We spent a busy afternoon this week with staff from RM putting in place the plans that will allow us to implement Glow as early in the new session as possible. This was a very productive afternoon and I feel that we have now got all the important issues sorted out including the technical issues and training issues.

Importantly for staff in schools in Renfrewshire, EasyMail will not vanish at the end of June as we thought a few months ago. We are now looking at a direct switch from EasyMail to GlowMail in September or October. This should mean no loss of service.

On the training front, Steven and Ann have been working very hard to get all of this in place. There should now be an administrator a teacher administrator and a Glow champion in every school. Training for each of these people is in place. Steven will send out dates and further details at the start of the new session.

In the meantime, the last phase of Glow piloting has just about come to an end. Each of the elements being tested this time round all seem to work through our firewall. This was despit a wee glitch on mail day last week. Thanks to everyone who took part in that exercise.

It is now the end of term and staff in schools will be away for a well deserved break. Tose of us who don’t deserve a break are going to continue to work at making sure that everything is in place for the launch of Glow in the autumn.

You should also be aware of the Glow launch evening on the 9th of October. This will give everyone a great opportunity to see Glow first hand. This event has been designed on the back of the very successful showcase event we had last February. Watch this space for more details early in the new session.

Have a great summer!

Gordon

My background as a secondary Computing teacher enabled me to identify Gamemaker as a suitable language to introduce pupils to  the Software Development Process.  It will not replace established languages like VB, but it does contain a scripting language, and will certainly complement them.  I recommend that Computing teachers check this out.

However it is in the Primary sector that I have beem most impressed by the potential of Gamemaker to enhance teaching and learning.  A P7 class at a local primary have used Gamemaker as the stimulus for an imaginative writing exercise.  I visited last month and it was fantastic to see pupils of all abilities fully engaged in the learning process.

Pupils began by deciding on the characters they wished to include in the game (two fish, Gimbal and Bubbles!) and then found images to represent the characters from the internet.  These characters were created in Gamemaker as sprites and objects and the game started to take shape.  The pupils printed the characters and stuck them into their project booklets. They then worked individually to write their own stories about these characters.

One morning a diver was added to the scenario – the class brainstormed others like a crab, shark, mermaid but after a vote they settled on the diver.  Democracy in action. They also decided that a shipwreck should be included as a background to the game. Once again images were sourced from the internet, agreed upon and pupils then returned to their work books where they added in the new images and expanded their stories.  The diver character and the shipwreck background were added to Gamemaker before the pupils moved on to create their game.

As I drove back to the office I considered these activities in relation to the four capacities of a Curriculum for Excellence.  Well this is a mixed ability class – but they were all on task and enjoying the lesson.  Of course some stories were more detailed than others but every pupil was enthusiastic, offering suggestions and contributing to the best of their ability.  The class teacher intends that the P7 pupils will show their finished games, and read the accompanying story to the infant class before the summer break.  What a fantastic way for these youngsters to end their Primary school days.

I returned to the school last week and the class teacher was delighted with the response she had received from her own P7 pupils and the infants.  The P7 pupils all enjoyed success by producing games and stories that they then had the confidence to share with their peers and the infant class.  The infants listened to the stories and were then given the opportunity to play the games.  It was so successful that the P7 pupils repeated their presentation for the P2 class – the P2 teacher asked if the P7’s could do this every day!

Successful Learners, Confident Individuals, Effective Contributors, Responsible Citizens?- I certainly think so.  

Derek Robertson from LTS gave a presentation on games and learning at the ICT coordinators meeting yesterday.  You will find attached the presentation he used. 

 games-and-learning.ppt

All the links are included here:

http://www.futurelab.org.uk/research/handbooks/03_10.htm

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=consolarium&w=all 

http://www.capcom.com/phoenixwright/

http://www.hoteldusk.com/

http://www.timrylands.com/index.html

http://www.timrylands.com/html/they-say.html

http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/ictineducation/connected/articles/12/specialfeature/gamesfortraineeteachers/flashanimations.asp

http://www.gamemaker.nl/

http://www.futurelab.org.uk/showcase/adventure_author/index.htm

http://scratch.mit.edu/

http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/theirspace

http://sitc.education.ed.ac.uk/case_studies/whitfield/pages/pr.htm

http://hotmilkydrink.typepad.com/

http://www.futurelab.org.uk/research/teachingwithgames/findings.htm

http://209.85.135.104/search?q=cache:2oqatvGsKr4J:www.elspa.com/assets/files/u/unlimitedlearningtheroleofcomputerandvideogamesint_344.pdf+unlimited+learning&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=firefox-a

http://www.marcprensky.com/

http://www.eyetoy.com/index.asp?pageID=11

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolpda/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_4222000/4222089.stm

http://uk.wii.com/http://www.buzzthegame.com/en_GB/index.html?lanSoundOn=true

http://www.newsgaming.com/press031304.htm

http://www.newsgaming.com/press092903.htm 

http://www.darfurisdying.com/ 

http://www.80soft.com/pmforever/info/uk/index.htm 

http://davidmcdivitt.wordpress.com/tag/using-making-history-in-class/

http://www.pbs.org/kcts/videogamerevolution/impact/myths.html

Sorry about the lack of formatting.  I thought it was more important to get the links up here so that you can follow up on the presentation quickly.

Due to some technical problems we were having yesterday afternoon I was unable to get the audio recorded from the presentation.

Today was a joint venture between Renfrewshire and Inverclyde related to a Curriculum for Excellence. The Literacy forum focussed on literacy in the 21st century. Eve Bearne from Cambridge gave a very interesting presentation on teaching literacy.  You can find an interesting article about technology and literacy here.  Andrew Gallacher gave a highly interactive presentation on Moving Image Education. There is an interesting article about the project here.  Many of the clips referred to were sourced from the BFI.  I did, however, find some of them (like “Killing Time at Home” could be found on YouTube!).  The presentation by Andrew relates very closely to the work our staff tutor, Ann Crawford, has done with Oscar Stringer in our video festivals.

You can check more of my personal reflection by clicking here.