In Scotland, all school buildings were physically closed on 23 March 2020 as a result of strict lockdown measures to respond to the spread of Covid-19.  Scotland was relatively well prepared to quickly adapt its education system to the exceptional context of a pandemic, in part due to the existence of a national online learning platform called Glow.

Glow

Glow services are freely available to all school-aged learners and school teachers in Scotland.   Redeveloped in 2014, the platform is now a fully cloud-based service that is accessible from any internet connected device with a modern browser.  Core services include authentication portal, Microsoft Office 365, Google G-Suite for Education and WordPress Blogs. More information about Glow can be found at www.glowconnect.org.uk 

Glow user numbers and usage have been increasing year-on-year since the redeveloped service was launched.  However, with school buildings being physically closed, user numbers and usage increased significantly.  There are c.700,000 pupils and c.50,000 teachers in Scotland. In March 2019  c.235,000 users were logging in c.3.5m times. By contrast, after the closure of schools in March 2020, c.491,000 users were logging in 10.5m times.  For the whole period when school buildings were closed, from March to June 2020, over 563,000 users logged in a combined 40 million times between them.  This notable rise in usage has, to the greatest extent, been sustained into the current academic year, which started in August 2020. In September 2020, almost 430,000 users were accessing Glow 7.7 million times.

Digital Inclusion

Of course, availability of online services, and their potential to deliver educational continuity are diminished if pupils do not have access to devices and/or the internet.  Recognising this, the Scottish Government took the decision to incest £25m to support digital inclusion for school-aged disadvantaged children and young people across Scotland.  Grant funding was allocated to all local authorities who identified those in need and procured devices and connectivity solutions accordingly.  By end-November, almost 50,000 devices had been distributed to children across all areas of Scotland, as well as over 9,000 connectivity solutions (usually MiFi Units with SIM cards and data packages).  In total, we expect the programme will benefit around 70,000 individuals across Scotland.    

Curriculum Support 

Beyond the technology, we recognised the need to support teachers in delivering meaningful learning experiences in an online environment.  Education Scotland (the national education improvement agency) moved quickly at the onset of the lockdown context to make available a wide range of online teaching resources and curriculum content through their web platforms, as well as a range of online seminars which aimed to support teaching staff to make best use of the technology available to them.  These resources and seminars were well received by the teaching profession with large numbers of resources being downloaded and seminars being well attended.

We are now building on this work and in partnership with local authorities, we are developing the National eLearning Offer.  Bringing together projects from different areas of the country and making them available at a national level, the offer is comprised of a range of live lessons, recorded lessons and supported study materials which are aligned to the national curriculum.  The offer is being expanded and we are considering how best to ensure it continues to meet needs of pupils and teachers now and into the future.  

More information: https://education.gov.scot/improvement/national-e-learning-offer  

Source: Eurydice Unit UK-Scotland