never mind the optics

It’s great when you are freed from the curriculum straitjacket and allowed to explore issues that have captured the interest of pupils outwith the classroom.  At my school, we’ve traditionally had a window to do just that with S2 classes from March until June, when they move on to S3 and a new, externally assessed treadmill.

This year has been a little different.  We’re using the time to trial some new Curriculum for Excellence topics ahead of the new S2 starting them in June. Based around surfing, my class have investigated waves, board design and properties of surfboard materials.

Having some knowledge about waves, they were keen to find out more about the Japanese tsunami in the days after it struck.  Then, with news of problems at the Fukushima reactor complex, we had a few lessons on nuclear physics and performed some background radiation measurements for Drew Burrett’s crowd sourced map of background radiation following the detection of Iodine-131 in Scotland.

We’ve finished looking at the physics of surfing and, just as we were about to discuss possible topics to take us to the end of S2, there was a new volcanic eruption in Iceland and a request from the British Geological Survey to help with a survey of ash distribution.

There is no doubt that ash has fallen on Thurso, just look at the bonnet of my car.

We set up the ash collectors following the BGS instructions.  Three books were positioned around the school; one in each of the quads and another by the roof of the old science greenhouse.

The ash collectors are lengths of upside-down sticky tape.  We used weights from my classroom to ensure the ring binders did not flip over during the collection period.  At the end of each monitoring period, the tape is taken back to the classroom and sent away to the BGS for analysis.  S2 are adding their new Glow Mail addresses to each sample so the BGS can return a copy of the results.

The BGS site also contains a short questionnaire to gauge the current distribution of ash around the UK.  As the map shows, there seems to have been a more noticeable fall of ash over Scotland and Northern England.

I think it’s so important for pupils to have these opportunities to explore scientific stories that appear in the news.  Not only is it highly motivational for pupils to have this say in what they learn, it also promotes the usefulness of scientific literacy in everyday life.  Recent stories in the media, such as the call to ban wireless networks and mobile phones in schools, are typical of the challenges we face when promoting an evidence based approach to doing and using science in society.

By coincidence, the Association for Science Education recently produced a book called Science Newswise 2 to help teachers use news stories effectively in lessons.

eBook Download

This cold snap has been challenging for all of us.  While other parts of the country have been more seriously affected, we’ve had one full closure day at my school and closed early on 2 occasions.

I noticed several spikes in the statistics for my classroom site last week.  The logs showed that some schools further south had directed Standard Grade Physics pupils to my site as part of their work posted online for those unable to get to school.

When I saw the fresh snow this morning, I felt it was time for me to set something up for my own pupils. I posted work this morning before I left for school, directing pupils to Danny Mallon’s site for Standard Grade and to edited notes from the Fife Science site for Higher.

The Scottish Government has been quick to highlight that Glow has been used to good effect by some schools and local authorities, such as Aberdeenshire. It’s unfortunate that these innovations remain unavailable to all pupils in my local authority.

I had a tweet from Drew Burrett asking if I had experienced any difficulties with Glow Meet since the most recent Java update from Apple.

I hadn’t but then it’s been a while since I used Glow Meet.  So I logged in to Glow and, sure enough, it gave an error about halfway through the start-up process.  I did some digging and found Glow was not the only site experiencing problems with the Java update.

Unfortunately, Snow Leopard would not allow me to install java 1.5 for Leopard and I was to be left without a working Glow Meet until I found this site with instructions on how to reinstall the older version of Java that works with Glow Meet.

You need to run these commands from the terminal but I have tested the process and it does indeed fix the problem and allow Glow Meet to run once more.

Physics teachers from across the Highlands got together for a CPD day last Saturday.  The event was hosted by Nick Forwood, our local Physics Teacher Network coordinator, at Fortrose Academy.

After a keynote from Tom Balanowski, the SQA Principal Assessor for Advanced Higher Physics, we were able to choose up to three workshops from the list on the right, plus an additional option of learning how to configure the free telescope for schools supplied by The Society for Popular Astronomy.

I presented a session on using blogs, wikis and iTunes in the Physics classroom.  It was a demonstration of the resources I have built into my classroom blog, with an update on how using iTunes to push homework exercises and videos homework solutions out to pupils’ home computers had been received.

I also took the chance to show off some of the work that had been produced during the Building Glow Communities event for Science teachers earlier in the week.  I was surprised to find that questions were asked about my use of Voicethread and Animoto in the classroom.  People who are working on developing their CfE outcomes were interested in the opportunities these tools presented in terms of genuine pupil-focused creativity, digital evidence of their experiences and the chance to produce something other than powerpoint slides.

I was delighted to share my experience of using these sites with them and gave examples of how I had used them in my classroom.  The enthusiasm with which they were considering non-traditional activities shows that Curriculum for Excellence really is going to change the way our pupils experience science in the years ahead.

I know that it’s only a matter of minutes since I posted about the Glow groups I started to create after returning from the Building Glow Communities event but I need to show you all something.  As I started to work on my groups, I realised that I had an obvious source of resources in my classroom blog.  I tried to use an XML web part to bring the RSS feed into Glow but it just didn’t look right, see screenshot below.

