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TeachersFirst Edge Entry: For moderately adventurous technology users (teachers) and most student users (with significant help in primary grades). Glogster EDU is a tool to create online multimedia "posters" that can incorporate all types of elements into a visual space: links, images, text, videos, music, and more. Your students will have multiple ways to express themselves and to learn from each other, making it easy for you to differentiate and engage each student.
The ad-free EDU community offered by Glogster is designed to alleviate the problems of inappropriate content and contact with "outsiders" not welcome in your class' electronic community. The EDU area provides classes advertising-free glogs and easy teacher monitoring of student work. Students can comment and interact within a "gated community" with education-friendly options for collaboration and learning. Remember those "All About Me" posters you used to make during the first month of school, or science fair stand-up tri-folds, or magic-marker-drawn visual aids for speeches? Translate 20th century "visuals" into the 21st century using Glogster EDU, extending your students' intellectual reach and mastering the media to incorporate new technologies and richer messages. Here is an example glog created by the TeachersFirst Edge team.
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In the Classroom:
Skills needed: Join the site (free). Premium service is available, but this review is for the free version. Registration requires teacher email. Once registered and confirmed by email, teachers can establish up to 200 student accounts without student emails. Take time to view "new glogs" within the EDU area to get some ideas. Skip making a profile, if you wish.
You can learn all about Glogster EDU and see student examples by scrolling down the home page to "Students Work," a collection of great videos (click the screens to play), and "Educational Resources." Don't miss several teacher-friendly, step by step tutorials in print and multimedia formats.
If you prefer to simply play, start by creating a glog to try out the tools (don't forget to name it). Keep it simple or add all the bells and whistles. Preview as you work or return later to complete and publish your Glog. Add ready-made graphics, images from files on your computer or by URL on the web, links (hyperlinked from text or other objects), text boxes or bubbles, backgrounds ("walls"), animated graphics ("vinyl and toys"), recorded audio, embedded video from SchoolTube or TeacherTube, uploaded media file, and much more. You can also "grab" video or audio from your computer's webcam and mike. [Our editors had some trouble "grabbing" video from a Mac using Firefox, so TEST in advance. A very responsive Glogster EDU tech crew tells us they are working to correct that glitch.]
Of course you will want to model and teach appropriate documentation of any sources of images and media you use and to use copyrighted works legally. If you limit access to your class only by keeping a glog "private," you can use copyrighted materials under Fair Use. YOU must limit the distribution of the URL, however.
When you are done working, decide whether the glog is "unfinished" or "finished" (and published), and decide whether it will be public or not. Share finished work with "friends" (classmates) in the Glogster EDU area or via URL and other social networking tools. You can access ALL your glogs and your students' glogs from your teacher dashboard, including the glog URLs. You can embed a glog in your class wiki or blog, making it easy to "collect" student glogs in one place. Watch the tutorials on embedding so you can learn how to adjust the size of the embed window and which codes work best for wikispaces.
Safety/security concerns:
Check school policies about posting student work on the web. Obtain written permission and notify parents about your exciting Glogster projects so you can share with them. Have specific rules about using social networking tools through Glogster, especially about "friend" and profile features available at log-in. EDU glogs are automatically "private." Teachers have access to see and administer student passwords (great for forgetful students!). Free accounts have "gobbledegook" user names for students, so keep a cheat sheet to help students log in with these odd "names." You have the choice to make student glogs "Unfinished private" - only teacher and creating student can see, "Finished Private" - only teacher and all students within classroom can see, and "Public" for all to see.
Possible uses: (in addition to those shown in the sample glog here) "visual essays;" digital biodiversity logs (with digital pictures students take); online literary magazines; personal reflections in images and text; research project presentations; comparisons of online content, such as political candidates' sites or content sites used in research (compared for bias); documenting science experiments or illustrating concepts, such as the water cycle; "Visual" lab reports; Digital scrapbooks using images from the public domain and video and audio clips from a time in history -- such as the Roaring Twenties; Local history features; visual interpretations of major concepts, such as a "visual" U.S. Constitution. Build a library of sample Glogs by you or by former students, then ask students to create their own as a new way to assess understanding: you could even provide links to images and raw materials they may use (especially if you have students who need extra scaffolding), and they can work with them to sequence, caption, and write about the pieces. After a first project where you possibly suggest "building blocks," the sky is the limit on what they can do. Even the very young can make suggestions as you "create" a whole-class glog together using an interactive whiteboard. Consider making a new project for each unit you teach so students can "recap" by visiting the glog long after the unit ends. Save student glogs from year to year as examples, possibly even awarding prizes for "best" examples. Have upper elementary or middle school students create "glogs for understanding" for "little buddies" two or three grades lower. |
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