#tmslf11 – Round Table – Glow: Love it/Hate it/Want it

On Wednesday 21st September over 100 education professionals attended TeachMeet SLF 11 at the Glasgow Science Centre. Though not giving a presentation, I did participate by hosting a Round Table discussion on Glow, Scotland’s National Education Intranet.

There has recently been a great deal of discussion about the future for Glow and ICT in general in Scotland’s education sector. Input is being sought from teachers, parents, pupils and representatives of further and higher education and industrial sectors the #EduScotICT discussion.

The premise of the round table discussion I hosted was simple – what did users of Glow love about using Glow, hate about using Glow and would they want to change about Glow for whatever comes in the future?

The discussions round the table gave a great insight into the differing experiences of users in different education sectors, schools and Local Authorities. They also highlighted the very different approaches taken to rolling out, developing and supporting Glow.

Participants were given three different colours of sticky notes and asked to write on each colour what they LOVE about Glow (yellow), HATE about Glow (pink) and WANT for future Glow (green).

This is a summary of the responses -
LOVE IT -

• single login to secure environment with broad range of tools
• access to blogs, wikis, forum tools not accessible elsewhere on internet due to LA internet filtering
• tools allowing collaboration – Glow groups, blogs, wikis, forum, discussions, chat
• facility for pupils to have their own area in Glow – My Glow – which is portable from primary into secondary school
• facility to use Glow blog for pupil ePortfolios
• ability to form Glow groups for classes, departments, interest groups to collaborate and communicate within schools, LAs and nationally
• 
  ability to interact with pupils and colleagues via Glow groups
• facility to store and access documents from anywhere via document stores & Glow Learn
• broad range of National Level glow groups for sector, subject, special events and interest groups 
• resources and externally procured content available on National site

HATE IT -

• login is too complex for many users – not just pupils
• system is too complex for many users, requires lots of time to ‘learn the ropes’when time is a precious commodity for staff
• new users put off by unfriendly and unfamiliar interface – should look/work more like popular tools, e.g. facebook, twitter etc
• confident users frustrated by ‘clunkiness’ of portal – poor functionality, lack of standard facilities available in other tools (e.g. multiple file/folder uploads)
• LA blocking of external content which Glow allows users to embed into groups
• implementation in some schools – early prioritisation of staff and pupil login without there being any content, little or no emphasis on USE
• lack of on-going suport for users – no time, money, staff etc
• search facility very poor – too difficult to find users and content
• no facility to opt out of Glow groups, often created at National level and not targeted to interested groups
• content created by ITE students is lost when leaving training to enter the profession
• potential of Glow Learn is rendered useless by it being so incredibly fiddly to use (three day training should have raised concerns)

WANT IT -

• much easier login procedure – especially for younger pupils
• better support in schools – give mentors/trainers time to support colleagues
• simpler interface incorporating common social media approaches – opt in to interest groups, ‘like’ facility to share content, better targeted news feed
• shared media library of free to air TV content
• ability to create guest accounts locally to include external partners – e.g community groups etc
• make Glow Learn easier to use, and allow easier sharing of resources by users at LA and national level 
• improved set up, provision and portability of user accounts – vital for staff and students moving between schools
• “for everyone in the country to hurry up and get on”

It’s not for me to draw conclusions, or make recommendations here, but there are a few observations worth making about this discussion.
Everyone around the table could see the benefits that using Glow had brought to them and, in many cases, their pupils.
All had devoted a great deal of time and effort into making Glow work for them, their colleagues and pupils.
All agreed that Glow, in whatever form it will take in the future, must be allowed and encouraged to grow and develop, adopting new tools and techniques as they become available and ditching those that don’t work or go unused (has anybody used Glow Messenger?) in order to secure its success.

For this to happen the culture surrounding ICT in the education sector must change. A very common view of ICT in our schools is that it is an ‘extra’, ‘just a tool’ and that pupils will ‘pick up what they need as they go along’. Many at the round table discussion agreed that it the profile of ICT as a vital skill must be raised.

It is my opinion that it should have an equal status with Literacy, Numeracy and Health & Wellbeing within Curriculum for Excellence, as it encompasses so many areas of each. Ensuring that ICT becomes the responsibility of all teachers across all subject areas would drive up the skills and confidence of pupils and staff alike, but this can only be achieved if there are suitable tools, and the time and support available for us all to learn to use them.

Thinking Differently to Motivate Independent Learning

Inspired by a session at the Physics Summer School, I decided to try a ‘creative thinking’ exercise with my new S6 Advanced Higher pupils.

