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| Sample glog on U.S. History |
Glogster is a web 2.0 tool that allows users to create online multi-media posters on any topic. A teacher can create an account with 125 sub-accounts within the account for student use in the education version. I used an email account to register as a user, however I used my google account as you can log in directly using google. Once the teacher creates the student sub-accounts the software emails the username and passwords to the teacher account which is a nice feature. At this point students do not have to use their own email accounts, but log in with individual usernames and passwords assigned within their teacher's account. The software is easy to use, allowing users to use drag and drop, upload images, change the background to the wall (poster), add video, add text, record your own audio, and link to sources of information via the Internet. On the home page each user has a dashboard where you can see all glogs you've created. You can create as many glogs as you'd like. The default option for saving is a private glog when you choose Save. You can make your glog public by choosing Public. Glogster comes with many images, graphics, and some youtube videos within its own library, but you can also upload your own images. The glogopedia library showcases some exemplar examples of glogs by subject for teacher and student review. The teacher training videos web site contains several, short tutorial videos on how to use the different features of glogster. I found glogster easy to use. Within minutes I was able to add text, change my wall background and upload an image. Viewing the tutorial vidoes on the teacher training web sites was helpful.
I could use glogster with all middle school students, grades 5 through 8 at my school. The software is flexible enough to allow basic online posters, or more robust, detailed posters. High school students might find this software fun to use as well. The tool lends itself to almost any type of curriculum. Some thoughts I have for glogster use would be a science poster explaining the water cycle. A history poster on the major facts of the Civil War. A language arts glogster showcasing characters from a book students read. World language classes could create posters on countries students might be studying. A technology class could create a glogster on the topics of cyberbullying, online safety, or digital citizenship. The options for glogsters use is endless.
Heroes Among Us is a middle school language arts lesson plan I found online at Read Write Think, that lends itself nicely to glogster. I would adapt the lesson to work with characters from books the seventh grade students are reading in language arts classes; ultimately this could be adapted for many curricula. Our seventh grade students are currently reading: The Outsider, The Giver, and The Little Prince (to name a few). Students would be free to choose a character to depict in an online glogster poster, and then share the posters with classmates. Not only would students learn the glogster technology piece, they would also be presenting in-depth information about their character, and character traits to their classmates. I found this lesson on how to dicuss characters and character traits with students. This lesson would be helpful to use along with the glogster assignment.
The NETS standards met by this lesson are:
1. Creativity and Innovation:a. apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, productes, or processes.
b. create original works as a means of personal or group expression.
2. Communication and Collaboration:
a. interact, collaborates, and publish with peers, experts, or others employing a variety of digital environments and media.
b. communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats.
d. contribute to project teams to produce original works or solve problems.
4. Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making:
b. plan and manage activities to develop a solution or complete a project.
5. Digital Citizenship:
a. advocate and practice safe, legal, and responsible use of information and technology.
c. demonstrate personal responsibility for lifelong learning.
d. exhibit leadership for digital citizenship.
6. Technology Operations and Concepts:
a. understand and use technology systems.
b. select and use applications effectively and productively.
c. troubleshoot systems and applications.
d. transfer current knowledge to learning of new technologies.
Creativity and innovation are met by introducing the use of a new web 2.0 tool to students. They will be creating their own personal works when they create their glog. Students will communicate and collaborate as they share their glogs with their classmates upon completion of the project. Critical thinking and problem solving occurs when students are working on a lesson, as they are given the process, requirements, and assessment, and they must manage their time and resources to complete the problem ontime. Digital citizenship is a requirement for all students as they must adhere to our district Acceptable use Policy, and be safe, legal, and responsible while they are working online. The glogs created by the students will not be published to the Internet as we will not share them, but view them inside of my teacher account. Technology operations and concepts is achieved as students will learn to understand the glogster functionality, they will troubleshoot any problems that occur with teacher assistance, and by using help and glogster tutorials. A transfer of current knowledge occurs as students will provide the information they have learned about their characters into the glog they create.
