How to Use Glogster so Students Can Create Interactive Websites

The website of Glogster EDU (and yes, there is a difference between regular Glogster and its EDU counterpart.) Here, the teacher is given a free option of one hundred student accounts where students can utilize this web 2.0 tool to create highly interactive wikis/websites/blogs (the site's slogan is Why Blog When You Can Glog?) .

Another major difference between these Glogster siblings is that EDU hands the reigns of responsibility, monitoring and approving solely into the teachers hands. And if you partake in one of their recent deals, you, as a teacher, can receive one hundred additional accounts and have even more control and monitoring over the students if you invest in Glogster EDU premium. I was quite hesitant about paying for any educational tools myself, considering that I only do this project two times a year, but now I must say it is quite worth it.

In EDU Premium, the teacher can organize all of the students into individual classes, which is very difficult to do in EDU Basic, as sorting through, communicating and grading students work can be quite time consuming. A premium teacher can also create a template under Projects, so that their students can follow their example and students can save their Glogs into an online portfolio.

The students will also have a bit more advantages to working with their Glogs if their teacher goes Premium. Students can now draw directly onto their Glogs, which will then be saved as individual drawn files within their Glogster gallery for further usage. Also, by clicking on the "DATA" button on the Glogster Magnet Tool, students can attach Microsoft Office or PDF files directly onto their Glogs, but are small enough to not be too distracting from the Glog.

And if you are still wondering just what the heck a Glog is, try to imagine those days of yester year when your parents had to go out and buy you a giant poster board for a class presentation the night before it was due. The following day, you go to school and you can instantly tell who had parents shell out more dough for tri-fold displays, thick foam board and color printed images of the finest quality. Well, now Glogster eliminates the Haves and Have Nots in Education by utilizing the internet as the supplier to the students' creativity with endless seas of information, images, embeddable videos and music.

As the teacher, you get to initially step in as the director, showing a few simple tricks with the web 2.0 tool, while making sure the students don't lose their login information. But shortly thereafter, the students are going at Glogster likes rabid dogs over a piece of meat. The teacher can sit back as the facilitator of knowledge, and utilize other students in scaffolding techniques so that they can learn from one another. When the students are done, the teacher has to approve whether or not to make the Glog private to their classmates, or public to the internet for the world to see. Sharing the student work is a breeze, as a student can simply embed their Glog into their Myspace, Twitter or Facebook page. The teacher can also use just one button to instantly post a Glog to Edmodo, and if you know of my Edmodo fascination from reading previous articles, you should know why Glogster and Edmodo are meant to be together.

I could go on and on about this, but you just need to go to Glogster EDU and see it for yourself. If you just want to try out this fun and interactive web 2.0 tool for just your Honors class, or an after school club, then stick to the Basic version of Glogster. BUT if you have over one hundred students, or you want your students to have even more tools to work with and you prefer to have some online management tools for viewing students work and then sharing it with the classmates or the rest of the world, then the monthly fee is a decent investment. If you can get more teachers to invest with you on Glogster, you can save even more money, even licenses for every student in your school. So for now, tell your students to forget about Blogging, get into Glogging.

References:
The Differences between Glogster EDU & Basic
What is Glogster EDU?
Glogster EDU FAQ