Tag Archives: Cool projects

What’s Glow-ing on? How Scottish pupils are using the Internet to learn⤴

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Yesterday pupils and teachers from six Scottish schools met the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning Angela Constance and Minister for Schools, Science and Scotland’s Languages, Alasdair Allan to talk about how they use Glow, Scotland’s national online environment for learning, and digital technology generally in their schools. Glow is unique, allowing pupils to use the Internet to learn in a secure environment accessible from anywhere and at any time from any device. It includes social features such as blogs and discussion areas and it supports Curriculum for Excellence, Scotland’s holistic, flexible and pupil-centered way of learning for 3 to 18 year olds.

There was a real buzz in the room as pupils talked about digital technology and showed off the ways they are using Glow in their schools. Some of the reasons they said they like using Glow were:

  • Teachers can add comments to homework
  • Being able to talk to each other about what they are doing in class and easily share ideas
  • The pupils are too young to join Facebook or Twitter and Glow gives them an alternative to be able to talk to their friends
  • Glow is a safe environment
  • They like Glow’s personalised launchpad as it gives easy access to their favourite apps
  • The advice on Glow about not giving away personal details is helpful (Community Rules)
  • Teachers can upload revision videos which gives pupils a different way to revise.

glow kid testimonial

The pupils were also honest about the drawbacks of using Glow, listing internet connectivity problems and the lack of devices in the classroom sometimes being an issue.

Gemma Sanderson, a teacher from Kirkton of Largo Primary School said: “Glow is so much better, I’m on it every day. The main thing for our school is that everything is in Glow – all in one place. Children like how everything is linked.”

Glow is available to every pupil and teacher in Scotland. To find out more about what is happening with Glow in your local area, to submit a query about how to get started and how to use Glow, please get in touch with your local authority key contact.

 

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Growing up in Scotland- tracking the lives of thousands of Scotland’s children⤴

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The Growing Up in Scotland study (GUS) has been following the lives of children and their families across Scotland for nearly 10 years. There are 2 groups of children taking part in the research – an older group of 3,500 children now in Primary 6, and a younger group of 6,000 children who are approaching their 5th birthdays.

The study is funded by the Scottish Government to provide new information about what makes Scotland the ‘best place to grow up’. GUS helps us to look at how the circumstances and experiences of children in Scotland are changing and how early experiences can have an impact later on in life.

With an increasing focus on overall child wellbeing, research findings from GUS can help us to understand why some children feel unhappy and why some children have social and emotional difficulties. Our researchers used information provided by seven year-old children and their mothers from around 3,200 families, who were interviewed in 2012/13, to explore Family and school influences on children’s social and emotional well-being.

Not surprisingly, the research finds that relationships are key to child wellbeing. Greater conflict in parent-child relationships, lower parental awareness of children’s activities and/or relationships when not at school, children’s difficulties adjusting to primary school and children having poorer quality friendships were associated with children having high levels of behavioural and emotional problems, and with lower life satisfaction.

For more detail, please see the full report or read a blog by the lead researcher, Alison Parkes from the MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit at the University of Glasgow.

Also new from GUS

We have developed some new pages on our website for children. Although primarily aimed at the P6 children who are taking part in the study, they might also be of interest to others. The pages include a fun quiz which highlights some of our research findings. Please have a look and let us know what you think.

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Innovative Learning Week at Edinburgh University⤴

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ilw2015

A student’s feedback about last year’s ILW: it gives the freedom and time to explore ideas.

 

This week Edinburgh University is prepping students and staff for Innovative Learning Week (ILW) which runs from February 16th to 20th 2015. Johanna Holtan, coordinator of ILW, is getting out and about to introduce the idea of the learning week and to encourage students and staff to come up with topics for sessions that will allow them to collaborate, meet new people and look at new ways to approach learning.

ILW 2015 is the fourth year Edinburgh University is opening up spaces to facilitate people to come together to play an active role in the academic community. One of the ideas behind ILW is that innovation is a cycle and things should continue beyond the week and this year Johanna and a team of five will do more than ever before to follow up with participants and session coordinators to measure the impact the activity has had.

There is funding available for sessions around interdisciplinary issues, sessions led by students and staff, public engagement, curriculum innovation, student engagement and more and there is a push this year to create events that are community led, not just staff or student led, which gives citizens a great opportunity to get involved with some events during Innovative Learning Week.

Sessions will be submitted to Johanna and her team from this week. A brochure will be available from early December and links to events online will be available from January. We’ll update you when the events listings are up so you can start planning what you want to attend but in the meantime you can follow Innovative Learning Week

– on Facebook

– @InnovLearning

– #ILW2015

– on their university web pages

 

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