Glogs in my classroom

This year, my class created glogs in computer class. We study the regions of the United States in Social Studies. The computer teacher and I decided that they should create a glog on a state. I typed up a Word document of information that students should look for including basic state information, motto, state symbols, history of the state, famous people, and state fun facts. On my webpage, I created a list of websites that the students could use to gather their information. Some of the websites are Enchanted Learning, U.S. States Fast Facts and Trivia, Fifty States and Fifty Fun Facts, and Apples 4 the Teacher.

The first part of the glog creation was fact gathering. Students used the Word document and the websites to gather data for their glog. Once they had their data, they created their glog, gave it a title, and began entering information. I gave them a quick overview of how to enter the data through the edit tools. However, being digital natives, they quickly learned how the glog worked and were able to add text, pictures, links, and videos. The students uploaded video from YouTube, since that site is not blocked by our school. However, TeacherTube can also be used with Glogster EDU.

After the glogs were created, I went in as the teacher and read over the glog. The comments tool allowed me to personally contact the students with suggestions for improvement. I also let them know if they had any spelling or grammatical errors that needed to be fixed. Finally, I looked over the "finished" glog before we published them. Once the students and I were happy with the final product, we saved it as a finished private glog. We were provided with the web address for the glog, so I compiled a list to send home with my students so that their parents and families could view their hard work.

Click here to view a glog on Hawaii. Click here to view a glog on Arizona. These glogs were created by students in my class.

Once the glogs were saved as finished, students in my class could view the finished glogs of other students in my class. They were very excited to look at each other's glogs and even left comments for others.

The regions example is only one way to use glogs in the classroom. In my school this year, many teachers did glogs with their classes. Some classes reported on scientists, others researched endangered species. I think that a glog could translate to any project that involves students researching and reporting on a topic.

Glogs could easily be used for telecollaborative projects. Classrooms that are partnered together in a project could present their information to each other through a glog just as easily as through a podcast, text document, etc. I think that students in telecollaborative projects would be excited to create a glog and to share them with their partner classes. I also think the interactivity of the glog would make reading the information exciting. Students could even upload their own videos they created into the glog so that their partners could see and hear their thoughts on the topic.