by The Editor | Feb 27, 2017 | Glow, Launchpad
When you first log into Glow, you will be taken to a launchpad which shows a variety of tiles. Each tile is a link which takes you to tools and services which you can access for free with your Glow account.
There are 3 launchpads available.
Personal launchpad – Can be customised by each individual. I add the tiles I use most commonly to make my user experience accessible and faster.
School launchpad – Tiles which have been added by each school. Useful tiles such as TigTag, Midlothian Resources and One Drive are all available in this section.
Scotland launchpad – Created by staff from Glow.
Your Glow Launchpad will look similar to this:
I always suggest that learners and teachers click on each of the tiles to find out exactly what they do, the launchpad cannot break. Doing this will inform choices for a personal launchpad and will help users become familiar with what Glow has to offer.
by The Editor | Feb 27, 2017 | Glow, Glow Blogs, Latest News
Pupils across Midlothian are talking about blogs, are bloggers and share blogs but what are they talking about? How do they blog? Who can blog?
What is a blog?
The word blog is short for ‘weblog.’ It is a regularly updated website belonging to one person or a group that is written informally and can be shared with the rest of the world. Our LTT site is an edublog and so most posts are informal and follow a conversational style. Each post created is displayed in reverse chronological order so that the most recent entry shows first at the top of the page.
A blogger is someone who writes the content for a blog. In a recent visit to a Midlothian primary school, a child shared her cooking blog with me where she uploads videos, recipes and photographs of things she has cooked. Another child had a personal blog to document her learning about coding.
Anyone can blog
and there a variety of platforms in which this can be done online. Within Glow, there is a Glow Blogs Midlothian tile in which pupils, teachers and groups can create blogs which are safe to use due to Glow safety parameters.
Why should you use blogs in the classroom?
Glow blogs used in the classroom are a great way of pupils coming together and sharing their learning with the outside world as well as using it as an engagement tool in writing. Currently, Hawthornden Primary School use blogs for each class so that they can share their learning. Saint Mary’s PS recently created a blog about their Very Important Bear topic so that pupils could post about their experiences of taking their class bear home. BrainPOP have created a handy video explaining why you should use a school blog which you can watch here.
Who can see it? Is it safe?
If you create a blog using the Glow blogs tile, you can set your security settings. You can either make your blog completely private, accessible to Glow users only or accessible to all. I always tell classes to keep it completely private until we have the content and design up and running. This is also a good way of monitoring what the children are posting and sharing lessons on appropriate and inappropriate content. It should be noted also that teachers can set a class blog to approved posts only meaning only posts approved by the class teacher will show.
Examples of blogs
Hawthornden Primary School (P2)
Hawthornden Primary School (P3/4)
Hawthornden Primary School (P7)
mi:SPACE blog
Design Department @ Saint David’s High School
by The Editor | Feb 27, 2017 | e-portfolio, Glow
What is an e-Portfolio?
A Glow e-Portfolio is a digital way for pupils to share information. Pupils can document their learning experiences, reflecting on their personal progress, recording self assessment and can also attach photographs and samples of work as evidence. They can also use an e-Portfolio to share personal achievements.
Why do we need to know?
Having a digital e-Portfolio is useful as all learners are able to access their Glow accounts at school and home. It gives them a central place to record key learning experiences and encourages them to be reflective. E-Portfolio’s can be shared with class teachers so that they can keep track of a learners personal progress. Parents and carers can also be shown it by pupils to keep them informed about learning.
In Midlothian, primary schools are using Glow e-Portfolio’s in Primary 7 so that pupils can create Learner Profiles which can be shared during their first week of high school. Other schools have started this process further down the school instead of using a paper based folio of work.
Glow have provided excellent step by step instructions on setting up an e-portfolio which include video and written instructions here.
by The Editor | Nov 25, 2016 | Glow, O365, Teaching and Learning
Sway is a presentation tool available as part of the Office 365 tools within Glow. Primary 5 at Saint Mary’s Primary School have been using Sway alongside many other Office 365 tools to learn more about Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. Here is what they created:
A fantastic way of children sharing their learning, working collaboratively, creating content and showing their understanding.
by The Editor | Nov 4, 2016 | Glow, O365, Teaching and Learning
Office Sway is a presentation tool available as part of the Office 365 tools available within your OneDrive on Glow. It has an inbuilt professional design tool which allows users to create multimedia presentations without any special software or advanced skills.
Pupils and adults who have used it have expressed that it is easy to use, can be made in minutes and shared with their class. Within Sway pupils can add media content (photographs, video, tweets etc.) without having to leave the page they are working on as there is an inbuilt search engine that they can access on the left side of their screen.
Sways can be worked on collaboratively by multiple users and shared to others quickly and easily. The Microsoft Education website has lots of video tutorials and CPD opportunities available for teachers to find out more.For more information click on this link Introduction to Sway
by The Editor | Sep 9, 2016 | Glow, O365
Yammer is a private and secure social network which Teachers and Pupils can connect, collaborate and coordinate across classes, schools, local authorities and beyond.
Yammer is accessible in Glow through the Office365 tools in the OneDrive tile.
Yammer makes Education and Learning:
- Social
- Mobile
- Collaborative
- Real-time
- Contextual
Yammer allows teachers and students to get quick answers to questions, share news with only those who need to know, coordinate work for projects and discover valuable information.
There is a Yammer app that is accessible on the app store which makes access even quicker.
There are currently over 10000 members on Glow Yammer. Join the conversation and take advantage of the fantastic professional dialogue availble with colleagues throughout Scotland.
