I want to talk about a web 2.0 tool: Glogster. Glogster is an electronic poster application that allows you to add text, images and video. The end-product is a sort of collage but it's not as messy as the paper ones and it is online.Here are some examples of educational projects carried out with Glogster:
Can you find any interesting Glogs?
There are many classroom applications of this visual tool. One possible task could be to create a biography of someone the student admires (like this) or to create an autobiography. Can you think of any more ideas?
I think glogs are really interesting tools for teaching practice. Through a glog students can create a collage using different texts, fonts, images, and files (audio and visual). Basically, they can be useful for presentations, cooperative or individually activities or tasks and final projects. One possible task could be to ask students to create a dairy of every english class and comment on the topics, activities and things seen in class. In a way, glogs are tools that motivate students and encourage them to work in an autonomous way.
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ReplyDeleteThis is the first time I hear about this concept and I find it incredibly interesting, because it brings a neverending world of possibilities. A whole course could be organized through this tool, as the Internet enables you to put lots of things together (through hypertext and stuff like that) and the different subjects (Geography, History, Matchs, Languages...) could be interrelated (for example, organizing them in different sections but putting links that bring you to a different subject when it's necessary; in History we read about lots of countries, so we could link them to the Geography section; or everytime a foreign word appeared, we would link it to its corresponding language section... there could also be a section of famous characters' biographies and so on).
ReplyDeleteI think that it could be very interesting to ask the students to create their own book of resources in the subject of English, for example. They would have to put the aspects of each unit that they found the most helpful, and organize them in grammar, reading and listening areas. As the Internet makes possible to upload videos and audio, their glog would be a great source of interesting and varied activities that would help them enlarge their English knowledge and encourage them to learn more.
Another possibility would be to ask students to create their own version of Last Fm (for the subject of Music): that is, to put all the bands or singers they like and relate them in some way, for example sorting them by the kind of music (indie, rock, pop, and so on) or by their own ratings (organize them from the one they like the most to the least). They could do things like this in other creative subjects, like Visual Arts, creating a portfolio of their best works, including maybe videos of the process or linking interesting resources in general.
Finally I'd just like to say that ICT Tools are very helpful for students because they have been born in the "technology" society and they feel very comfortable working with them. If we try to make them learn through something that they find interesting, we surely will get better results than using the same old boring books they've been using their whole lifes.
Myriam.
Glogster is a very useful tool in a school reality in which the students are more adept at using Photoshop or Windows Movie Maker (just a couple of example of the thousands of offered programmes) than they are at using scissors and glue.
ReplyDeleteThere are countless options with Glogster, not just projects related to people, such as biographies and biographies, but also, to show, for instance, the climate and vegetation characteristic of particular zone, as we can see in this two examples:
- http://hannah07.glogster.com/Climate-and-Vegetation-of-South-Asia-/
- http://workman.glogster.com/Climate-in-Southeast-Asia/
Internet gives a lot of information for everybody. It is the main reason why the internet is so successful. From this point of view Glogster allows to put information, music, video, graphics,ideas and emotions. It's a great source for using in teaching and learning technology.
ReplyDeleteIt allows to discuss different topics. The teacher offers the topic and the students develop it according to their interests and hobbies. This is a kind of work which promotes students intrinsic motivation. For example, while working with the topic "My House" the students develop it into the subtopic "My dream House" or others which is closer to their interests. Their learning activity is more concentrated on content than on vocabulary and grammar while creating the glogster. This is a great way of language learning. The teacher can support his (her) students by giving some comments and see their progress in learning.
The glogster's possibilities are multiple. It also can be helpful in learning grammar. Here is one of the examples of Past Continuous Tense:
http://olgavai.edu.glogster.com/grammarglog/
Being honest, I've never heard of this tool, and after look at some examples, I can assert it’s a really motivating and interesting way of working. By using it, you have the possibilities the typical poster offers and also those countless resources you can find by surfing the net: videos, links, pictures, music and so on. It’s online, so you can share it easily with other people and export it and save it to computer-compatible format as well.
ReplyDeleteIt’s true there are many classroom applications of this tool, and a biography is a good option. I’ve found other examples to study animal classifications (for example: http://leonidas75.edu.glogster.com/53-arthropods/) or cultural aspects (for example, Christmas: http://leonidas75.edu.glogster.com/merry-christmas/).
