Digital Literacy – West Lothian Digital Learning Team

Success Never Tasted So Good: Adobe Express Celebrations for Kirkhill Primary

Pupils at Kirkhill Primary School have been celebrating the end of term in style with a Pizza Party and Ice Cream Truck, courtesy of Adobe Express, recognising and rewarding their fantastic creativity.

Pupils across P5-P7 have used Adobe Express to share their learning and explore the AI tools for creativity, for projects including creating digital self-portraits, sharing information around upcoming school events, designing persuasive posters, and generating AI images of themselves in their future careers.

Pupils particularly enjoy using the AI tools for generating images and text effects, as well as the animation feature. Staff commented on the ease of the platform, noting that pupils were confidently able to explore and find new tools such as the background remover.

“I love how easy it is to use. Pupils will now ask to use it in lessons to share their learning as well.”
Class Teacher

The Adobe Express School Challenge is running until November, so it’s not too late to join in! Complete three creative challenges with 3 year groups to get rewards! Don’t forget to share your fab work with us too!

Adobe Achievement: Riverside PS win a Pizza Party!

We are delighted to announce Riverside Primary as the first winners of the Adobe Express Pizza Party, in recognition of their dedication to developing and enhancing digital skills and confidence through the use of Adobe Express for learning and teaching.

Staff and P5-7 pupils participated in a range of curriculum-based live lessons, focusing on topics including World Book Day, Road Safety, Anti-Bullying and Anti-Piracy. Pupils are now independently exploring and utilising the features of Adobe Express in their own time. Staff have also highlight improvements in other digital skills such as confidence and success of logging on, driven by their enthusiasm for the platform.

“In Literacy, pupils wrote a setting description, put it into the Adobe AI feature and worked out how they could edit or improve their writing. It really made it come alive.”
P5 Teacher

“Adobe Express has increased their confidence logging in, as they are excited to use it as a fast finisher”
Digital Lead

The Pizza Party was award after successful completion of 3 different Adobe Challenges across a number of classes. Huge well done to Riverside pupils – what an achievement! We can’t wait to see how you continue to use Adobe Express in the future.

Adobe Express is a fantastic creativity tool, available for staff and pupils in P4 and above, through GLOW. As well as a huge range of Live Lessons to get pupils started, Adobe Express offer additional lesson ideas and Teacher and Educator courses too.

If you have an achievement or success you’d like us to share on our Digital Learning Team blog, please get in touch by emailing us at digitallearningteam@westlothian.org.uk

ELC Spotlight: Sharing Learning with Adobe Express

We are excited to share this beautiful example of how Winchburgh PS ELC have highlighted the amazing learning taking place, through the use of an Adobe Webpage.

The webpage brings together pictures, text, quotes and videos to show an incredibly detailed picture of the excitement and enthusiasm of our youngest learners.

See some lovely snippets of the webpage below, or click the link to view more.

Sharing The Learning: The Gruffalo

At Winchburgh ELC we have been exploring the Gruffalo story. Literacy was our focus, but the story has permeated through all of our learning and the children have taken it down many avenues

“We read the story in small groups and talked about how the characters might be feeling at certain points in the story. We asked our own questions to help us understand the story and made predictions about what might happen next.”

“After retelling the story using the spoons we decided to do some drama to recreate the story.”

Sharing the learning: The Gruffalo

Adobe Express is a creativity tool available to all learners (P4+) and staff through their GLOW accounts. It allows users to easily create videos, flyers, banners, and more with intuitive drag-and-drop functionality, making content creation accessible and fun for everyone.

To find out more about how to use Adobe Express, click this link, or sign up to one of the Live Educator training sessions.

Adobe-Express-for-Education-Info-Graphic Download

If you have any examples of using Adobe Express to share the learning, please let us know at digitallearningteam@westlothian.org.uk

Celebrating Success with Seafield Primary

We are delighted to announce that Seafield Primary School have recently achieved their Digital Schools Award, recognising the dedication and innovative work of pupils, staff and the whole school community.

