Glow: more than a resource bank

Posted on | March 3, 2008 | 6 Comments

Nice-ish piece last week on Glow in The Independent, by Hilary Wilce. And good to see the fine vanguard work of Renfrewshire, and Gordon McKinlay, brought to the fore in the article.

But……it does grate a little that the breadth of collaborative functionality that is the real heart of Glow is reduced by the Indie’s sub to: “…a giant resource bank…”

It’s just so much more than a ‘filing cabinet of content’ (pacÃ© Ewan).

Thanks to Tess Watson for the link.

Technorati Tags: glow, the independent, hilary wilce, renfrewshire

Category: content, education, glow, journalism

Comments

6 Responses to “Glow: more than a resource bank”

Ewan McIntosh
March 3rd, 2008 @ 11:44 pm

I agree with you on this front, John, but I don’t think it’s (yet) being sold on that front. The window dressing of resources is still what I’m mostly hearing about, whether it’s the (frankly great) stuff procured by LTS or the sums being spent at LA level to “create resources for Glow”. That said, I’m getting to the stage where, six months from last having my hands on a class of my own, I’m not sure whether what I think I’m hearing has any more currency.

With the MFLE we learnt that resources played second-fiddle to learning *how* to do new stuff in the classroom. Between the collaborative tools and ‘resource’ in the most simplistic sense of the word, it’s vital that we don’t forget that both teachers and students want to learn how to create and remix material. Where, at the moment, can they learn how to do this?

Maybe that goes part of the way to explaining why the UK has such a poor online creation rate compared to the US (12% vs 53%). These don’t take account of quality, of course, but there are some less concrete issues around digital literacy to be tackled. Had they been tackled we’d be weaning teachers off their own collaborative blogs and wikis, and self-published video and audio, onto Glow. Unfortunately, that’s far from the truth. On the plus side, it’s tantalisingly appealing for many teachers, and the CPD segment of Glow needs to start taking more of a centre stage (and not just CPD for teachers, btw, but directly for students, too)
John Connell
March 4th, 2008 @ 12:32 am

I agree entirely, Ewan – my point is, whatever people think the starting point is, let’s work to make sure that the end point is something more substantial.

There’s more than one way to skin a cat. There’s more than one way to lead a horse to water. [tell me when you've had enough of the cliches]
Tony Parkin
March 4th, 2008 @ 1:30 am

Hey – I relate to your disgust over the descriptor of ‘…the giant resource bank…’ – but it could have been worse! South of the border the concept of ‘content delivery’ has even been given official educational sanction, not just journalistic licence.

You can deliver coal, you can deliver milk – but just try delivering learning…..

(…and this from a man old enough to remember when they DID deliver coal and milk…..)
AB
March 4th, 2008 @ 5:14 pm

Personally, I was most impressed by the excellent editorial workmanship on the piece – ‘East Bartonshire’, and ‘Teaching & Learning Scotland’ leapt out at me!

On a more serious note, I think we need to be addressing far more vocally than we’ve ever been the correlation between ‘tools to collaborate’ and ‘resources’. In the mentor training that we’ve undertaken so far, people start to run with the potential the tools offer and quickly overlook the classical notion of ‘resources’.
John Connell
March 4th, 2008 @ 7:21 pm

Excellent to hear that, Andrew!! It’s always comforting to know that the notions that were in my mind 5 or 6 years ago, that the collaborative tools would eventually outrun the content-based tools, might just yet prove to be true.
Gordon McKinlay
March 9th, 2008 @ 8:18 am

I didn’t even see the article until someone sent it to me. We keep deliberately not talking about resources at all. Our take is that GLOW provides us with a set of tools to build collaboration in order to enhance the learning and teaching experience. That was what I told the reporter. The school the photographer visited have been doing just that, using GLOW to collaborate. If we focus on the quality of learning and teaching in our schools (as curriculum for excellence invites us to do) then we are going to impact on the lives and outcomes of children. If GLOW helps us to do that then good. If not, then let’s not waste time on it.