Glogster Edu

Hello...

I've just set up my students (Grade 3) with a Glogster Edu. account and will have the Education Premium account for a free 30 day trial.

I've used Glogster myself and appreciate the medium it provides for expression. Now I'm trying to think about how this may benefit the learning of my students. I want to consider how is Glogster more supportive of their learning and what it offers compared to creating a poster with paper. I understand it can be shared but so can a poster, just in a different way.

I'm currently taking a graduate course in Teaching and Learning with Technology so I have been learning a lot about using technology in the classroom and what I need to consider as a teacher before I decide to implement a technology into my practice.

Now I'm thinking Glogster...does anyone have any input about this medium and what it offers my students?

Thanks!

Tags: Glogster, Primary, technology

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Permalink Reply by Katy Scott on February 27, 2011 at 8:48pm

In my experience, there are a couple of benefits of Glogster, as compared to more traditional posters -- both in terms of creating a glog and interacting with a classmate's glog.

First off, unlike a written poster, you can delve INTO a glog. By that, I mean, there are videos to watch, audio to listen to, and weblinks to follow for further information. With a traditional poster, what you see is literally what you get.
Research shows that this variety of media helps students better understand concepts -- because they are presented in a variety of ways and delivered to the brain through many avenues.
Of course, this also supports differentiated teaching. If you have more auditory learners, they can present their ideas musically. Visual learners can display videos. Etc.

Still, I often see teachers trap themselves into a box with Glogster. They have their students complete ALL their presentations with Glogster. I don't think that's the best idea -- Glogster is an amazing tool but, if we want our students to be true 21st century learners, they need to develop a variety of skills that can't be acquired using a single tool. I would argue that we need our students to become comfortable using and troubleshooting various web 2.0 tools. Plus, offering them a variety of tools helps us offer differentiated lessons to our kids.

Why not show your students Glogster, as well as other programs like Prezi and Go!Animate? Then have each student decide which tool they'll use to present the information (perhaps you could also allow students to choose a more traditional poster). With each new presentation, require students to choose a different tool, so they experience all of them, but still give them some choice.

I've created a Prezi about this concept of differentiated student presentations that you might find useful, as well as a handout outlining the basic idea. I also wrote a blog entry about various presentation tools, if you're interested.

Good luck!

Katy Scott

Stretch Your Digital Dollar