The text is all bunched up together and the layout does not let you easily identify the beginning and end of individual entries.  This is a shame because I thought I could pull in homework activities and their solutions in the same way that they are published to iTunes.

Luckily, there’s a very helpful Glow genius called Fraser who came to my rescue.  He has a black belt in XSL and was able to write some code that will allow anyone with a WordPress blog to import their RSS feed into Glow.  This is a major breakthrough for my personal plan for using Glow with pupils and I am sure that there will be many blogging teachers around Scotland who will be eager to take advantage of this solution.

As a before & after activity, take a look at the structure that has been given to my blog feed in the following screenshots.

Notice how the embedded video player now sits neatly amongst the text. There are also clearly recognisable download links, making the feed much more useful.

I use my classroom blog to feed four different podcasts; Advanced Higher, Higher, Intermediate 2 and Standard Grade Physics.  Wordpress category feeds keep the posts in the correct podcast and Fraser has set up the code so I can feed any combination of WordPress categories into Glow, essentially replicating the podcasting process I have been using.

This is a seriously useful piece of code to have for your Glow group.

I went down to Stirling Management Centre recently for the Building Glow Communities workshop for science teachers.  My experience of Glow is very limited and I have to admit to being less than impressed with my encounters to date, e.g. here & here.  There were two factors that influenced my decision to apply for a place at the event.  I wanted to learn about Glow and I wasn’t sure when or if local training would delivered.

There was a very broad range of Glow experience among the attendees, ranging from beginners like myself to teachers who use Glow daily in their classroom.  Over the 2 days, we learned about Glow Groups and how to use web parts to introduce content.  We worked in small groups to produce shared Glow groups on a range of diverse topics to support delivery of the science curriculum, including Advanced Higher Physics, Science transition from level 2 to level 3, Famous Scientists & The X-tra terrestrial Factor.

I’m particularly proud of the group my own team produced to support the outcome on considering the potential for life on other planets.  We created activities to…

consider the environmental factors affecting alien physiology
	build a model of the solar system
explore the Martian surface
	Find out about NASA’s mission to find habitable planets

The group building sessions were broken up by short introductions to new web parts & techniques, information about intellectual property rights, demonstrations on how to create content such as a Voki or Wordle and embed it in your group to make the group pages more visually appealing.

It was a great CPD opportunity and I’ve already started work on my own Glow groups for use in school when pupil logins are rolled out.

A bunch of physics teachers met up in Perth last night for what we believe to be the first ever subject specific TeachMeet.  We had a great turnout for an evening meeting outside the central belt, with people from Edinburgh, Fife, Dundee, Aberdeen, Helensburgh and Thurso(!) in attendance.  The speakers were;

• Drew Burrett (Hermitage Academy) – Using Glow in the Physics Classroom
• Michael Walker (Robert Gordon College) – Ruben tube (see video below)
• Sinclair Mackenzie (Thurso High) – iPod my Physics
• Iain Lawrie (George Watson’s College) - A cup of tea and a chocolate digestive (encouraging pupil engagement with Latent Heat)
• Bob Kibble (Moray House) - ’Just a moment, aren’t they simultaneous equations?’ Impress your maths colleagues with wooden beams
• Drew Burrett – National Glow Group for Physics teachers
• Dave Spittal (Kinross High) – things that can be achieved using cheap web cams in demonstrations
• Nick Hood (Glenwood High) - A proposal for “Mathematical Modelling in the new Higher”

We also had Andrew Brown joining us from a Glow Meet that Drew had set up and several people followed proceedings via a flashmeeting.  The flashmeeting was recorded, so you can click on that link to watch the event.  Dave Spittal captured the sessions on his camcorder, so an edited version may appear at some point in the future.  As Physics teachers know, it was compulsory to round a night like this off with a curry.  Thanks to Neil Winton for recommending the Manzil.

As promised, here is Michael’s video of the Ruben tube in action

Several teachmeet rules were thrown out the window, few stopped talking after 7 minutes and we took questions.  I have grabbed the audio of my own talk from the flashmeeting.  You can listen using the player below.  Be warned – it’s longer than 7 minutes and it is a bit loud due to the headset microphone we used so you might want to turn the volume down if you are using headphones!

Standard Podcast Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I blogged somewhere else about how busy we all were within Scottish Education at the end of September and I realised that I have slipped into November without finishing what I wanted to say about some aspects of Glow that I find worrying.

What struck me about the Scottish Learning Festival was the mutual back-slapping over Glow (Glow is the intranet for Scottish schools that is currently being rolled out across the country). There were plenty of seminars and workshops spread across the two day agenda at the Festival but there was little substance to the events. For example, I booked my place at one of the workshops on the Glow virtual learning environment because it seemed to me like the perfect opportunity to learn more about the VLE element of Glow that was restricted to only a few authorities in the 3 week trial we had back in June. I suspect that many other Glow mentors also felt a need to attend these workshops as we had little knowledge of the VLE within Glow other than what had been publicised in the blogs of others who had participated in the VLE trial.

