The SQA Biology exams took place yesterday. I managed to get my hands on a complete set of papers in the afternoon so I was able to have a look at them last night. Here are a few thoughts.
Standard Grade General Level.
I thought this was quite a hard paper. Both the kidney and the heart were covered [...]
As you may be aware, in addition to my teaching job, for the last nine years I have a (seasonal) weekend job where I assist the managing of my Rugby Club’s bar (I call it a job because it is, but I enjoy the social aspect of it so much that I would class is as a hobby [...]
The Potato Story
Earlier this week I received and email from the makers of this website. It has been newly launched by McCain Foods and is in support of the ‘Year of Food and Farming’ (As a farmer’s daughter, I can sincerely say it’s content is very accurate). The website provides a fun and interactive learning [...]
*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, [...]
On Friday I attended our Biology Subject Support Group meeting at Preston Lodge High School, chaired by Fraser Kiernan. These meetings are always good for catching up with fellow East Lothian Biology Teachers and of course sharing our good practice. We covered many topics during Friday’s meeting including relevant resources, risk assessment and a proposal [...]
Today my Intermediate 1 Biologists and I were using Glow (not for a lesson, more a collaborative support platform). We were very pleased that Mr David Gilmour was able to join us today. I have no big ‘new’ news. Glow is meant to be a supporting body, and that, it was today. We uploaded more [...]
During the last week or so I, and a number of others, have spent a good bit of time investigating the tools of the ‘Phase 2’ trial of the Glow portal. By Wednesday this week, I and Dave R are hoping to have set up a Video Conference with pupils in school. In addition, we [...]
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 [...]
Having now accessed the portal from both school and home, Dave and I are getting on well with catagorising and collating Usernames, Passwords, Glow Groups and member privileges. We have also made a start at implementing and assigning Glow tools, though this will really need to be completed when we are together in person (Skype [...]
Unit 3 of the SQA Intermediate 1 Biology is all about ‘Growing Plants’ Last week my INT1 Biologists and I planted some (100) sunflower seeds (I was estimating a germination percentage of 50). Prior to planting the seeds, we had looked at seed structure and composition.
As an ongoing project, I have been uploading the [...]
