Monday 9 June 2008

Glow training in LTS Dundee

What if the Scottish Learning Festival came to Dundee the city of discovery and educational innovation? Dundee is a leader in gaming technology, scientific research and educational excellence.........
On May 27th and 28th Dundee LTS staff took part in mentor training for Glow, in City House in the centre of Dundee. With my colleague Karen-Anne MacAlpine, we made a number of Glow presentations and facilitated several workshops over two days.
This training was different from the mentor training we usually organise for Local Authorities because these mentors had a different role based need. The context was not teaching and learning; more administration and communication. Mentors are always asked to think about their role and to create a Glow group which is authentic and relevant… so on this occasion our demonstrations were modelled with an administration focus: planning and hosting a fictitious event with a Glow group for the Dundee Scottish Learning Festival “This festival will be coordinated by an experienced Learning and Teaching Scotland team on floor 9 of City House, including Derek Robertson from the Consolarium and it will feature a number of Dundee schools who have been leading the way in developing the use of Glow in the classroom.” “It will be in several locations in the city centre: the Dundee contemporary Arts Centre, the University of Dundee and ….”
Glow is practical and flexible. This context demonstrated that the tools in Glow can be used to support 'other' roles. It is a small leap of te imagination to see how Glow could expand to support administration and cross service collaboration in a Local Authority for example between librarians social workers and teachers. for example, Glow meet was demonstrated as a very useful administration tool for recording minutes of meetings and inter office communications. Marratech audio and video files can be kept in a documents store next to a meeting room, on the same page, in a Glow group. These files can be coded to restrict access or made available to all members of the group, any time anywhere.
Glow groups were shown to be an excellent office tool and equally good for supporting social events in interest groups such as a book club.
Glow like Dundee is on the Global stage. The George Lucas foundation in San Francisco recognises that Glow is an “ambitious and practical tool” and that Laurie O'Donnel is one of the 'Daring Dozen' educational leaders around the globe. Dundee is also recognised as an intelligent city: a smart place to promote better education and host The Scottish Learning Festival.