#learnerham

I’ve spent some time today building a Glow group for my S2′s to use.  They are about to embark on the first of 2 group challenges.  We have used the RBS Moneysense website as the focus of the first task for the past couple of sessions, but we’ve never quite got it right.  The materials are good and the pupils have been on task, but we (my colleagues and I) have failed to develop group communities as pupils complete the task.  I’m also not very good at focussing on the role of the individual within the group; assessing each pupil’s contribution to the process is more important than the end group result, but I know I’ve not given that enough attention in the past.

Glow Group front page

The Glow group is going to be one tool that I use to change that.  I am going to ask every pupil to upload their work as they go, not just the finished products.  I’m also going to use the class forum to challenge them to reflect on what they are trying to achieve.  I’m going to ask them to reflect honestly on how they have worked with others;  what have they brought to the table, how could they improve and what have they seen others do that is worth celebrating?

I’ve neglected my own blog for too long, and as a result my own opportunity to reflect.  I read Kenny Pieper’s latest blog post earlier today, “More Teachers Need to Blog“.  Kenny reminded me why blogging is so important: it’s an opportunity to develop your thought process, and therefore to improve the experiences of your pupils.  With that in mind, here comes my thoughts!

The task

Pupils have been asked to consider the skills and qualities that they already feel they have as well as those where they need to improve.  It was apparent when speaking with them that they have had many opportunities to work in groups, but most could not give an example of a time where they were innovative, patient, reflective or able to demonstrate leadership.  For this task I am mixing my pupils up, so that they are in a group with pupils who they have not chosen to work with already, in my class at least.  I have tried to make sure that every pupil has at least one person in their group who they have already established a relationship with.

In groups of 4 or 5, they are going to be given the brief, developed by the RBS Moneysense team.  They have to appoint people to 4 roles:  Manager, Consultant, Marketer and Finance Officer.  The success of the task is dependent on each individual giving information to others in their team.

They are going to use the Glow group as a basic document store, allowing notes, images and documents to be shared amongst the  group, and with me.  One paper pack will be given to each group.  Each pack has a QR code on it, allowing pupils to access the information online via their Smart phones if they choose to.  I have also created a Twitter account for this task.  I will use this to tweet task and deadline reminders as we go through the weeks.  Not sure how successful this will be, but without trying it I will never know!

I have 4 S2 classes, one on a Monday, one a Wednesday, one a Thursday and the last class on a Friday.  I am going to add a blog post each week, hopefully on a Wednesday night, to give me a chance to reflect on how things are going.  I’m still not quite sure how to assess the role of the individual, all I know is that I need to do it and want to include the pupil being assessed as well as the other group members.  That one needs thinking out!

Yesterday’s ICT Summit, held at the Stirling Management Centre, has brought me out of my blogging hibernation.  I started this blog to help me reflect.  The reason for my lack of posts here has more to do with the arrival of my beautiful daughter than anything else; my heed is bursting and my now 10 month old daughter has learned to go to sleep so here goes my thoughts on what needs to happen next:

The wiki and twitter feed have been great places for debate and ideas, although the wiki ended up a little too unorganised for my brain to cope with.  Neil Winton talked passionately and with authority on his blog about the rare opportunity this consultation (and I do think it is a genuine consultation) gives us.  I agree with him.  The rub for me is the potential for the opportunity to be wasted.  We need to grab this opportunity with both hands and come out the other side with a clear mandate for what needs to be change.

I’m worried that might not happen.

I’m a positive person, always looking for the solution and try to not get bogged down by the problem, but I worry that there are too many views surrounding the future of Glow and ICT in schools and we will get lost in the argument.

Let’s look to the future.  It genuinely saddens me to constantly read about ‘Glow’s failings’.  (I’ve just deleted a whole paragraph as Jim Buchan captured many of my thoughts much better than I had been able to on his blog today).

One example of a question that has been asked on the wiki:

Why do I use Glow groups instead of Google docs to collate pupil work? 

