Tag Archives: Microsoft Office 365

Cairn Primary School Primary 2/3 Glow Pages⤴

Diane Owens from Cairn Primary School in Maybole explains how she began using Glow with her Primary 2/3 class.

Diane had used the previous version of Glow and was given some basic training on the new Office 365 version of Glow by another member of staff in her school.

After this Diane began setting up a class site for her P2/3 class. Diane found she needed a bit of help to begin with, but once she got started it was quite straightforward.

Diane decided to set up a site where her class could access messages from the teacher at home and also find their homework. As the class were P2/3 and operating at First Level, Diane found that the photographs feature of Glow was very useful.

Diane posted photographs which related to the pupils’ homework to help them complete it at home.

As well as this Diane found that the pupils really enjoyed seeing photographs which related to work in the classroom and particularly enjoyed being able to share this with their parents and other family members at home.

Diane also created a list of useful weblinks for the pupils, which included sites such as:

Homework Shop

Think U Know

Woodlands Maths and Literacy

National Geographic kids’ site

Diane found that one of the most popular aspects for the pupils was the ease of communication with the teacher when the pupils were at home or out of school. They regularly commented that this was their favourite thing about using Glow.

Diane reports that she was pleasantly surprised and pleased by how confident the young learners in her class were in using Glow. Diane has 2 Pcs and a laptop in her classroom and the class have 2 sessions in the school’s ICT suite per week, one for curricular work and one for ICT skills.

Using OneNote Class Creator at St Mungo’s High School, Falkirk⤴

from C. Lamont @ Glow Gallery

Jacqueline Campbell, Computing Science and Lynsey McNamee, Design and Technology have been working with interested staff across the school using OneNote Class Notebook Creator and Office 365 sites with One Note class notebooks. The full version of OneNote is installed on all machines throughout the school including mobile trolleys with netbooks in every faculty.

How it has been used

In Higher Computing Science, learners have access to all resources through the OneNote Class Notebook, including videos, presentations, web links, etc. Learners can also access this on their own devices through the school’s BYOD policy. In recent weeks other departments have set up their new classes including D&T, Physics and Music.

They have had some support from Malcolm Wilson, Falkirk Council and Ian Stuart, Education Scotland, as well as some online support. Jacqueline is looking to build up a network of support as they move forward exploring new features and to move to the next level of use with OneNote.

This is part of a 3 year School Improvement focussed on ICT to enhance learning. Initially, a group of staff with interest came on board and in the new session, it will be rolled out to other departments.

Impact

The approach taken has been to use it as a tool, in particular as a resource that allows collaboration. When teaching, it opens up opportunities for collaboration – learner to learner, learner to staff, staff to staff. Also, it allows continued use at home and also further interaction via discussion and collaborative tasks. Feedback is becoming more meaningful and targeted. In addition, the ability to include all resources in the one place has been invaluable. This has allowed flipped learning opportunities to take place.

Learners themselves identified this approach as a useful study tool as it allowed them anytime access to the resources. They felt it was extremely beneficial in the lead up to exams as it allowed them to have the resources on phones, tablets and PCs. The uptake in different departments was seen as very positive by learners and they are enjoying the increased use of these tools because of the flexibility it gives them. They can now work together more easily, sharing resources and support. Some learners need to go over new work several times – using OneNote lends itself to this, allowing them to get it when they are ready.

This approach is very much part of raising the digital technologies agenda and enabling the use of digital tools to support learning. As it is embedded in the School Improvement plan, this ensures it will remain a high priority.

A school approach to using O365 at Harris Academy⤴

from C. Lamont @ Glow Gallery

DHT Peter Murphy and Elaine Hunter, School Librarian explain their whole school approach to using O365 as a communication tool for the school.

Using O365

For practitioners, the daily Please Takes, timetables, room bookings and daily announcements are all kept within the main site. This ensures staff access this daily to keep up-to-date.

Each department has a basic templates, which includes a newsfeed, web-links and document store. All pupils have access to this and are encouraged to use it. The department site is split into sub-sites for Advanced Higher, Higher, Nationals, S3 and S1/2. These are open to all pupils. In addition, each staff member has a page.

Support has been provided from June Jelly, Education Support Officer, Dundee City Council. Over the last year they have introduced it to the staff, including face-to-face training and a very comprehensive help document in electronic format.

Impact

Some departments have embraced as a means to share resources with pupils, allowing them to store everything in the one place. Others have begun using the Newsfeed as a way of communicating with pupils.

One department has an active Social Media presence and plan to embed that on the site.

Future Use

This approach ensures that it will be an on-going development, allowing staff to move forward at an appropriate pace. Some staff have requested additional support to enhance their site as they can see the benefits for learning.

