Transcript: A nurturing Glow at Bernera Primary
Kirsteen MacLean - Bernera Primary School
Kirsteen MacLean: To be able to communicate with other people is really important for us, because we are remote. Although we are able to take the children out to places within the island, there are places beyond that are not so readily accessible for us, and we, certainly in the school, see Glow facilitating learning in that way.
From my point of view, I think the most important thing that I’ve noticed is that the pace of learning has increased. You can just get through so much more when you’re working from Glow. I mean, I remember one lesson in particular where one-and-a-half minutes of video taught them something that I had taken a whole lesson to teach previously, to explain the intricacy of something, and yet, you know, 90 seconds of video, and they had it. And I think that’s really powerful.
Glow Cam (pupil): I think Glow is really good because you can do almost anything on it. It’s got email and you can set up a discussion, which is very good, and you can talk to someone far away.
Glow Cam (pupil): You don’t just go on the internet; there’s lots of stuff on it like you can put, upload pictures onto it and we did a little like video thing on it, so we put that on, and it’s really good.
Kirsteen MacLean One of the things that I really like about it is the photographs: that you can have photographs from anywhere and everywhere and they can be really used to enhance your lesson. I like the Glow Meet. I think the Glow Meet is really powerful, whether it be for staff or for pupils. I think that’s probably one of the most powerful tools within the Glow toolbox, as it were.
Glow Cam (pupil): At the end of prize awards, Miss MacLean had brought her laptop and we had got a gold award, and the way we told the school was, we went on Glow, we put a picture up with our gold award and we sent it, and they saw it, and it was quite weird because they were in Bernera and we were in Stornoway and we were able to get onto Glow.
Kirsteen MacLean: The fact that they could have that level of communication and not leave the classroom was a huge wow factor.
How can we deliver this subject in different ways that makes it relevant but fun and keep the pace up and keep the challenge up? And I think Glow is doing that for us. Yes, we’re having to be imaginative and creative with it, but Curriculum for Excellence is allowing us to do that. I think any good teacher, when they see what Glow can do, will see the potential for how it can lead them in their classroom. And I think once they see that, they will want it.
Glow Cam (pupil): Glow is not boring at all, it is really exciting to use. I’m glad we were one of the first schools in the Western Isles to get it.
[End of recording]