This simple answer:  I started using Glow before I knew what a Google doc was.  I knew about Glow because it was a National Initiative.  I cannot easily give my pupils access to Google accounts.  They forget the passwords and I have no way of resetting them.  Google docs is blocked in my LA.

Moving forward:  I need the single sign on to continue.  I don’t have to reset S1 pupil passwords anymore because they log on so often (not just in my class and also at home) that they remember what their password is.  The only reason pupils forget their username and password is when they go weeks and months without a reason to use them.  I would be delighted to see my pupils log into Glow 2 and be shibbolised to a Google doc, or Microsoft Windows Live, or iCloud account.  I can’t do that just now.

STOP.  I am dirtying the waters again.  Let me try, as briefly as possible to put down what I think needs to happen.

1      We are putting the cart before the horse.  We need bandwidth and a joined up hardware solution before we get to the nitty gritty.  Our young people deserve every opportunity available to them.  I believe that giving them more access to the Internet is a good thing.  We cannot do that without bandwidth.  I know I am simplifying this, but in my head the SG give money to Education Scotland to provide the Interconnect to LA’s.  Too much of the Interconnect is syphoned by LA’s, not enough of it is given so schools.  This needs to change.

2      Many of our young people have a solution in their Smart Phones and tablet devices.  We actively stop them from using them in school.  This needs to change too.

3      We need a National plan to give access to those pupils and families who do not have access to the Internet at home.  Programs like the £95 computer is a start but the monthly cost of broadband is still prohibitive for too many.

4      We need to retain the Single Sign On.  This is crucial.  I used wikis and blogs in my classroom BG (before Glow), but the fact that pupils needed to sign up themselves and often forgot their usernames and passwords always got in the way.

5      We need a core set of tools.  We also need to enable educators and learners to add their own tools (Nick Hood’s question about a Glow API was a good one and would help here).  The biggest negative from today’s event was that it came from a group of like minded people who knew what an API was.  If we are going to increase the confidence of every teacher to use technology for the benefit of learning then we need to say here is a core group of online things that might help you.  Too much choice, with no guidance or support is the last thing that is going to improve confidence.

6      We need strong leadership from our Head Teachers.  They need to support all staff to embrace technology.  They need to have their hands untied from the red tape that dominates the barriers we face in open software and web filtering.

7      We can no longer see ICT as an optional extra.  It is a core part of the curriculum, not an add on.  It is mentioned explicitly in the SFR.  We can no longer shy away from the teacher who says ‘I don’t do technology’.  We don’t allow our teachers to not do Health and Wellbeing, or AifL.

8      We need to stop using the analogy that every teacher can use the Internet in their personal life; some cannot.  We need to support them, show them what they are missing out on and how their young people are suffering as a result.  A basic level of ICT knowledge isn’t acceptable either.  We need to lift our expectations, our young people deserve more.

9      2012 is not that far away.  We need to move forward, together, now.

10  We need to remember why we are doing this:  to improve opportunities for all learners, to enhance learning and teaching.  We have limited time, a finite budget and a huge opportunity to put in place a solution that works for every learner, educator, parent, business and granny.

And that was me being brief?  This is difficult, but so so important.  Whatever happens, for the sake of education in Scotland, we need to move forward together.

I’ve neglected this blog for the past 9 months.  Not on purpose:  as part of the Glow team there were other places for me to get my thoughts down – the GlowScotland blog, the Internet Safety blogs that I created and the team forum (a hive of activity for a team who were forever on the move).

Also, on the 9 December my life changed forever (and for the better!) when my lovely wife gave birth to our first daughter.  Olivia Elizabeth is now 6 months old and another reason for my lack of blogging!

The main reason for this post is to signal the end of my secondment.  I can’t believe it’s been a year already but I am back to school tomorrow.  New timetable, new shoes and new challenges – I have seen so much good practice this past year, but now it’s my turn to do right by my learners.  I am really looking forward to being back in the classroom and finally getting the chance to embrace CfE for real, with real learners.

I hope to come back to this blog to self-reflect on the challenges, successes and questions that the experiences and outcomes will through at me, my colleagues and my learners.  I’ve got that Sunday night feeling….!