Animoto is a web application that allows the user to create videos from photographs, images, video, audio clips, and apply music. I created a free teacher account using my gmail account. I received a 6 month free subscription. Animoto is integrated with Youtube so users can export their videos from Animoto and import them into Youtube. The web site Animoto for Education helped me to get started with the web site. Click here to see examples of how schools are using Animoto. This Teach with Web 2.0 web site also has great examples and links to lesson plans using Animoto. Click here to view a brief Youtube video tutorial on how to create videos using Animoto. I found the free version very easy to use, although somewhat limiting. In a matter of minutes I was able to upload a few pictures, write some text captions, and produce a 30 second video with background music of professional looking quality. I wasn't able to select my own music however. Upon saving the video it is compiled (or produced) and runs automatically.
Civil War imageThe Civl War Through a Child's Eye lesson plan found on the Library of Congress web site is a middle school social studies lesson plan I would integrate with an 8th grade social studies teacher. This lesson plan would adapt nicely to Animoto, as in the lesson overview statement, the developer talks about examining and using photographic images to study and understand the Civil War era. Since Animoto is a video, or slide show of images, it lends itself beautifully to this project. The lesson plan suggests reading Paul Fleischman's Bull Run. The social studies teacher and I would discuss whether to read this book, or one she typically has students read for the unit. Our 8th grade social studies curriculum does include several units on the Civil War. The second activity in the lesson directs students to an activity gallery of images compiled by the Library of Congress. Students are to select an image, and then examine and characterize the image. I would expand this section to allow students to select several images to create a short Animoto video on a topic of the Civil War. Students would then continue on with the next step in the lesson which is to use primary source analysis tools to analyze at least one photograph and record their thoughts. By adding the Animoto technology piece to this lesson students exposure to Civil War images would be broadened, not to mention students love working with images and video.
I can see several uses for Animoto in a middle school curriculum. I have worked with our art teachers on integration assignments where students took photographs, and then edited these photographs using Photoshop Elements. We could take this lesson a step further and have students place their final images in a short Animoto video to share with their classmates. Students in just about any language arts class could depict a story they have read through the use of Animoto. One of our 8th grade language arts teachers has students create a short video on the concepts of cinematography. This assignment could be adapted to use the Animoto web 2.0 tool. Our 7th grade students present a science fair every spring where parents attend if possible (it is held during the school day). Students could create an Animoto video of their science boards and images used, and share these images with classmates, other curriculum teachers, and their parents.
Source for image
The Nets standards met by this lesson are:
1. Creativity and Innovation:
a. apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, productes, or processes
b. create original works as a means of personal or group expression
2. Communication and Collaboration:
a. interact, collaborates, and publish with peers, experts, or others employing a variety of digital environments and media.
b. communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats.
d. contribute to project teams to produce original works or solve problems.
3. Research and Information Fluency:
c.evalulate and select information sources and gitial tools based on the appropriateness to specific tasks.
d. process data and report results.
4. Critical thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making:
b. plan and manage activities to develop a solution or complete a project.
6. Technology Operatoins and Concepts:
a. understand and use technology systems.
b. select and use applications effectively and productively.
c. troubleshoot systems and applications.
d. transfer current knowledge to learning new technologies.
Creativity and innovation are met by introducing the use of Animoto, a new web 2.0 tool to students. They will be creating their own personal works when they create their video of Civil War images. Students will communicate and collaborate as they share their vidoes with their classmates upon completion of the project. Critical thinking and problem solving occurs when students are working on a lesson, as they are given the process, requirements, and assessment, and they must manage their time and resources to complete the problem ontime. Technology operations and concepts is achieved as students will learn how to create an Animoto video, they will troubleshoot any problems that occur with teacher assistance, and by using Animoto tutorials. A transfer of current knowledge occurs as students will provide the information they have learned in the video they create and share with their classmates.