To sum up, glogster can be a fun learning experience, a new way to express creativity, it can drive new interest levels around subjects that may have been seen as boring before, adds needed audiovisual aspects to traditionally text-oriented subjects, fosters teamwork and collaboration with classmates, keeps teachers and students up to date with modern technology, increases drive to be independently creative, improves student-teacher relationships by allowing both to explore Web 2.0 & learning concepts together, etc.
Talía.
To be honest, I must say that I've never heard about this tool. In fact, in this subject I am discovering lots of new tools and resources that can be used in school. I think that this tool is very interesting because of two main reasons: students learn and practise English and ICT at the same time. In fact, they know a lot about computers and how to use them but I think that they are not so used to using the computer to study and to learn, they tend to use it for entertainment. And the second reason is that it seems to be funny for them to create it.
ReplyDeleteThis tool can have lots of different applications in class in many different subjects. I've found two different examples, one about literature (http://ahabi.glogster.com/ahab/) and one about language (http://teacher47.glogster.com/english110/)
Maria
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ReplyDeleteI find Glogster a very interesting tool that offers many possibilities in the context of secondary education. Working with Glogster allows the students to be creative in any matter like History, Arts, Literature, Science...Therefore, the result is very attractive and can be shared anytime because it is on the Web.
ReplyDeleteAs we have already said, this tool can be used in many matters either concerning adacemic aspects like those on grammar that Anzhela proposes or concerning more personal aspects like those on biographies or autobiographies.
Hence, my two suggestions have to do with these two different approaches, one dealing with academic aspects of a language and another one dealing with personal taste on a given topic.
In the first task, the students have to create a Glogster on vocabulary where they focus on a given topic seen in class but extending it. The idea is that each group prepare a diffent topic so they can use each other's glogster as a tool to learn vocabulary. In the second task, the students have to use that tool to talk about a movie they like. They had to give as many informatin as possible without telling the film.
Ruth.
This is the first time I have heard about this tool. ACtually, until I began this master I had barely had any contact with any tools used in the Internet that we could include in our classes. For me, ICT were a completely unknown concept. Of course, I have used some social tools as Facebook, but my knowledge was really poor.
ReplyDeleteIn this case, I think that Glogster is a really interesting tool to integrate in our classes. Students should become aware of ICT and Internet tools that can be included in many classes. For any concept we can make our students use ICT tools so that they can develop the new concepts that they have to learnt by using them creating presentations or posters. In this media products they can invent situations where the knowledge they are learning in class is shown to the teacher by solving this situations, this problems, with the new concepts.
So Glogster may be an interesting option to integrate knowledge and class concepts in ICT tools, by connecting images, music, videos, text and knowledge. It may be a good possibility for making students be not so bored about the concepts and feel they enjoy what they are doing at school.
Ariadna
As my classmates have already pointed out, Glogster is a great ICT tool, which can definitely change the whole atmosphere in the classroom. If integrated properly, Glogster can be the ingredient needed to create a truly motivating learning environment, as the following presentation shows:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.slideshare.net/glogster/glogster-edu-education-20-2902550
In my opinion, one interesting application of this tool would be using it for students research project in secondary education. Taking into account that these projects are compulsory, one way of making them more appealing to students --so that they actually get engaged and make the most out of it-- is using interactive frameworks, such as Glogster. Therefore, students can make research projects much funnier by adding video, images, etc.
If this proposal seems overambitious, teachers can always try to use Glogster just as what it is: a highly entertaining tool which can perfectly supplement daily classes.
The following example illustrates what I mean:
http://jellyfishteacher.edu.glogster.com/Glogster-Geography-Too/
In any case, Glogster should become part of nowadays teaching and learning practice.
I had the opportunity to see this tool integrated in an English class. When I was in the first period of my teaching practice, I had the change to go and observe a English teacher from IES Icària who was dealing with Glogster with 1rst of ESO students. She decided to use it because she thought that would be a nice way to portrait all the knowledge students previously learned about how to give personal information in English. Firstly, she presented the tool and taught students all the applications they could find in it. Then, all the class went to the computer's room to log in and create their own accounts on glogster. After, she told them to use glogster to create a project based on their lives. So, students had to create an autobiography of them including text, pictures and videos. They had to do it at home but they could send their projects to the teacher so that she could correct some mistakes if any. The last part of the project consisted on an oral presentation carried out by each student. Apart from showing their glogsters to the rest of the class, they had to talk about themselves and the elements chosen to create the final project.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I thought the teacher used this tool in an appropriate way because she was integrating technology with knowledge students had seen previously in class. I could also observe students’ behaviour towards it. Generally, they like showing their projects and had a positive attitude towards presenting them to the rest of the class. Students come up with very projects and performance.
