The Glow miniBook trial (and Bob too!)

St Andrew's is one of Dundee's newest state-of-the art schools, built under the local authority's PPP programme.  Rather than having a room set aside as a dedicated computer suite, the school has two open-plan areas, each equipped with a number of desktop machines on space-saving Hexacom tables. These are well-used throughout the day by pupils from various classes.
However, with the advent of Glow, it became clear that there was a need for a solution allowing pupils to have access from desks in their own classrooms whenever required.  Increasingly we are talking about becoming digital nomads - can you imagine being without your mobile phone or your PDA? - and it's not unreasonable to want the same opportunities for our young people, whether they are sitting on the floor in a corner of the school sending an email or uploading data to a Glow group whilst out-and-about on a field trip.

In order to explore the potential of minibooks, a class set was purchased together with a MiniBus which provided storage and recharging for up to 30 minibooks at a time.  With support from the school's IT division, the school was equipped with wireless access and primary 7B embarked on the trial.

First of all the class began a project around the book "Dark Isle" by DA Nelson which triumphed in the 8-11 category of the Royal Mail awards for Scottish childrens' books. The class teacher, Mr Laing, created a Glow Group for the class to use during the project and, as the author lives in Argyll and Bute, he made contact with a school there, the Kilcreggan Primary School. The pupils in the P6/7 class at Kilcreggan began reading the same book and the two schools held a Glow Meet video-conferencing session to introduce themselves. Pupils at St Andrew's each kept a diary in their My Glow page on their thoughts of the book and posted to discussions in the Glow Group.

The project has progressed with Kilcreggan and St Andrew's holding regular Glow Meet sessions with pairs of children to discuss a title for a sequel and a brief outline of a new book. These are going well with all children in the class having an opportunity to collaborate. Children in St Andrew's have been creating characters for their new book, designing front covers and preparing to make movies with created models.

Mr Laing is quite clear that using Glow with the minibooks has been extremely beneficial:

"The children were very highly motivated when using the minibooks and this boosted their confidence. One good example was the written work done on the Baldragon myth. The children had to research the myth and upload a document into Glow using Star Office on the minibooks. The work produced was greater in volume and better in content than would have been produced by a more traditional 'writing' lesson. This was particularly evident with the less able writers. The other significant benefit was that the minibooks and work on Glow encouraged a great deal of problem solving and creative thinking."

By now, the children were so familiar both with Glow and with the use of the minibooks, that 7B became Glow Pupil Pioneers and started to support P3 children with Glow. Using the minibooks, they have been working on a buddy system whereby a P3 pupil is matched with a P7 pupil. The P7 children begin by helping the younger ones log on for the first time and giving them a tour around Glow. Next, they progress onto showing the P3s Glow Games and Glow Resources. 

The school has gathered feedback about the project in several ways: pupils have posted their comments in Glow; their responses to a set of interview questions was also recorded using Dundee's Voxur equipment (a film studio in a box) and the short video has been uploaded to the authority's Pupil Pioneer Glow Group for others to view; and an evaluation tool was used to ascertain the views of staff.

Pupil Pioneer Glow Group discussion forums give positive impressions of the pupils' views about the minibooks. In spite of the challenge of becoming familiar with Star Office after normally using Textease, the children quickly became proficient users and were quick to see the potential of the technology in giving them greater access to Glow.

The last word however, has to go to one of the boys who was interviewed with the Voxur equipment. His comment always makes visitors to the Pupil Pioneer Glow Group laugh when they watch the video:

"I really liked the minibooks, and I named mine Bob".

Thank you to Rosetta McLeod, ICT Development Manager of Dundee City Council for writing this article.

If you would like to find out more about Glow click here, or if you would like to find out more about the miniBook please click here.