the case that it will be written in a manner that is appealing and relevant to our learners. Add to that the interactive activities and lesson suggestions in the teachers’ blog, and you might just find thatThe Daily What News is just what you have been looking for!