With all presented above, I just wanted to share with you my experience so that you can also have an opinion about how glogster can be used in an ELT classroom.
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ReplyDeleteIn the high school were I did my teaching practice, teachers didn’t use many ICT tools and that is why I think it is very interesting to know how Glogster is used in real contexts. In my opinion, the English teacher of IES Icària had a great idea and I think it is a good way to use this kind of tool in Secondary School.
ReplyDeleteI have been surfing the net and I have found different types of glogs. In the Edu Glogster web page, which is a learning platform for teachers and students to express their creativity, knowledge, ideas and skills in the classroom, there are thousands of glogs classified in different categories such as Chemistry, Ecology, Economics, Language, History, Technology, Lesson planning… I have looked at different kind of glogs and some of them were really interesting. In my point of view, Glogster is a great tool to create little projects of one specific topic (animals or cultures, for example). I have found a glog dedicated to the Pacific white-sided dolphin that I consider could be a good example of how to use Glogster in class. In this glog, they give basic information about this type of dolphin, its environment problems, etc. There are photos, videos and also links to the American Cetacean Society, Wikipedia…
Here is the link:
http://s023.msstill.edu.glogster.com/pacific-white-sided-dolphin/
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ReplyDeleteWe, as future English teachers have to get familiar with and used to the use of the ICTs that we can use both to help us and our students during the lesons. Nowadays, technological tools such as Glogster are really useful and both easy to use and find. Moreover, it is really innovative and help students be motivated and creative.
ReplyDeleteI heard about Glogster during my first practicum period. My English tutor at Torras i Bages uses it frequently for students to summarize certain contents they have dealt with during the unit (grammar, vocabulary, culture...) or just to create special projects. I saw the results of the Christmas' project and they were great because students searched for Christmas' songs, videos, traditions... and they both enjoyed and learnt while doing it.
Apart from being used as a perfect way to summarise content or carry out projects, the glogs you can find on the net are specally useful for CLIL classes. Here there is the link of a really interesting glog on for a Science class on the cell which can be really intersting as well as dynamic.
http://tehescmarts.edu.glogster.com/the-cell/
Jennifer
Thank you for sharing your ideas on how to use Glogster. As you all mentioned, Glogster offers a wide range of possibilities: from language practice like Jennifer pointed out (grammar and vocabulary) to creative or research projects in the field of EFL or CLIL like the rest were suggesting. I am glad to hear that some of you have had the opportunity of seeing your English tutor using it during your practicum period.I'd love to know about the students' response to working with Glogster!
ReplyDeleteI have to say that this is the first time I have heard about this tool, I've looked at some examples and in my opinion it's a very interesting tool that gives lots of possibilities to the students a to the teachers, handmade collages, as you said before, are messy and personally I do not like them too much. Yet this new tool, offers the possibility to navigate in the collage and to add music or videos. Moreover, it can be used as a final portfolio presentation.
ReplyDeleteTrini
Before I read the post I had no idea of the existence of Glogster. I have to say that it is a very complete and useful tool with unlimited options and ways to use it in ESL classes or others (not just for language classes it can be extended to all subjects bearing in mind the latest introduction of the Educat programme).
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me (since my group had to do the presentation) that Glogster is the best way to create Scrapbooks or something very similar to them. Students can interact with other students, with teachers and with other highschools. So more than a useful tool it is a worldwide thread that could connect schools from all over the world.
Claudia.
To be honest, I have never neither used nor heard about this technological tool named Glogster. However, I wish I had because I find it really interesting in order to work with secondary students in a CLIL context. As some of my classmates commented, it offers a never-ending world of possibilities to allow our students to link their knowledge of different subjects. Moreover, as future teacher of secondary school, we should take into account that, nowadays, students are really use to work and fulfill tasks by means of computers and the internet; therefore we should take advantage of the great opportunities that this means for us, because this innovative tool will help us to motivate and encourage creativity among our student.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, as Jennifer has just mentioned above, Glogster is very functional to summarize contents, carry out school projects and to concrete certain contents students have dealt with in class in order to clarify them or to work further on them.
