Parents' Notes

This site contains video and audio which embraces different people, places and life-styles. It promotes knowledge and understanding of diverse places, people, cultures and environmental issues including sustainability. It is a useful research tool which engages users through a variety of contexts using a wide range of enriching Gaelic vocabulary. Gaelic subtitles are available for all content.

Video Tool(Dèan Film)

The Video Tool provides the user with a number of video clips from the video resources in the study. Learners can then add music and text subtitles to the video and play it out. The activity has been developed to enable learners with different levels of ability and preferences for working.

Webzine(Cruthaich Iris)

The Webzine is a desktop publishing application which allows the user to create a five-page magazine, poster or project about any of the themes from the study on which they are reflecting.

Saving Work

Users can save work created using the Video Tool and Webzene. The work will only be saved on the computer on which they are working at the time and it will only be possible to load the piece of work on that particular machine in the future. If users save several large pieces of work on the same computer a dialogue box could appear asking users if they want to allocate more computer memory. Users will have to agree to this before being able to save any more work.

Audio and Visual Help

Users can click on the Preferences (Roghainnean) button to:

• resize on-screen text and change text and background colours
• hear on-screen text being read out
• make captions available for most video and audio content.

Users can also navigate most content using the keyboard.

All content fits with Curriculum for Excellence, with videos identifying real examples of successful learners, effective contributors, responsible citizens and confident individuals. Local children are guides to local issues in six locations forming the six sections of this site. Also embedded within these sections are video-clips which feature documentary style factual stories relating to the theme.

THEME	LOCATION	ASSOCIATED VIDEOS
Transport (Còmhdhail)	Barra, Western Isles	Travelling to school from the Isle of Ulva Life on Tristan da Cunha Galapagos Islands
Recycling (Ath-chuairteachadh)	Northern Ireland	Recycling cars in Cuba What happens to used nappies How we could make our own compost
Settlement (Tuineachadh)	Wales	Life in Mongolia Life in Hong Kong Favelas in Brasil
Food (Biadh)	Birmingham	Making chocolate Foods, particularly foods available naturally Foods at special events
Tourism (Turasachd)	Mallorca, Spain	Himalayas and Machu Picchu How holidays in Britain have changed Events which draw in crowds
Borders (Crìochan)	Poland	America and Mexico Cyprus The Basque country

The content relates to different areas of the curriculum and can stimulate conversation on a wide range of themes relating to language, social studies, technologies, science, health and well-being and religious and moral education, amongst others.

If you would like to get involved in your child's learning, the following questions may help stimulate discussion:

Transport(Turasachd)

• Why do you think the Skye bridge was built?
• What might the advantages/disadvantages of the ferry have been?
• How do the island roads compare with other roads?

Recycling(Ath-chuairteachadh)

• How could we recycle more?
• What types of things could we recycle?
• How could we encourage more people to recycle?

Settlements(Tuineachadh)

• What do you think it would be like to live in an eco-village?
• What would you like best about it and what things would you miss?
• Why do you think Port Talbot changed over the years?

Food(Biadh)

• What are the advantages/disadvantages of having an allotment?
• How does fairtrade work?
• What different food types are associated with different countries?

Tourism(Turasachd)

• How do we promote Scotland?
• What are the best things Scotland has to offer?
• How do we protect our environment?

Borders(Crìochan)

• Why have borders?
• What are the different borders in the UK?
• What might life be like living on a border-line?