There is some support for using templates on the Glow Help community. This outlines the different features available and will allow you to see how to take this forward in your own context. https://glowscotland.sharepoint.com/sites/GlowHelp/community/_layouts/15/start.aspx#/SitePages/Community Home.aspx?wa=wsignin1.0

Holyrood Secondary – Glow Literacy Site by K Barrowman⤴

from C. Lamont @ Glow Gallery

Holyrood Secondary School, Govanhill, Glasgow

In Holyrood Secondary school we have used the office 365 Glow sites, incorporating tools such as the Newsfeed, surveys, document stores and embedded media with our S1 and S2 pupils (800 children in total).

The site has lots of literacy based activities and links. There are standing activities, such as a reading club, links to external competitions, and a place to share writing. There is also a weekly challenge, with three activities based around a theme, each of which allows pupils to practice their literacy skills and share the results. An added bonus is that using the site ties in with the school’s rewards programme for S1 and S2 pupils, the Holyrood Challenge, and pupils can earn points for contributing to the site.

The Initial set-up of the site took about 4 hours, over a few days, and it takes around an hour each week to archive the previous week’s challenge, collate the points to be awarded, and set up the new challenges.

The impact has been increased learner engagement outside of school. All of the young people who engage with the site are doing so out of choice, and it has fostered a sense of community across classes and year groups. It has been an opportunity for wider achievement, and a really fun way of getting to know kids not in my classes.

Pupils are now aware of Glow, and what it can be used for. The maths department have set up a Numeracy group, and other departments are interested in getting involved. There is a greater willingness among staff and pupils to use online tools for learning. It has also offered a ‘safe’ environment for publishing and celebrating work, which some learners prefer to publishing on a public facing website.

I have now moved on from the school, but I will be working with one of the teachers to take over the running of the site for next session. I hope it will go from strength to strength!

Using Office 365 in Glow at Lochfield Primary School⤴

from P. Lindsay @ Glow Gallery

Lochfield Primary School have been using the Office 365 tools in Glow. They have been working on a shared online PowerPoint about their topic on their class SharePoint site.

We visited the learners on Friday 6 March to see how they have been using Glow and Office 365 to support their learning experience.

Mrs Renton, Mr Montgomery and Mrs Gilday have all been working with the learners in their classes to support them using Office 365.

Some of the learners shared what they liked about Office 365:

“We liked the idea of being able to view and add comments to PowerPoint presentation slides.”

“Just by logging into Glow we could continue working on our project at home.”

“I liked being able to impress my teachers and friends by uploading a video to the online PowerPoint in Office 365.”

“It was GREAT that everyone in my class could work on the one PowerPoint presentation at the same time rather than having to work on PowerPoint presentations and then spend ages putting it together like a jigsaw ! ! !”

What did P3/4 learners think about using Office 365?

What did P5/6 learners think about using Office 365?

Here are some pictures of our wonderful visit

Safer Internet Day 2015 Kinglassie Primary School⤴

from P. Lindsay @ Glow Gallery

A little background to the story……

The Internet Safety – Learners site was developed to illustrate how technology could be used to support teaching and learning.

The purpose was to exemplify key features available through the technology and how this could be used to improve the learning experience.

Olivia Wexelstein (Teacher of P7) at Kinglassie Primary School in Fife kindly agreed to develop a series of lessons with a clear focus on Safer Internet Day. Both the Head Teacher and Olivia recognised that the technology could in fact be used to support a whole school Internet Safety project.

The project was carried out on February 9-10 2015 which would coincide with Safer Internet Day. Although the technology supported a whole school approach to Internet Safety it also opened up possible opportunities for other learners and educators across Scotland to take part and contribute to the project.

It was clear throughout the planning of the project that technology offered a wide range of ideas and possibilities to improve the learning experience. Each task was designed to incorporate various features of technology and this allowed learners an opportunity to engage with technology on a wider scale.

Was Glow services the only type of technologies used in the project?

No, although Glow offers a wide range of technological services other types of technologies were explored as the purpose of the project was to exemplify how technology could be used to support teaching and learning.

Which Glow services were used for the project?

Olivia created tasks which allowed learners the opportunity to use the following features within Glow:

Office 365

OneNote to share ideas
Newsfeed to communicate and share learning experiences with others
Discussion forum to discuss a Safer Internet Day video
A dedicated area which allowed learners to upload their work

Wikis

Another collaborative tool which supported learners in working together on a specific task

Did young people have an opportunity to use any other types of technology other than services offered through Glow?

Yes, Olivia used Padlet (https://padlet.com/) which is a virtual wall that allows people to express their ideas and thoughts. It really is like an online sheet of paper where content e.g. images, videos, documents and text etc can be added anywhere on the page from any device.

Can I have a look at the site to see what Kinglassie PS achieved?

Absolutely, the site is available at: http://tinyurl.com/lkhaz5b. The site was available and promoted using the national newsfeed on Glow as well as using other communication channels such as the Education Scotland Facebook and Twitter accounts.