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Today saw the first usage of the ‘Phase2’ trial of the Glow portal at Knox. Period 1, this morning, my INT1 Biologists logged on; I would like to add- with great ease! The passwords that we were issued for this trial are far more user friendly. Though I cannot name pupils individually, I was very grateful to one particular young man who accessed the portal from home last night. As he had familiarised him self with the portal prior to today’s lesson, he was able to help me in assisting other members of the class today. If I could start selecting pupil mentors?, he would the first on my list! (Well done and thank you D :)!) As we did with the first trial, we uploaded our documents, and started some discussion (as well as working on our ongoing projects). I don’t think there will be such a thing as a ‘typical’ Glow lesson, and today confirmed my thoughts. Glow was/is a supporting intranet that is enhancing safe online learning, sharing and collaboration.

I was very pleased that Dave was able to join us for part of the lesson today. Miraculously, neither Dave nor I were required for cover today! This allowed us to have a proper go, as such, at implementing and activating the ‘Glow Tools’ (Glow ‘tools’ such as ‘chat’ can only be used once a web-part has been added and activated). We came across a major hurdle with the activation. Though I had created the Glow group and added the ‘Chat’ Web tool, the pupils, Dave nor I could actually access it. Following a phone call to the very kind gentlemen at RM (you know who you are and thank you for your patience!) we established that the activation of the tools has to be done at a Local Authority level. We hope to have this rectified tomorrow.

So, here is a brief summary of my experience of ‘Pre-Phase 2’ so far.

User Names and Passwords are very ‘user friendly’
Themes 4 and 6 are very popular with the pupils (I think that they are finding the navigation of the portal much easier due to this)
Some links, i.e. the ‘back’ link on discussion posts don’t work.
The use of the portal from home is intermittent (Dave is just Skyping me as I type this post!)

As we are not officially into the ‘Phase 2’ trial, I am not sure if these minor problems are just due to the fact that ‘Glow’ is not expecting class usage until after the Easter break?

I am hoping that this makes sense to all my readers. I am very aware that a lot of you have not had the privilege of accessing Glow yet. If you would like further elaboration on anything I have mentioned, please don’t hesitate to drop me an email or comment.

I hope to report back on the use of the ‘Chat’ tool tomorrow. In the meantime, my MSN and Skype will have to suffice!