Glogster

The Glogster website created an excellent opportunity to get creative.

My Glog can be viewed at the following link:

Jason Armentrout's Glog

Learning Outcome Questions:

1. A Glog is an interactive poster created through the Glogster website. A Glog can range in diversity and flexibility. Users of Glogster can create posters which contain multimedia such as pictures, audio, and/or visuals.

2. Glogs can be used in my classes in several different ways. First, Glogs can be used to enable students to create and compose e-narratives. This could assist with or possibly take the place of written narrative requirements that are common to typical English curriculum requirements. These can also be used for project based assessment in so many ways. As a teacher of high school Sociology, I plan on having my students use this application to model their mastery and understanding of the concept of culture. I would also like to enable my students in other social studies classes to use this application in order to display their mastery of content materials in the form of a project as opposed to taking a standard test. I also think this could be an excellent tool to communicate with and create assignments for students in my class during extended periods of school closure as was the case last winter during the blizzards of December and February. During the February blizzard, we missed a whole week of instructional days. Many parents of students in the school where I teach conveyed their frustration about this and how their children missed a whole week of learning. With this, Glogs can be used by students to create products demonstrating mastery pertaining to assigned work during these periods. I plan on implementing this tool in both social studies and English classes.

3. Just like with voice thread, I think that the implementation of this tool corresponds with all five standards established by the International Society for Technology in Education. In my opinion the use of this tool corresponds with the first standard very well. This would be an excellent tool for teachers to facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity. This is especially true with the use of it for project based assessment. based on all levels of thinking. I really like the possibilities that it creates for better facilitating more student centered instruction where students are forced to think outside of the box and solve real-world problems as opposed to just regurgitating facts. I also think that the implementation of this tool would be an excellent way for teachers to deal with the fourth standard. This tool can be used in order to promote and model digital citizenship and responsibility. Issues such as copyright and plagiary can be taught as well as issues pertaining to etiquette and responsibility.

4. Once I got the hang of it, I really did not have many problems with Glogster. I did have a little trouble with the grab feature in terms of grabbing my audio and video recordings completely. I had more luck uploading my audio and video applications from the media centers on my computer. Other than that, I really enjoyed using it. My kids and I had a blast making posters and videos. I guess the only hesitation that I would have would be making sure that students understand all of the aspects around the fourth standard established by the International Society for Technology in Education. Like any application that is free and easy to use, a major concern is that of users who push the envelope in regards to the content they post. Most websites that facilitate tools and applications such as these are usually well policed by web administrators. Even though this is a concern, I do not see any reason for schools to block websites such as Glogster from users.