Pupils across the school use a range of digital devices to access digital tools and resources to support, enhance and share their learning, such as MS Learning Accelerators, online games for consolidation of learning, Seesaw for sharing, MS Teams for collaboration, Adobe Express for creativity and so much more.

The links below, showcase some of the fantastic ways Seafield staff and pupils have been using Digital Technology to support and enhance learning and teaching.

Digital technologies at seafield ps

Digital Award Application Sway

Accredited by Education Scotland, The Digital Schools Award Scotland is a national award to promote, recognise and encourage a whole school approach to the use of digital technology.

We know there are schools across West Lothian who are working towards their validation this session, so look out for more announcements soon!

Congratulations once again to Seafield PS! We can’t wait to see how you continue to use these skills.

Wildly Creative with Adobe Express and Five Sisters Zoo

Primary 6/7 pupils at Seafield Primary have been using their creativity skills and their new enthusiasm for Adobe Express, to create their entries for a competition with Five Sisters Zoo.

Their creations showcased their skills in using various creative elements, including images, videos, audio, voiceovers, background music, animations, and transitions. The result was a series of beautiful, professional-looking videos, about Red Pandas.

Adobe Express

Seafield PS have really enjoyed using Adobe Express to showcase learning across a range of topics in class, for individual projects and in champion roles across the school. Pupils have demonstrated dedication, enthusiasm, and incredible creativity in designing their projects. Staff have also praised the inclusivity Adobe Express offers, allowing pupils to participate in video creation without needing to be in front of the camera. We love seeing your fantastic creations—keep up the amazing work!

IoT in Schools – Data Literacy Project: Reflections from our Data Detectives

This week, pupils from Deans Primary and Boghall Primary presented their findings and reflections from their recent Internet of Things Data Literacy Project.

The project began a couple of months ago, with an introductory lesson delivered by Tommy Lawson from the University of Edinburgh, during which the pupils explored the sensors and the data collected from their learning environments. They then spent a few weeks using the sensors to help improve their learning environments, before presenting their findings.

Boghall Primary Update

Boghall pupils used the new Sound Sensors to explore the noise level in the hall over breakfast club and lunch times.

They are now planning on introducing music to the hall specifically during breakfast club, to see if it can help reduce the noise level. We wonder if different types of music will have a different effect?

Deans Primary Update

Deans pupils began by using the data to identify where the sensors are located.

” We were looking at the motion detector on one of the sensors, the motion was flat, so we thought it was in a cupboard but the light sensor was quite high. The light was mostly on at 7 and went off between half 8 or 9. We thought it might have been in the cleaners cupboard because it was on at different times from when we were in school.” – P7 Pupil

They have also been working with Cambridge University on a computing project, using the Microbits to create their own sensors, which they will then compare with the IoT sensors. We wonder if the data will be the same?

“The real challenge was trying to get the temperature to code, so if you put it in your hands it would heat up, and show the number, but it was quite tricky” – P7 Pupil

We are very impressed with the learning taking place with both of these schools, and we can’t wait to hear what else you find out from continuing this project. Well done all!

Creativity Unleashed with Adobe Express

This morning, P7/6 at Eastertoun Primary had a creative morning working with the Digital Team, exploring Adobe Express to share their learning from their digital research project this term, all about planets.
They began a few weeks ago by learning to use Microsoft Search Coach to identify accurate and reliable information online and exploring the filtering options to narrow their searches, and used Microsoft Whiteboard and Microsoft Assignments to collaborate and share their findings.

Today they used this knowledge and information to share their learning in their own, incredibly impressive, creative projects, with pupils choosing to create posters, animations, videos and even podcasts!

We are looking forward to seeing what else you can create over the next few months. Well done P6/7!

Data Detectives: Unveiling the Secrets of Our Classroom Environment

We had a great start to the relaunch of the Internet of Things project, in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh.
Thank you to P6 from Blackridge Primary, P5 and P6 from Livingston Village Primary, for joining us on this exciting project.