Giving them the theme of ‘Successful Learners’, I asked them to spend a couple of minutes, individually and in silence, writing down all of the things they thought necessary for learning to be successful.

Having done so, I put them into groups to discuss their individual lists and compile a ‘super list’ for their groups. Each group was then asked to give 3 or 4 items from their ‘super list’.

This was scribbled up on the board and discussed as we went.

As expected, the lists were very similar for each of the groups, but there were some responses given by only one group – ‘time’, ‘confidence’ and ‘classmates’ (hence the underlining).

The aim of this part of the task was to reinforce ‘accepted wisdom’ before turning things around with one of three ‘what if..?’ scenarios for each group.*

• ‘what if there were no books?’
• ‘what if there was no course?’
• ‘what if there was no teacher?’

This time they were asked to come up with strategies for overcoming these apparent difficulties. Again the groups were encouraged to spend some time silently coming up with their own individual ideas before discussing in their groups. Once they had discussed their ideas, we put together another summary.

Again, the responses were discussed as we compiled the list of ‘solutions’ it became obvious that all of the solutions pointed towards aspects of independent learning, none of which were in any way specific to Physics. It was also obvious that even in our true circumstances, where we do have books, a prescribed curriculum and a teacher that these ‘solutions’ would still be of benefit in ensuring they learn successfully.

This got me onto my hidden agenda – making extensive use Glow to achieve many of these goals.

The plan is for my pupils to compile their own ‘textbook’ in the form of a class Glow Wiki; to make use of materials in our Glow Learn resource library; to use the class Glow forum to discuss difficulties, both asking for help and providing assistance to others; using Glow blogs to record their progress through their AH investigations; adding links to ‘good’ web sites to the Glow group and anything else that occurs to me, or them, over the next few months.

I’m also very keen to push SCHOLAR – Heriott Watt University’s VLE – and get as much of their data handling for experimental work performed using simple spreadsheet techniques, rather than laborious manual analytical techniques.

Suffice it to say, my new class seem a little worried at this approach, some admitting they would be out of their comfort zones. But they seemed to recognise the potential benefits to them of gaining these skills and adopting these attitudes. And hopefully they fancy stepping up to the challenge.

If I’m honest, I am a little worried too. I may have bitten off more than I can chew. I may need to spit a bit out. I might also choke.

That said, I’m not short of support, despite being almost the only ‘Glow guy’ in my school, I’ve also got my guardian angel at the LA, and my amazingly helpful and knowledgable PLN on twitter to fall back on.

I will be blogging about this project on a different blog – the class Glow blog.

—————————————————————–

*[On the Physics Summer School Creative Thinking session we were given the example of 'what if a roof tiler lost an arm? how could he still do his job?'

By adding a captive nail and a sticky pad to the back of each tile, he could probably manage to do the job, but such additions make the job significantly easier for uninjured roof tilers. Thus, the solution to the apparently absurd 'what if?' has real benefits for all.]

This is me…

Thought it might be an idea to do a quick Wordle of the text in my latest application, mainly in order to make sure I wasn’t coming across too one-dimensional.

Capping the word list at 50, I’m pretty happy with the result. No surprise that ‘Glow’ is bigger than most other words (it’s been a very big part of what I do for the last two years or so), but I’m pleased to see so many other ‘positives’ coming through.

Might just send the wordle next time….

#makeuseofglow revisited

Another demo of Glow at last nights staff meeting, this time looking at Glow Light, Glow Blogs and the National Assessement Resource (NAR).

Starting with the Glow login screen, familiar to all, I asked a few questions about who was using Glow, who’d logged in recently and who’d seen the new ‘landing page’. Then I logged in, and a fair few in the audience went ‘Oooooh!’ as Glow Light appeared on the screen.

After a quick click through the standard buttons (avoiding ‘Timetable’ as our Click&Go and Glow still aren’t speaking) I briefly showed colleagues how to add their own buttons – adding one to my Glow Light for our Computer Booking Glow group. Another few positive sounds emanated from the audience at this point.

Then onto Glow Blogs, I gave a brief explanation of Blogs in general, what they could be used for in school, by both staff and pupils using the first entry in my own Glow Blog as a backdrop. Having talked about using blogs for ePortfolio work, I explained what’s being done with our Higher Photography course and showed their class blog that pupils are currently using to upload pictures for working on them in school. This got an ‘Ahhhh’, from my colleagues.  I explained further that individual pupil blogs are planned for the near future, and that each will be linked to from the class blog, with pupils being encouraged to seek and provide comments on each others’ work.

