Glogster

Created in Glogster by me using CC images

When I started looking at the Group Three Tools I initially felt that I was covering old ground.  I thought that PowerPoint had been done to death and its day had past (I once barely escaping an epileptic fit viewing some children's examples in the past!), but the learning activities in this section reminded me of the worthwhile learning objects that can be created with this tool. Prezi too, is another powerful tool.  I prefer it over PowerPoint as it is online it is completely portable.  I have seen too many PowerPoints fail because presenter failed to "pack" all the required fonts, pictures, videos, etc. required for the presentation to work effectively.

I selected Glogster, an online poster-making tool, as the one that I would explore further, as I felt that it had much to offer the lower to middle primary school students that I will be working with next term.  The tool is multimodal as you can embed pictures, movies, audio files, text and hyperlinks, thus catering for different learning styles, literacy levels and ICT skills. Once created, you can share them with others either through Glogster accounts or embed your Glogs in your websites, blogs or wikis. When you have registered with the education section of the site, Glogster EDU, you can add class lists and monitor your students work. Privacy and student protection seem to be well catered for in this site.

A PMI analysis of Glogster:
Pluses:

• engaging for young students
• encourages creativity
• can be used for brainstorming
• literacy activities
• portable
• can be embedded in blogs, wikis and websites
• safe and secure environment
• can effectively be used to meet the Learning principles for multimedia (Stansbury, 2008, ¶Multimedia and learning)

Minuses:

• students can get over-absorbed in the "bells and whistles" and forget content
• risk of cognitive overload if not careful
• takes time to set up class lists in Glogster Edu
• uses lots of bandwidth and can be slow
• can be difficult to navigate

Interesting:

• gives plenty of opportunity for lessons in responsible online use, e.g. copyright, appropriate comments,
• emphasis on visual literacy, e.g. appropriate images, colours, arrangements, fonts, etc.
• allows students to continues their days activities at home and show family
• real-time feedback can be given to students in the Edu site
• could create a Glogster rubric to help assess success

There are a variety of lesson plans and resources available online for Glogster such as Read Write Think. With the adequate instruction on the use of this tool and sufficient activity scaffolding to keep children on task, Glogster can be a successful e-learning tool.

Bibliography

Stansbury, M. (2008, March 26). Analysis: How multimedia can improve learning. Retrieved March 24, 2013, from eSchool News: http://www.eschoolnews.com/2008/03/26/analysis-how-multimedia-can-improve-learning/