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SSDN / Glow
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Background
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SSDN has now be renamed Glow!
The National Debate in Education showed that Scottish people want a curriculum that will fully prepare today’s children for modern adult life, be less crowded and better connected and offer more choice and enjoyment. Modern Information and Communications Technology (ICT) can go a long way towards realising this. The huge investment to date in the National Grid for Learning and ICT in general reflects the view of the Executive that good ICT is a powerful tool to support and transform learning and teaching across the curriculum.
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SSDN / Glow
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While the technical side of the National Grid for Learning (NGfL) aimed at linking all schools to the Internet, Glow (http://www.glowscotland.org.uk/ ) aims to link all Scottish schools (and key agencies) directly to each other to share a wide range of educational services. Learners and teachers will be able to work in completely new ways and collaborate with each other on a scale not previously possible.
Some parts of glow are already in place. A broadband network (The National Interconnect) already links all 32 Scottish Education Authorities, and other key agencies, and installing storage systems throughout Scottish schools and authorities has facilitated resource exchange.
We are now building the last key part, The National Intranet. This is a safe environment where teachers and learners will be able to use a package of services and applications aimed at facilitating and improving learning, teaching and educational management.
Users will be able to use the Intranet from home, school, or any computer connected to the Internet. The various applications and services will be integrated in such a way as to make them easy to use.
What will make the National Intranet powerful and unique is the National Directory and authentication system. This is a single, central system to recognise who you are and what you are permitted to do and see. The user will only need to “log on” once and the system will automatically make available the tools and services appropriate to that individual. Thus teachers might see their own timetable, links to the interest groups they belong to and their own personal set of web-links. Clicking on a particular interest group will then give access to members of the group and communication will be possible using the tools available to that group: tools such as email, chat and web-conferencing.
In general, users will be able to: search for and access resources including resources available to all and resources only licensed to one school or authority; make collections of resources available to specified groups of pupils; collaborate with colleagues via email, chat or web conferencing; publish resources; record the results of assessment and automatically mark some types of test.
SSDN will be a safe ICT infrastructure underpinning A Curriculum for Excellence and in particular it will realise the desire to create a climate within which reflective practitioners share and develop ideas.
By providing access to a rich bank of resources, from other teachers, commercial content providers, LTScotland and other publicly funded bodies, including education authorities, it will provide teachers with choice and flexibility in how to organise and deliver the curriculum - a key ambition of A Curriculum for Excellence.
For learners, glow will provide a safe environment which reflects the technology-rich context of the most modern schools and offers the potential for independent learning and personalisation of learning. All this will make a massive contribution towards the development of successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors.
The ability to access glow from outside school will extend the sphere of learning and allow Local Authorities to develop new models of support for children who for a variety of reasons are unable to attend school.
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Current Progress in Renfrewshire
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EDS Logo
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The first service to be made available to teachers and pupils in Renfrewshire will be electronic mail. This is being made available to all schools early in 2006. The EasyMail system is now allowing all teachers access to email. This will be ported into Glow in 2007.
This page will be updated as new information about Glow in Renfrewshire becomes available.
To find out more about glow click here.
If you wish to discuss any aspect of SSDN then please contact gordon.mckinlay-ed@renfrewshire.gov.uk at Abbey House.
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Implementation Plan
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Our implementation has recently been passed by the lifelong learning and work policy board. A summary has been sent to all schools and the full version is available on the Business Support Network bulletin board.
Please contact me if you would like a copy of the full plan (gordon.mckinlay-ed@renfrewshire.gov.uk)
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Phase 1 Piloting
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Four schools in Renfrewshoire are involved in piloting the Glow portal in November 2006. The schools are Barsail and St Fillan's Primaries and Johnstone and Park Mains High Schools. Classes from each of these schools will use the system throughout November in order to test it's robustness and usability.
Glow mentors will also have access to the portal and they will be able to access the system in order to do some evaluation work.
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Staff Development
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Staff development opportunities for the use of some aspects of Glow can now be found in the online CPD catalogue (http://renfrewshire.cpdservice.net/ ). These courses include SCRAN, Scotland's People and Pathe News. There are also courses organised in the use of blogging and podcasting in learning.
Advance notice is being given for an ICT showcase event. This will take place on Tuesday the 20th of February 2007 from 7-9:30pm in Castlehead High School. Put it in your diary now and watch this space for further details.
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This website complies with Renfrewshire Council's *Guidelines for the development of school websites *(Lifelong Learning and Work Policy Board, 11 December 2003). The design and content of the site have been created by the school.
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