“CO2 was low until everyone came in the class.”
P5 pupil at Livingston Village PS

Pupils found the information and videos interesting and informative, and the sessions prompted fantastic discussions around the effects of environmental factors on learning.

“It really got the pupils thinking. Thank you”
P6 teacher

The sessions were designed to introduce the data sensors and encourage pupils to investigate their learning environment, by analysing the data.

The data sensors collect readings on the temperature, light level, CO2 level, motion and humidity of the classroom environment.

Thank you again to all our schools, staff and of course to Tommy & Antonia, for your involvement.

If you’d like to find out more about the project, please visit the Internet of Things in Schools website.

Save the Date: Exciting Events Coming Your Way

We would like to share the fantastic digital learning opportunities coming up over the next few weeks.

Live Lessons 4th & 6th February

We are excited to invite P5-S3 classes to join us online for an introduction to the Data Literacy Project with IoT in Schools. Learners will explore data and build digital literacy skills, collecting & analysing data from within their own school. This opportunity is open to all schools with the Internet of Things Data Sensors and is being delivered in collaboration with The University of Edinburgh.

Tuesday 4th February 11am or 1.30pm: Beginners Sessions

Thursday 6th February 9.30am or 1.30pm: Intermediate Sessions (for classes who have explored the sensors before)

If you’d like to be involved, please sign up using this link.

Our Digital Learning Pedagogy Officers will be running bitesize training sessions demonstrating how to use Seesaw effectively for Profiling.

There will be examples of Seesaw Profiles as well as demonstrations of how to use key features, such as the Highlight tool, automatic Translate with Google and how to tag Meta-Skills as Standards.

These sessions are primarily aimed for P1-3 staff, however ELC, SLT or other staff members are welcome to come along too.

No need to sign up, just join the meeting online, through the #Digiken Team.

Adobe Express are continuing to run a wide range of online Live Lessons for classes, as well as teacher training sessions.

To sign up, click the links below:

Adobe Express live lessons

Children’s Mental Health Week (3 rd /4 th Feb)

SAFER INTERNET DAY (4th/10th/11th Feb)

Cyber Week Scotland (26 th Feb)

Adobe Creative Educator – Live UK Courses

ACE Level 1 – Intro to Adobe Express – this session will get you hands on with Adobe Express and talking about creativity in the classroom, how it works and how to foster a creative culture.

18th & 27th Feb

My World of Work’s Digital Profile is here!

If you are interested in finding out more about the new national learner profile, there are free webinars coming up on the following dates:

6th February Webinar 10-11am

25th February Webinar 4-5pm

3rd March Webinar 4-5pm

20th March Webinar 4-5pm

Get Ready for Safer Internet Day: 11th February 2025

Safer Internet Day 2025 will take place on the 11^thof February 2025, with celebrations and learning based around the theme ‘Too good to be true? Protecting yourself and others from scams online‘

Some key questions being explored this year include:

How is changing technology like generative AI going to impact the approach of scammers?

What role can the government and internet industry take to tackle this threat?

What changes would young people like to see to help protect themselves moving forward?

For access to a range of resources, including activities, lesson ideas, assembly slides and quizzes, visit Safer Internet Day 2025 – UK Safer Internet Centre.

We are also very excited to announce the launch of the new Safer Schools Scotland resource Hub: Teach Hub – Safer Schools

Safer Schools is a multi-award-winning safeguarding ecosystem, created to educate, empower and protect your entire school community, in a digital World.

The Teach Hub is a free library of resources created for teachers by teachers, specifically designed for teaching in the classroom, including age-appropriate lessons, activities, worksheets and PowerPoints on topics affecting children and young people today.

The Teach Hub also has shareables resources and guides around a range of platforms, apps and websites which can be downloaded and shared with staff and parents.

These resources focus on sharing positive messages, and highlights the benefits of building good habits online, building self-esteem and forming good relationships.

All teaching staff have been sent the access code by email as this resource is only available to West Lothian staff.