{"id":2356,"date":"2013-01-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-28T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnjohnston.info\/blog\/?e=2356"},"modified":"2021-06-26T20:27:06","modified_gmt":"2021-06-26T19:27:06","slug":"an-excellent-adventure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnjohnston.info\/blog\/an-excellent-adventure\/","title":{"rendered":"An Excellent Adventure"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On Friday Professor Muffy Calder Chief Scientific Adviser for Scotland announced The ICT in Education Excellence Group completes its report on the requirements of a future Glow service<\/a> the report can be downloaded from the Excellence Group Report<\/a> page on The Scottish Government site. I’d recommend that anyone interested in using ict in Teaching and Learning read it.<\/p>\n

First Thoughts<\/s> Quotes<\/h3>\n

There is a lot of detail in the report covering many aspects of Glow Plus, here are some bits that have jumped out at me in the first read through or two:<\/p>\n

While these documents refer to this service with the working title of “Glow Plus”, the Group proposes that a rebranding of the service – involving users – should be part of the implementation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’ve heard a lot of negativity for teachers about ‘glow’ some of the more clunky aspects of the initial implementation and the confusion over the transition<\/a> to a new version have created some negativity. From talking to teachers where I work I’d guess the use of glow has dropped off considerably except for the use of e-portfolios. Rebranding might help, but a solid system will help even more.<\/p>\n

The new service should be as open as possible, with only personal and procured content and services behind an authentication barrier.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Interesting to read Jaye<\/a> about forcing<\/em> teachers to use glow to access national 4 & five material. The more that is openly and easily available the more folk may use ICT and that is surly the point. I know some material must be behind paywalls, because we pay for it but not everything we logon to use needs to be behind a password.<\/p>\n

Fearghal’s post Fearghal Kelly’s thoughts \u00bb Evaluating Glow Plus #ICTex<\/a> questions this closed aspect of glow too.<\/p>\n

The development of Glow Plus will necessarily be an iterative process and the Group recommends development using an agile development process with close involvement of users and other stakeholders.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’ve blogged enough<\/a> about the need for glow to be in perpetual beta to love the agile word here.<\/p>\n

Teachers should be trusted to use their professional judgment about how ICT should be used.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Enough said.<\/p>\n

To allow a power user or third-parties to develop integrated services a simple application programming interface (API) will enable support for applications to be integrated to the platform and feed the learning stream. As a result of integration, single sign-on will be achieved for that app. This API will also allow the limited release of user data based on authentication and attribute release\/data exchange.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Some of the most interesting, most used, parts of glow have been the bits hacked<\/em> by teachers and others rather than developers. Alex Duff’s bending wordpress into a usable e-portfolio despite the restrictions built into the glow implementation, Con Morris’s CPD groups that make the portal look nice and more importantly act like a web 2 site and Glow TV, developed by Pam Currie I believe, all show the power of users being able to develop what they need. An API<\/strong> and the open systems promised by the report could make the new glow a lot more open to this sort of development.<\/p>\n

There is a lot more to the report than these quick takes, I recommend again, go and read it. I hope to think aloud a bit more about it here at a later date.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile in the House of Love<\/h3>\n

While working as part of the ICTEX group Charlie Love<\/a> has been developing Glew<\/a>. Charlie is allegedly a computing teacher<\/a>, which is hard to believe if you look at how Glew has developed. Glew is a prototype of what Glow Plus could be. It has been in steady, rapid and agile<\/em> development for a year or so (guess). It pulls together a pile of open tools: wordpress, moodle, google apps, and more into an open but cohesive whole. It is the sort of Glow I’d want and when it is not a hint to Charlie is usually enough to get a new service added or bug sorted.<\/p>\n

I am very keen to find out what Glew could be if it was under full time development and if Charlie had some assistance in developing the site.<\/p>\n

A while back<\/a> I said ‘I want a couple of things’: <\/p>\n

\n
    \n
  1. I don’t know what sort of technology I’ll want to learn and teach with in a few years. I want to be able to use new services and techniques as they arise.<\/li>\n
  2. I also want to be able to alter and change these tools that some folk are excited about. Give me a wordpress blog, but one I can change, hack, repurpose add plugins and theme when needed, easily without fuss.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    from: #EDUScotICT small things – transcript – John’s World Wide Wall Display<\/a> <\/p>\n

    I still want these things and believe that the ICTEX’s vision and Charlie’s interpretation would give me these.<\/p>\n

    A New Dawn?<\/h3>\n
    <\/p>\n

    Beach Sunrise_120920223921<\/a> by bfaling Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

    Michael Russell,
    \n    The Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning reflects on the work of the ICT in Education Excellence Group<\/a><\/p>\n

    and my priority is not to lose momentum on this quality piece of work.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    and<\/p>\n

    It is now important to consider the report and the feasibility of the recommendations therein and I am immediately establishing mechanisms to do that, including retaining the Excellence Group as a Reference Group to advise us going forward.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Seems we will need to wait a bit longer, I hope not too long. I feel that the Government missed a trick after the eduscotict \/ ICT Summit<\/a> in 2011. From Mr Russell’s post it certainly sounds as if they will not this time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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