A Reflection on Glogster

Glogster is a tool for creating 'Glogs' (a form of interactive poster) and a social network for sharing Glogs online. Glogster EDU, the education platform, provides a secure environment for teachers and students.

Glogs are posters as you have never seen them, digital pages packed full of text, graphics, music and videos. Glogs are connectivist tools, in that they encourage users to source and view digital artefacts from a range of sources, including from online search engines, social networking sites or from a location on your computer. Glogs can be easily saved, shared using email, Glogster or other social media (e.g. Facebook, Twitter or Google+) or embedded in blogs. Creating a basic Glog about my interests (above) was pretty straightforward, although uploading images from my computer tended to be time-consuming. It might be best to resize images prior to uploading them on Glogs.

Posters can be tagged with key words, which enable users to find other similar Glogs or make friends based on shared interests.

There are some fantastic examples of educational Glogs available, including on the B-7 Bobcats site.

Glogs can be used across the key learning areas and for a variety of purposes, as indicated in the PMI chart below. I loved using this tool and envisage using it in the following learning contexts:

• as a mechanism for students to get to know each other and for teachers to gather information about students' interests and values;
• for assessment;
• to create authentic projects with links to the real-world (e.g. in a project about propaganda, students can include real footage and photographs on their Glog);
• to record class projects using images, video and audio created by students;
• to role play (e.g. create profile Glogs for characters in movies/books);
• to create study guides; and
• to construct class resources (e.g. class rules to be saved as desktop image on computers).

Plus	Minus	Interesting
- versatile - able to be used for a range of purposes (e.g. to communicate information, student assignments) (Education World, 2009; Symborski, n.d.) - fun - creates a cooperative learning environment where students and teachers explore Web 2.0 together (Glogster, 2011) - enhances visual literacy - allows students to experiment with the best ways of communicating their message - encourages creativity - secure and private environment able to be monitored by teacher - engaging to a range of learners (Felder & Silverman, 1988)	- each student requires a computer - slow upload of large files	- even though the creation of Glogs would typically be done by individuals or small groups, the end product is intended to be viewed, so encourages collaboration

As with any online tool, there are legal and safety issues which must be considered. As the teacher, I would reinforce the importance of abiding by online rules, including the types of images and videos which are appropriate for use in Glogs. In addition, I would model appropriate attribution when using others photos (refer to the source note in the 'My Pin Board' Glog above).

References

Education World (2009) Hooked on Glogster: Posters 2.0, April 12, Retrieved from http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/columnists/dyck/dyck037.shtml

Felder, R. & Silverman, L. (1988) Learning and teaching styles in engineering education. Engr. Education, 78(7), pp. 674-681.

Glogster (2011). Glogster, April 12. Retrieved from http://www.glogster.com/

Symborski, S. (n.d.). Glogster in Education It's Free! It's Fun! It's Fabulous~! April 12. Retrieved from http://teachers.spart5.k12.sc.us/symborse/glogsteredu.htm