Computer Games and Learning is another area on which we will focus this session. I mentioned the magnificent work carried out using Gamemaker by Janette Thomson with her P7 class at Craigielea in a previous post. There is an in-service course on Games Design and Learning (and Gamemaker in particular) on Thursday 6th September – please try to come along if you are interested in becoming involved with this project. The Renfrewshire on line CPD catalogue contains further details.

We are also participating in the LT scotland computer games and learning pilot programme organised by Derek Robertson and the Consolarium based in Dundee. I distributed several games consoles (PS2 and Wii) to a number of Primary Schools in June. The idea is that the teacher develops a topic of work based around the context of a game which will open doors to learning for the children to such an extent that everyone is engaged and on task. Once again I will keep you posted as this exciting iniative develops.

Enjoy the weekend.

Steven

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.  

The course was delivered by Oscar Stringer who is a world leader in the teaching of video and animation for the classroom.  Oscar flew up from Bristol and created a flurry of activity in the office when we realised that all hotel rooms in and around Glasgow were booked by Spanish football fans who were in the city for the UEFA cup final.  Fortunately there was a cancellation and we managed to secure a room at the airport.  Otherwise I was to spend Tuesday evening frantically cleaning the house in preparation for an unexpected guest!

On Wednesday we had 30 P4 – P7 pupils from Arkleston, Fordbank, Moorpark, St James(Renfrew) and South primaries, along with S2 from Linwood High and accompanying staff.   Pupils from Bridge of Weir, Gallowhill, Mossvale, Ralston, St John Bosco primaries and Paisley Grammar attended Thursday’s session.

After demonstrating some examples of movie making ‘good practice’, Oscar set the theme for the day as horror. The youngsters then had great fun exploring the grounds (in the rain) and the lodge itself as they identified suitable locations at which to film.

The pupils were split ino 5 teams that comprised one person from each school and I was very impressed how quickly they bonded and contributed to the project – we had budding camera operators, actors and directors.  Staff were on hand to advise but, to be honest,  the pupils ran the show and there was no way that any aduklts were getting their hands on the camera equipment!

The afternoon session was spent editing the video using i-movie – once we eventually convinced the pupils to stop filming as they had more than enough material.  The video clips were edited, audio and captions added and we ended the day with a scary movie show as the rain tipped down from the heavens.

Each school will receive a DVD containing the movies produced during the day, and they have now acquired an ‘in-house production team’ that can capture important events in the school calendar . 

Thanks again to Oscar, Ann Crawford for the organisation and to school staff for their enthusiastic participation.  Watch this space for details of the next Video Festival (in September we hope).  If your school has not participated before then I strongly urge you to come along – it really is a joy to work with pupils from a variety of schools and agegroups outwith the confines of a classroom.

Social networking is an important aspect of our ICT strategy both within and without Glow.  It would be odd, therefore, if we didn’t use the medium ourselves!  There is a lot going on that Steven will keep you up to date with.  This includes;

• Glow;
• games and learning;
• interactive whiteboards; and
• child protection on-line.

Expect to see an update on all of these here very soon.

I will keep my hand in every now and then when something of relevance crosses my horizon.  For example, we are currently getting the in-service catalogue finalised at the moment.  A letter should be out about that this and we are working hard on the curriculum for excellence conference at the end of May.

I hope you continue to find this medium of communication useful.  I know that we have not had many comments over the past year but from conversations around it seems that lots of folk read the posts.

All good so far. The main problem is that we can’t actually use the chat or web conferencing facilities due to firewall difficulties we are currently having! It is going to be a bit of a damp squib if we can’t get that fixed over the next week or two. At the moment the only place anyone can actually use the tools as if they have a broadband conenction at home. Not ideal.

The children have all had a brilliant time working from the original idea, story boarding, filming, capture and editing the final result. Some of the ideas were really interesting and imaginative. It was great to see the children being creative and working as aprat of a group in order to get the product created.

There is huge potential for using these techniques in the school setting. The teachers involved in the day should now feel far more confident about putting the techniques into practice in their own establishment.

It would be fair to say that we haven’t started very well. Although we can log in, use the portal and the groups, the chat and web conferencing features are not getting through the firewall. Gaving tried to access the chat feature from home I know that it is working. This means that there is something wrong at our end. Hopefully we shall get it sorted quickly so that we can then get on with piloting.

I have been posting some pictures to flickr so you get a bit of flavour of what is going on there.