Using Glow in learning and teaching

Glow allows teachers and students to collaborate on documents online, meaning that groups can work together on shared or similar projects. Common spaces are available for gathering and storing information from a number of students, and teachers can collect, review and give feedback online.

In Office Online, you can simultaneously edit Word, Excel, PowerPoint or OneNote from your browser or desktop, and view edits from other people in real time.

SharePoint Online allows you to collaborate through lists, libraries, pages and other media while engaging in discussion through Yammer.

Every Glow user has a profile in SharePoint Online and educators also have a profile in Yammer that is populated with details of their role and school. This profile can be supplemented with details of interests and expertise and is visible to other users. This can help learners and teachers identify one another and collaborate based on common interests.

You can use Sway to create graphic presentations, share links with other users and collaborate in the creation of content in real time.

Planner allows groups of teachers and/or learners to work together to achieve common goals by organising, assigning and managing tasks. Planner also offers group members the functionality of O365 Groups.

O365 Groups brings together threaded email conversations, a shared calendar, shared file storage, and shared notebook. This quickly and easily allows groups of teachers and/or learners to work together.

Forms allows teachers and pupils to create quizzes, surveys and questionnaires that can be completed by other teachers and learners or members of the public.

Microsoft Teams provides a collaborative space to help distribute tasks and resources to pupils. Pupils can then update and return these materials or upload other evidence of learning to share with their teacher or fellow pupils. Teachers have a collated view of this evidence and can provide formative feedback from a single point.

You can upload media content, such as photographs and video, across Office 365 sites and access these from one location. Uploaded content can be embedded in O365 Video, Sway, Yammer, PowerPoint, Word, Excel, SharePoint Online and a range of other external services such as Glow Blogs.

Content in O365 Video allows transcoding of content so that uploaded videos are rendered in many different formats ensuring playback is customised for the viewing device. It also offers intelligent consumption of available bandwidth and a content delivery network to offer scale.

Glow users can set up and maintain an e-portfolio or record of learning and achievement, with the ability to upload and attach various types of assets.

Using Glow Blogs, a plug-in allows the creation of an e-portfolio and it is now possible for teachers to bulk create blogs for their pupils. E-portfolios can also be created using tools in Office 365 such as OneNote and SharePoint.

The online Classrooms applications below, allow teachers the ability to create managed spaces for collaboration with their learners. They provide an easy way to share files, make announcements, distribute, collect and grade assignments in a secure online environment anytime, anywhere.

Microsoft Teams is part of Microsoft 365 tools within Glow and can be accessed via a browser, or the dedicated Teams app. Teachers can then add students to their class using their Glow credentials or by asking them to join using a unique Teams code.

Google Classroom is part of the Google Workspace tools within Glow and can be accessed via a browser, or the dedicated Classroom app. Teachers can then add students to their class using their Glow credentials or by asking them to join using a unique Classroom code. Please note that only Local Authorities who have signed up for Google workspace via Glow will be able to access Google Classroom.

Glow users can share sites and files with other users inside and outside of Glow to allow national collaboration and learning. This can be done using features of SharePoint, OneNote, O365 Groups, OneDrive, Yammer, Planner and Outlook email.

External Sharing is now enabled to allow some users to share via OneDrive and SharePoint. This allows sharing outside of Glow either with authenticated users (by email address requiring sign-in) and with anonymous users (no sign-in required and shared by view link only).

Sway and Forms allow full public sharing with control retained by the creator to amend or revoke this at any time.

Glow users have unlimited storage they can access from anywhere, at any time.

Glow Blogs

Blogs are one of the easiest ways to create webpages and Glow users can design blogs to support a range of educational scenarios.

School websites can be customised to share information and support parental engagement. Class blogs can provide pupils with a wider audience for their work, capture learning, celebrate achievements and make connections across the world. A blog for a school trip can be used to provide a journal of what’s been happening for parents and the wider community including videos and photographs.

Glow blogs can create websites that can only be viewed with a Glow password or made public for anyone on the internet to view.

Google Sites

Create web pages and websites to collaborate with Google sites. Easily create a website and add ‘gadgets like calendars, maps, spreadsheets, presentations. Choose a theme and customise it.

You can track your progress in given tasks from different areas. Planner allows you to set up task deadlines, checklists and status while SharePoint allows configuration of alerts and workflows. These can be used to automate common tasks such as adding to lists, sending email and requesting approval.

Glow users across Scotland have the opportunity to join National Learning Communities. These communities can be used to share resources, information, ideas, open up collaboration opportunities and build networks. Please see a couple of the examples below that require a Glow login:

Education Scotland Digital Team.
National Professional Learning Communities (SharePoint)

There are a number of ways of creating and hosting online meetings and events (web conferences) in Glow. Teams within Microsoft 365 and Meet within Google Workspace both offer the option of online events or meetings.

Functionality includes the ability to conduct real time conversations and Q&A sessions, and to stream audio and video content.

Share your desktop with other learners and teachers to demonstrate your work.

Yammer has a powerful search that will return Groups, Notes, Files, Topics, People and Conversations simultaneously that match a search term.

SharePoint Online allows searching either of the entire tenancy or focused on individual sites, with the option of filtering the results after searching. Search can be targeted at a great number of properties such as filename, title, contained text, tag, metadata, file type, people or site. Glow users can find useful resources others have shared.

Delve gives each user a personalised search experience with access to all of their own recently worked-on content, links to all activity of closest colleagues, and the ability to surface and present search results with personal relevance. Delve previews the searched content in ‘cards’ and also includes content added as links in Yammer. Delve allows users to pin content to Delve Boards for ease of content curation and future navigation.

WordPress Blogs and attachments within Glow Blogs can have search capabilities, the extent of which depends on the ‘theme’ that has been used to create the blog and what plug-ins have been activated in the blog.