Finally, as we have seen in some subjects from this master, it is essential for teachers and, even more, for student to gain a meaningful learning; therefore, I think that by working with technological tools such as Glogster, students create their own resources and findings and it becomes more complicated for them to forget what they have learned.
Glogster is particularly good for teaching children and teenagers. I observed this during the first practicum because my tutor at the centre uses this tool. She asked each student to use glogster to design his or her autobiography and present it to the whole class. I noticed that the childeren found it very interesting and each one of them tried to make is as beautiful as possilbe.
ReplyDeleteI think that the reason behind the success is the fact that glogster takes into consideration the different learning styles that we have. Those students that fancy visual learning added a lot of pictures and videos in their presentation, those that prefer audio added a lot of audio files and so on.
In order to use this tool properly with children, it is ablsolutely necessary to give clear instructions and also demonstrate them on the computer. In addition, the teacher should monitor the children while they are performing the task, to make sure they are doing the right thing.
This tool can be applied in many ways for language teaching, as my classmates have suggested. I believe it can also be used in other subjects as well. I think it is manly useful for sharing the result of one's research with other students in a very attractive way, so teachers should try as much as possible to encourage this.
Thanks, Charles
2.0 tool: GOOGLE SITES
ReplyDeleteI know we are all already familiar with this tool, Google Sites, but I will just include it in our 2.0 tool list since I think it can be quite useful for creating e-portfolios. Students can use it as a logbook in which they explain their learning process and progress, their comments on the activities and tasks done in class, or just the general overview of the subject.
I really think it can be motivating because students can improve their digital skills, and also because they are free to choose their own tools (images, maps, gadgets and so on) in order to express themselves.
However, teachers should be careful when using this tool since, as we all know, students need guidelines to create an efficient and meaningful learning product.
Here you can see an example of an e-portfolio:
https://sites.google.com/site/mastersecundariaub/
MindMeister:
ReplyDeleteA very interesting tool is MIndMeister. It's a tool that helps you to create mind-maps in the web, for real-time collaboration to allow truly global brainstorming sessions. Mind-maps are really helpful to evaluate vocabulary in the case of EFL classes. So, the teacher can ask students to create a mind map in groups about the topic learnt in class. Students can comment about the creation of others and share information (students can improve their creations by learning from their classmates mind-maps)
I think glogster is an interesting tool. It is an enjoyable way of making students work and organize information and it will be suitable for students of all ages and learning styles. In this interactive visual platform students can create a “poster or web page” as a way of reflecting on every session of the class (like a portfolio) or it can be used as a way of making a presentation of a particular topic of famous figure. They will feel comfortable doing it because they can include multimedia elements: text, audio, video, images, graphics, drawings, and data with which they are familiar. Moreover, students always like alternatives and challenges and it can become a challenging way of assessing student’s work and progress
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ReplyDeleteAs all my classmates have already stated, Glogster offers many and varied posibilities as regards the use of English,in this particular case, in class. In fact, students and especially adolescents consider the Internet an enyojable way of sharing information and keeping in touch with the people they really want to. In this sense, this ICT tool as it is Glogster is a perfect one to create an atmosphere in which students feel free to share and post what they are interested in and also to learn from their classmates. Not only this, but it also serves as a plattform in which the main contents of a specific subject are summarized, and as the place in which students are required to "deliver" some of their assingments. Computers in general are perfect to make things creative and very attracive with the objective of attracting people's attention.
ReplyDeleteFinally, I would also like to point out the fact that by using this kind of ICT tools, classes are made more dynamic and no so strict and rigid as they use to be. So, if ICTs, such as Glogster offer myriad and never-ending possiblities, why not taking advantage of them?
Laura Bistuer
I didn't know about this tool before and I really think that it's amazing for the potential and countless possibilities that it may have in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteI believe that almost every topic to be studied in class could use this tool to make, for example, the final project, which in this way, would require both creativity and "technological" skills. For this reason, it could engage learners with mixed interests and also familiarize them with ICT tools, as they play an important part in the ESO syllabus.
I believe that "contemporary" students know a lot about computers and technology and how they work, but many of them need guidelines to learn what to look for in the Internet, or they'll get lost. Tools like this can provide a useful guide for them and can really boost their creativity at the same time!
Irene Serafini