Next was a quick look at the NAR, just to show what a typical assessment exemplar looked like, pointing out the huge breadth of media that can be used for evidence, and showing a bit of video of a pupil’s presentation on Alexander Fleming. NAR got a ‘hmmmmmm’, but I think it was a good ‘hmmmmmm’.

By now, my bit was done, and my colleague Gordon Urquhart, our PT of MFL, showcased a fantastic Glow Meet based project that two of his staff are involved in, teaching French to pupils on the island of Tiree – ‘Bonjour Tiree!’.

This is a genuinely ground-breaking project, with teachers in Helensburgh delivering a French language course remotely to pupils via the Marratech video conferencing tool, to groups of between 4 and about 20 pupils from P4/5 up to Int 2 level.

Gordon and our French probationer, Helene Bernard (who was in a different room), then did a demo of Glow Meet, using the whiteboard tool to play a couple of games, showing the interactivity available to each participant.

This was an incredibly powerful demo of the potential of Glow, and I would hope it has inspired some more of my colleagues to want to try something themselves to #makeuseofglow.

Brilliant CPD – Medical Physics

I went along to Yorkhill Hospital in Glasgow tonight for an IOP event in the medical Physics Department.

About 70 physics and biology teachers from around the west of Scotland attended the event, staffed by some brilliant folk who had given up their time to give us an insight into the work they do in MRI, Nuclear Medicine and Electro-physiology.

At the end of the tour, our hosts asked us for ideas of what could be done with pupils in relation to the work done in the Medical Physics department. Immediate answers included S2 subject choice, SG Physics ‘Health’ unit, and careers options for senior pupils.

It was also suggested that the department could put together some resources, including video and presentations detailing their work and the career paths of some of the staff.

It occured to me at this point that a Glow Meet would be an ideal way to acheive many of these goals. It was also suggested that any materials could be hosted on Glow.

So, some time soon, when I get the chance, I’ll be contacting Glow towers to see if we can maybe sort something out.

Thanks must go to Ronna Montgomery and the Medical Physics team for the whole event. Another brilliant CPD event and a great opportunity to share great stuff on a national level via Glow.

#makeuseofglow

I gave a quick ‘showcase’ demo of Glow at our staff in-service yesterday. Despite a technical hitch – the projector failed 10 minutes into it – I got to show all of my colleagues a few of the things that I think make Glow an valuable tool in education. Encouragingly, a few people have spoken to me since, and their feedback has, on the whole, been positive.

Most have expressed interest in making some use of Glow, and some asked for help in getting started. Being a Glow Mentor, I’m more than happy to help, though I am quite concerned as to how this can best be achieved.

The most precious commodity that we have in our profession, it seems to me, is time, and there simply isn’t enough of it to allow us all to do all the things we might like to be able to do. I’m pretty convinced that making effective use of Glow, and embedding it in my practice, will free up some of my time in order to do other things better, but I get the distinct impression that for many of my colleagues Glow is perceived as an ‘extra’ – something else to be added to the pile of things to do, rather than a means of dealing with some of it.

Lacking inspiration of my own, I put out a tweet seeking advice on encouraging staff to think of Glow as integral to delivering their subjects, rather than as an ‘extra’. I’m hopeful that my PLN will give me some good ideas, responding to the tag #makeuseofglow .

I’m also hopeful that time will be made or found in order to allow me to support and train my colleagues, and to allow us all to share our successes (and failures too).

Please feel free to add any ideas you might have by leaving a comment, or by replying via twitter to @drewburrett using the tag #makeuseofglow .

Must blog properly soon….

Been ages since I last posted, or at least it seems that way. I’ve been busy. Too busy.

Apart from the apparently endless cycle of reports, I’ve done a few things I meant to blog at the time, but didn’t get around to.

In no particular order, I have -

• Attended Teachmeet Perth CfE – another load of great ideas shared, with a few passed on to colleagues
• Started lesson summary blog with S3 Physics here as a task for the TLC I’ve become involved in at school
• Tried combining Video & Interfacing with some S2 Chemistry

video on left of reaction of magnesium with acid

graph & table on right show temp rise to peak when reaction finished

• Joined Edonis – really interesting project on using web, social media and PLNs
• Revamped National Physics Glow Group

I must try harder to blog about things as I do them.

How many times have I said that now?