The Scottish Learning Festival has been and gone.  What a great, busy two days.  Exhausting but great to chat with so many teachers about Glow, what is working, and what needs to change.

The festival this year coincided with the Glow Refresh campaign, where we highlight what changes have taken place within Glow in recent months (more info and some jazzy videos showing what is new can be found here!)

We were also able to talk to lots of people about Glow, gather feedback, demo live and engage in conversations with practitioners from across Scotland.

Ross Watson (my colleague from the national team) held 2 great sessions on the Scottish Government stand talking about what we are doing.

I love engaging with teachers and others around the subject of Glow and the fab examples that I have been able to see as I work with teachers and students from across the country.   I also enjoy having conversations on the future of Glow and with people who are frustrated by it.

Dave Terron summed up the views of many on his blog this morning.  Click here to read his post and my reply.  John Sexton makes some good points re creative uses of technology and Glow on his blog.

I would urge ALL Glow users, in fact, all Scottish educators, to get involved in the future of Glow.  The Glow Futures team are working hard collating information, facts and thoughts from all over Scotland.  Please make sure your voice is heard by replying to one of their online questionnaires of discussion forums – link here.

It seems that every time I am asked to stand up and talk about Glow my job gets a little bit easier.

The latest improvement is Glow Light, the new landing page for Glow.  Glow Light went live for many users across Scotland yesterday and marks a significant change to how people will use and view Glow because it gives users control of what they see as soon as they arrive into the Glow portal.

When you see the Glow Light page for the first time it looks like this:

It is really easy to change how Glow Light looks by removing buttons or adding new buttons (that can either take you to another favourite place within Glow or to an external favourite website).

A user can also reorder the way the buttons appear or indeed even chose to not see the Glow Light interface the next time they log on.

The background image will change every week.  We have a lovely wee bank of images to take us up until Christmas.  After that it is over to individuals, schools and Local Authorities to chose what images are displayed on the Glow Light landing page – meaning a chance for us all to showcase our work or local area to all Glow users.

The search button (seen in the middle of the new landing page) has been greatly improved too.  It is now possible to search by file type or only Glow groups.  A federated search has been added which currently means LTS Online content will also be returned when a user searches for a term from within Glow.  This can be added to in the future by searching CPD Find or Journey to Excellence content, for example.  This new improved search can be accessed from any Glow group, as well as from the Light landing page.

More information on Glow Light, including how a school ASM can turn it on can be found here.

Has it really been almost 2 months since I last blogged?  I can’t quite believe that it has been that long but a quick look at my Outlook Calendar reminds me just how busy I have been.

I started at LTS 3 weeks before the end of term, and gave up my teacher holidays into the bargain.  In truth I didn’t miss the holidays and have loved everything I have done in the last 3 months.  I was on holiday for the first 2 weeks of August and for the first time in my teaching life I took the full holiday to relax!  No emails, no work, just family and relaxation!

I am learning all the time.  The biggest change with my new job has been having to organise my own time.  In school I was used to bells and timetables; now the bells have been replaced with calendar alarms and the timetables with Scotrail!

Things have really got busy since the schools and uni’s went back.  Lot’s of training and projects planned with various people to keep me busy in the run up to SLF.  Then the 2 day conference itself will be great as I will get to meet lots more people (as well as catching up with twitter buds and friends).

I have been involved with the new Glow blogs which has been great.  I have really enjoyed understanding more about the processes that go on to make ideas a reality.  I have become more creative (thanks to my new colleague and buddy Pam) and have taken a fresh approach to the Glow groups under my charge – not just by improving how they look with new interfaces but more importantly focussing on the purpose of the group – is it clear why the group exists and does it achieve what it should?

You will notice a difference in the look and purpose of many National Curriculum groups over the coming months as many of my LTS Curriculum colleagues have been working hard on updating the national groups content and layout to make them even more user friendly.

Look out to for a new marketing campaign coming soon highlighting why we think Glow is getting better!

