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The talk will give a view of how blogging with WordPress fits well with Scottish education’s ‘Curriculum for excellence’. Some loose linkage of Community, Connections & Openness in software and education. How Glow blogs, a set of 32 multi-sites with a total of >160,000 blogs are used and are developing. Some notes of the ‘Product Owner’ role and working at large scale to fit the needs of stake holders from a wide range of ages and needs.

Source: Speakers | WordCamp Edinburgh

 

I am talking about Glow Blogs next week at  WordCamp Edinburgh not my usual audience of colleagues so wish me luck.

Urban Dictionary: wean.

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Sway has arrived for Glow users.

Sway allows you to

Create and share interactive reports, presentations, personal stories, and more.

I blogged a bit back in May.

Basically the app helps you present media online in a slick way. I’ve mostly looked at the iOS version. The different versions, Windows, web and iOS so far have different feature sets and a personal Microsoft account allows you do do slightly different things from a business/education account.

The app feels as if it is in pretty active development. Features that were coming soon in May are here.

What is particularly interesting, from my point of view, is that sways can be made public on the web and can be shared ready for remix.

This evening I used the iOS app on an iPad to build another sway (The featured image on this post is a screenshot of the borwser version of the sway, not the iPad view):

It didn’t take very long to add text and images. One difference I noticed was if I was signed into the app with a personal account I could upload video in iOS, I could not do this with my Glow account. Hopefully coming soon.

The browser app has a lot more options, including built in searches over flickr, youtube and other media sources.
Screen Shot 2015-10-26 at 21.29.19

It also looks like if you create or even edit a sway in the browser you cannot edit it afterwards on iOS (I might be wrong about this). I do not think either of these things are a great problem, we now know an iPad is a great content creation device and I would hope pupils would be using there camera and their own images for the most part on mobile.

Swaying in Public!

I’ve got the same feeling about the slickness of the creations as I had back in May, mostly about the ‘automatic creativity’ but the most exciting two things about Sway are public sharing and remixing.
Screen Shot 2015-10-26 at 21.19.24

Users have control over who the Sway is shared with and if they will allow their Sway to be duplicated by others.

Learning Opportunities

This is the first of the O365 services to allow public sharing which is very encouraging for those who see value on pupils sharing widely.  I also think that the ability to remix, change and improve someone else’s creation is a important skill.

There is obviously the opportunity to discuss aspects of publishing in public, Internet safety and copyright. The copyright issue is also nicely lead into by the browser version:

sway-copyright

We want pupils (and teachers) to understand aspects of copyright and creative commons. Unfortunately the editor does not auto-add attribution but it can be copied and pasted in the browser.

Glow Blogs?

I can embed a sway in this blog using the embed code. Unfortunately this is via a iFrame. iFrames are not supported in Glow Blogs. I do hope we can develop oEmbed like functionality in the Blogs soon in the same way as we have for ClickView video.

It looks like Sway itself supports oEmbed of other content so I’d hope that oEmbed of sways is at least under consideration.

I’ve barely scratched the surface of Sway, and look forward to seeing how it is used in Glow.

Update 11.11.2015 Glow Blogs support the embedding of sways, just paste the url to a sway into the editor: Embedding Media | Glow Blog Help.

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I had a late afternoon walk around the moot by the Slack’s trig point.

Heavy low cloud and a bit of a breeze.

Autumn is underway, rosehips and hawthorn red.

Blackberries starting to ripening.

Rosebay willowherb and thistles in seed.

The bracken and ferns rusting.

A couple of ravens, one jinxing nicely. I put up a  brace of grouse and heard one go-back-ing. A glimpse of a peregrine.

The rain stayed off and as usual I am delighted, just 15 minutes drive from home in Glasgow.

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View from Ben Chaluim. Green hills and a cloudy sky.

My wish, my encouragement is just taking these ten second breaks. OK. You know. You know I can’t carve out a regular meditation practice every day and every morning, but ten seconds? Can you carve out ten seconds? And just do it, you know. You know when you’re going to work or something, you come
downstairs and you go to open the door. You stop. Particularly in doorways and other thresholds where the tendency is to rush through… what is happening to my feet, shoulders back, ten seconds, breathing out. Where am I? How am I? Where am I going? There does not even really have to be an answer, it’s just this touching the earth. Touching the earth.

Ajahn Sucitto

I guess this exercise is supposed to help with a busy working life, I tried it today far from work off in the hills.

Often when walking alone in the quite of the hills, I think over work, wonder about ideas, remember past sadness and even tell my self stories about walking.

This exercise, seems to physically open my view, expand the horizons and create quiet.

The sensation fades pretty quickly too but I’ll repeat the exercise in different places and see what happens. If it works when I am puffing up a slope it might work in the middle of town or work.

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I’ve been taking a day a week off work this summer to go hillwalking. Yesterday I didn’t really feel great so decided to give it a miss. After a morning looking at screens I changed my mind and though to go for a short walk in the Kilpatrick hills.

 

This is 15 minutes drive from where I live, just about countryside and no more, but a great place for a walk.

There is a metalled road all the way to Loch Humphrey from Old Kilpatrick closed to traffic. It is a favourite walk for lots of folks.

I’d not been for a couple of weeks setting off from the Gas Works things had changed, the hedge had a Presbyterian short back and sides, brambles are is flower and meadowsweet was blooming.

Up the path I usual cut up a field leaving the road, today the grass had shot up to about a foot and a half high wild flowers everywhere:

The lesser spotted orchids, mostly gone, but there was:

Buttercups, hawksbeard, bedstraw, selfheal, clover, eyebright and lots more. Ringlet and Small Heath butterflies all over the place. I spent a while trying to catch slo-mo videos on my phone. I wonder if a selfie-stick would help?

Through the few trees and the edge of the moor is fringed with purple from the bell heather, lots of Tormentil too. Once on the moor common heather took over, not in flower yet, but there were patches of purple, yellow and white from the bell, bedstraw and tormentil everywhere.Â

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I’ve been finding camera+ on the phone pretty good for ‘macro’ photos.Â

sexton beetle

 

I was hoping to see some ravens or even a peregrine. Ravens are common and I’ve seem a few peregrines recently, one close in hot pursuit of a kestrel. Caught a quick glimpse of ravens and heard some nice croaking but no peregrines. I did see a nice kestrel hovering at my eye level.

Slacks Trig Point

I usually rejoin the Loch Humphrey path but today went round the moor to the Slacks trig point, before heading back down. Away from the road I didn’t meet anyone else, a beautiful couple of hours.