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*Please note that this post will be updated.

Following a very productive and constructive training course last week, last night I finally managed to set some time aside to start working on my own Glow Learn project for the ‘Phase 3’ trial of the Glow portal.

I would like to emphasise, at this point in time, that I am presently on a ‘Maximum Contact’ (new) timetable where nearly all my classes are certificated and they are very much my first priority. My work on Glow has to be from home; hence my rather latent and erratic web-log posts.

Within the ‘Phase 3’ portal, everything is pretty similar to ‘Phase 2’ (i.e. web-parts, Glow Groups, themes etc). The two main new components (if that is the correct word?) are the addition of ‘Glow Learn’- The Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) and Glow Messenger (for staff only at present). These are the parts that we will be using, sharing and testing during the next three weeks.

Though I have been playing with ‘Glow Learn’, I have yet to try out the ‘Glow Messenger’ (as this was the first day of the trial, I am still not sure if it is working fully)

There are three areas to the VLE that is ‘Glow Learn’ at present.

Plan and Organising Content
Teaching a Class
Marking and Monitoring of Pupil Work.

For the rest of this post, I will try to give you an insight into the‘Plan and Organising Content’ component

On entering into ‘Glow Learn’ you will find three choices as named above. As I am fortunate enough to be teaching the same INT 1 class from the previous session, I deemed it appropriate to engage them once again in Glow. We are currently studying ‘Watering Systems’.

Please take a closer look at the screen shot below (my apologies for the size, I will upload clearer screen shots during ‘Phase 3′ here.

‘Plan and Organise Content’- Basically what I am doing/have done is to design a course/lesson based on what I want pupils to learn and achieve. In designing a course, you as a teacher can collect, arrange, edit and share resources. As this is a trial of the portal, the resources available are relatively limited. For me to design a ‘Course’, as it was termed during our training, meant that to focus on ‘Watering Systems’ I’ve had to upload a lot of documents, hyperlinks and so forth.

As you plan out and organise the content of the ‘Course’ you can ‘tag’ your resources with ‘Keywords’. This enables others to find appropriate documents and links through searches when they are creating their own courses (sharing good practice or what!!!). You can add ‘Objectives’ to your course,though I would prefer ‘Learning Outcomes’ as a Secondary Practitioner.

When creating courses, you can upload four main types of resource:

File Based Resource (PowerPoint, Word Excel, MPEG etc)
Link-Based Resource (hyperlinks)
Simple Text Resource (I am still investigating these)
Tests

Tests have to be created (that is for a later post). I can suffice to say that the tests you can create are similar to BBC Bitesize, though possibly not as ‘flashy’ yet. I will go into greater detail during another post as these ‘Tests’ can then be allocated to classes or individuals.

So, as it stands, I have a course ready to try out with my INT 1 Biology Class Tomorrow. If my schedule runs to plan, following work they have covered earlier in last week, they should:

Logon to Glow
Read the objectives of the lesson

With me, they will:

Watch a Hyperlinked MPEG,
Flick through a PowerPoint that covers a number of Learning Outcomes.
Browse a number of links and complete a very small online test via the portal
(I am hoping the portal will mark these for me!)

Finally I will ask them to print off a PDF worksheet (during the lesson) that they will take away as this week’s homework. (Let us bear in mind that not all youngsters have access to the internet at home…yet!)

All of the resources I have mentioned will be available to the pupils if they wish to refer to them again at home or in school, via their own personal Glow account.

So, that was my first real post on the ‘Glow Learn’ VLE. I hope it was logical enough. It is very hard to describe an environment that is not available to all. I am sure I will have missed a number of key points, so I would welcome your questions and queries.

I do hope this has made sense during reading?