There’s something about Twitter…

What is going on with Twitter?  I know there are huge benefits to tweeting: I get so much out of it, by way of contacts, links, ideas, support and sometimes just a good old laugh! BUT the problems the site has been having recently have been driving me nuts!

Tweetdeck failed to show anything in my columns for most of the day yesterday (despite twitter.com functioning normally).  Sometimes you tweet once and end up showing your message 3 or 4 times as it ‘pretends’ not to show.  More frequently, tweets are sent to you in the wrong order, making it difficult to follow conversations.  And then there is the dreaded Fail Whale, that looks at you smugly when things go wrong.

I guess my question is, at what point does the bad outway the good?  How long are people going to put up with the overcapacity and the capped API rates? When do you say, “actually you have had long enough to sort this out and I’m going to stop using your service”?

I don’t know the answer to those questions.  I can’t think of another Internet service that consistently performs so poorly that people stick with.  Having said that I think I’ll stick with it a wee bit longer.  It is, after all, a great thing.  Phew, nearly talked myself out of Twitter there…

I tweeted this earlier but thought I would add it here in case anyone missed it.

Glow blogs have been launched (post here) and some defects have come to light.  These will be fixed in the very near future.

The Glow Team are keen to continue with the era of transparency and will keep users updated on the progress of the blog fixes here.

I have had fun playing with the new Glow blogs.  They launched yesterday and I got a chance to play.  They are built on the WordPress platform which meant I found my way around.  The IT team at RM have done a huge amount of work answering the call of so many who see the potential of things like blogs and wikis being added into Glow.

There are a few cosmetic teething problems that will be sorted out over the summer, I refer to one of them in my first post:

https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/st/Alan_Hamilton/2010/06/26/glowbetter/

BUT what a huge amount of potential.  I am really looking forward to getting into classrooms across the country from August and seeing what the blogs can do to enhance learning.

It is also great to see how teachers such as Margaret Vass, Caroline Breyley and John Johnstone are getting stuck in and seeing past the teething issues.

(more…)

I am loving my work.  How many people can say that with such enthusiasm?  I know it is early days but I am genuinely loving every minute.  (actually, every minute except the immediate aftermath of walking up the 7 flights of stairs to my desk after the fire alarm last week!)

Some of the highlights of last week:

• Working from home – that is a novelty!  I managed to get quite a bit done but I am still at the stage of asking lots of questions and the great thing about Optima Towers is there is always someone about to answer even the most stupid of questions, like “what do you wear to the whole staff meeting?”  The beauty of Glow meant that I was able to attend two meetings via Glow Meet!  The downside is that my wife thinks because I am in the house all day she can leave me the same lists that I usually get during the summer hols!
• Meeting a fellow twit – Julie Hope, LTS Health and Wellbeing DO, and talking about how the H&W agenda, including the Internet Safety stuff, is being driven forward
• Using Skype (I know, I really should have done that before) and more importantly being able to hold a Skype call with Carol Rainbow – Carol has been doing some fab things with Second Life and Internet Safety and has very generously given me access to her Moodle
• Getting to sit down with the IT team from Stirling Council and listen to their plans for Glow next year
• Meeting Falkirk teachers and hearing what 2 clusters are planning to do to get the Internet Safety message across to pupils and parents (you can read more about this from Margaret Vass’ blog)  I have added the slides that I used at the Falkirk meeting below.  I will post about the Glow group separately soon
• Meeting everyone involved in the Hooks and Bites co-create project – this is one of 10 co-create Glow projects that are ongoing.  Pupils from nursery, P7 and S5 were all involved in charting life transitions using sound and moving images – they are now focussing on the creating of a Glow group – you will be blown away by what the pupils achieved

As I think back to last week I am reminded of how varied the work I am involved in is.  This week I am getting to know more LTS staff at the whole staff meeting and getting to meet more of the Glow LA contacts at the Key Contacts meeting.  Oh, and hopefully getting my new iPhone 4!  Things are hectic, but hectic is good!

Internet Safety and Responsible Use presentation: