Marie and Mark, secondary teachers
Marie and Mark are English teachers at a large secondary school. The department has looked closely at resources such as interactive whiteboards, wireless notebooks, and software applications - debating their merits compared with more traditional methods.
For Glow, the school has asked Mark and Marie to look at the whole subject more closely.
Expectations of Glow
Marie isn’t very confident with ICT. Mark, on the other hand, uses his interactive whiteboard all the time.
They were both keen to see if Glow could help with planning and save time in general. They also wanted to see if it could help them share information with their classes.
Mark lives far from the school, and really wants to stop lugging piles of exercise books back and forth.
Starting to use Glow
The school’s continuing professional development (CPD) co-ordinator showed Marie and Mark where to find their Glow CPD pack inside the system’s virtual learning environment.
(The co-ordinator had information on Glow from the education authority’s CPD interest group.)
Marie and Mark found that the pack contained modules to fit in with their own needs. For example, net conferencing seemed a little daunting to Marie, while Mark was doing some media studies work with an S5 class that presented a perfect opportunity to try it out.
Learning about net conferencing
Mark worked through the entire net conferencing module during a period when he wasn’t teaching. He discovered that once he’d organised the equipment, he could easily run live audio and video sessions with his pupils. He was even more excited to find out that everyone could upload documents and images, and work on them at the same time by sharing an online whiteboard.
Running a net conference for the first time
Mark had already saved a gallery of stills on the network, from films he had used in class. He decided to set up a trial evening session - so that anyone who wanted to could join him in examining the key images in detail.
He was amazed when half the class appeared online. Some of them had banded together at their friends’ houses because they didn’t have internet access at home. Even the quietest members of the class took a lively part in the lesson.
By the end, Mark had saved half a dozen whiteboard files, each with detailed notes and comments from the pupils.
Mark’s next lesson began with all this work projected on his whiteboard - and the class clamoured for him to run another net conference.
Getting to grips with Glow in the Teachers’ Personal Space
Marie wanted to know how the virtual learning environment could help manage the work she sets for pupils - and the pupils’ responses.
First of all Marie worked through a module in her CPD pack about the Teachers’ Personal Space - answering questions at the end. When she’d finished, the system automatically sent the answers to the school’s CPD co-ordinator.
The next evening, she logged onto her Personal Space and found that her CPD colleague had returned the task - along with an encouraging comment.
Marie’s personal space
Marie began by personalising her own pages. That meant moving everything into an order which reflected her own priorities. She then added some personal web links she regularly used in school.
Marie also discovered that her personal pages contained information on her pupils, timetables and assessment.
Completing Marie’s development
Marie had already accessed the virtual learning environment with the help of her CPD co-ordinator, and began to search for materials to match 5-14 subject framework objectives for her subject.
A news item told Marie that the virtual learning environment included full information and resources on the 5-14 frameworks - which she could find by simply searching for a subject such as 'genre' or 'poetry'.
Marie created her first complete course in the virtual learning environment, confident she could explain the whole process to any of her colleagues.
Without spending more time at school, Marie worked through the CPD modules on interest groups, sharing and collaboration.
Sharing her experience
By mid term, Marie was asked to report back to the whole department. She had built up a store of questions and answers in the discussion forum - as well as some useful documents in the shared documents area of the CPD interest group. Now all the teachers could benefit from her work.
Using Glow with her classes
Marie was now using Glow to set assignments for her classes. It allowed her to assess and mark online - as well as working with colleagues outside her department more collaboratively than before. The virtual learning environment also allowed her the flexibility to set specific tasks for specific children, helping them realise their own learning goals.
Marking had also become a lot easier to manage. Marie could set tests which were marked automatically, and create markbooks to contain a wealth of detailed information. It was easy to look back and see how a child had progressed through a particular piece of work or aspect of the 5-14 framework.
Sharing information with other schools
At in-service events, Mark had formed a small network of English teachers from other schools. He set up a Glow interest group which they could all access from school or from home. It wasn’t long before he was able to share some of the whiteboard resources he’d created.
Working with teachers overseas
One of the group had spent a year on exchange with an Australian school. He emailed a history colleague in the Australian school who was keen on using technology.
The Australian teacher taught a number of pupils with family roots in Scotland. It didn’t take long to set up a project with Mark’s S4 class, using genealogy to explore Scottish history. The teachers also looked into running a net conference with their classes.
Looking back at the benefits of Glow
At the mid-term review, Mark said one of the biggest advantages of Glow was the ability to collaborate with his network of colleagues in his free time. He also said that working with an Australian school was expanding his pupils' horizons and ambitions.
For Marie, saving time was the benefit. She also liked how easy it was to access valuable information - and the chance to update her professional skills and knowledge.