I learned at the workshop that the VLE (called Glow Learn) offers teachers the chance to prepare lessons in advance and upload them on to Glow. We can search Glow to see if other teachers in Scotland have uploaded similar work and incorporate their ideas into our own lessons. Similarly, if we allow sharing, our own lessons become available for others to use in their classroom. So far so good. The problem comes with setting of task for pupils, marking their submissions (pupils can upload their assignments to Glow for their teachers to mark and provide comments in a personal secure area) and storing of results. It would also appear that if a pupils at your school is added to your class, then you as a teacher can see their progress in all subjects throughout the school. I did not pick this up incorrectly because I asked the presenter to clarify this very point, another member of the audience at my session also asked for this to be confirmed. This is a serious flaw as it opens up to all teaching staff the kind of information that should only be available to Guidance staff in the school.

Glow Learn uses the same style of navigation to get around the system. It is unfortunate that most screenshots show Glow in the default garish colour scheme

as it can be toned down by going into the preferences section and selecting a more subtle look.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to alter the navigation to make movement around Glow more intuitive. It is the navigation aspect that attracts most of my criticism. Given the difficulty that many classroom teachers have with entering data into a spreadsheet and attaching it to an email, I fail to see how we will be in a position to go live with a national intranet for schools when the majority of the users will struggle to get much further than logging in to the network.

I said earlier that I was taking part in the latest national pilot of GLOW, the national intranet being developed for all scottish schools. The pilot finished at the end of term and I didn’t have a chance to complete my evaluation form before going on holiday. I submitted my feedback this week and have attached a copy here.

Glow is getting a lot of attention just now but I am afraid that I am not keen on having the current version as shown in the pilot released nationally. For one thing, functionality such as navigation gives me (a glow mentor) a headache and I dread the prospect of helping my school (and probably my entire cluster) find their way around the system as it stands.

Components such web parts and Glow mail are not sufficiently intuitive and fail to behave consistantly across different browsers and operating systems. If you read the attachment, you’ll also find that I tried hard to be helpful in reporting bugs and was less than impressed with the quality of feedback issued by the helpdesk.

Sorry to be so negative when others are “glowing” in their praise but I really don’t want to see this launched nationally until it has been made a lot simpler for the average classroom teacher.

Glow feedback

The 3rd pilot phase of Glow is has just completed its first week. The pilot period will run until Thursday 28th June. As Glow mentor for my school, I am taking part in the testing of two new components – Glow Mail and Glow Messenger. There is also a third new component, Glow Learn, which is a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). I’ve not seen Glow Learn yet as the pilot for this component is being conducted in a small group of local authorities rather than opening it up to national testing.

Glow Mail is a web-based service not unlike the webmail facility your home internet service provider might provide for you. A few teething problems have been publicised on the Glow feedback forum, page errors and the like, and there are a couple of changes necessary in the terminology to make the interface more intuitive. On the whole, it seems like a winner though. I am unclear whether the plan is for this service to supercede each school’s own First Class mail server once Glow is switched on nationally. Our own server provides a generous mail storage limit and already allows for a basic chat/messaging function, although I accept that this might not be the case in all schools right now.

This talk of messaging brings me on to the second component being piloted right now, Glow Messenger. This is essentially a clone of Windows Live Messenger, designed to operate within your browser window, removing the need for a standalone application and all the internet security issues this would entail. I have one big gripe about this component – it only works if you turn off your pop-up blocking software.

I’m finding the testing of the Messenger component quite difficult. Around the country, there are approximately 600 mentors participating in the pilot right now. I can only chat to one of them on messenger if I know their newly-assigned Glow Mail address and we happen to be online at the same time. I have asked the people running the pilot if they would adjust the functionality to allow me to search for people who are online at the same time as me – how else am I going to find someone to chat with? My request was refused, “you can only see a person’s online status once they are in your contact list” – not the best of starts. Add to that the fact that the 30 people I have added to my contact list are listed as “status unknown”, rather than “offline” and you might see why I am beginning to feel that the messenger pilot is a waste of time.

New components apart, how does the rest of Glow shape up? Well, it’s currently structured with a clear heirarchy of

• my Glow – your own personally customisable Glow page(s)
• School area – news feeds, events & other information about your school
• Local Authority – information at local authority level
• National – does what it says on the tin

The default entry is to a staff page. I am unsure who populates the staff page with information but I would dearly like to change the way it is presented, this is simply from a cosmetic perspective though.

You may customise your own page, although I think that the complexity of selecting the desired functions is well beyond the IT skills of a classroom teacher right now. This is what worries me. As a Glow mentor, I feel I am expected to assist my colleagues in the transition period when Glow is introduced. With such complex navigation around the Glow network, I am either going to drown in requests for help during my non-teaching periods or I will have to take a step back and hope that the local authority can provide sufficient inset sessions to close the knowledge gap.

Perhaps I am being a bit mean. There are almost another 2 weeks of the pilot remaining and it is possible that the programmers at RM will fix the bugs before time is up. Let’s see how they get on.