Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Glogster EDU - Newly Improved

This summer Glogster launched Glogster EDU, which was totally awesome because the EDU version is completely safe and filtered so teachers don’t have to worry about students viewing inappropriate content. For those that don’t know what Glogster EDU is, it’s basically an virtual poster creator. But it is so much more! Users can upload or link to images, video and that help convey their messages. Text and titles can be added and be linked to external website. There are also a number of graphics that can be added to “spice up” your virtual poster.
Well now Glogster has done it again! They’ve added a whole slew of education themed graphics that will enable both students and teachers to more easily and quickly create Glogs for their classrooms. Graphics such as school supplies, chemical symbols, math symbols, and safety signs have been added to improve the usability in an educational setting. The best part about Glogster is that you don’t have to worry about account creation for students. As an educator you create an account and can add up to 200 students to your account. Then you simply give your students their usernames and passwords and send them to the computer. The teacher has the ability to see all students’ glog, even unfinished glogs, and can make sure those glogs are set to private. The teacher can also retrieve an embed code for the student glogs and embed them into the class blog, wiki, or website.
Since all glogs can be set as private, it’s okay to use DE content on your glogs - as long as you’re not posting those glogs on public facing websites that is. As a teacher you can create an informative poster about cells or create a whole project sending your students all over the web from your glog. Or students can create a glog demonstrating their knowledge about the Civil War or even a presentation of their science project, all without using a single glue stick or printing out a single sheet of paper. So what are you waiting for? Get out there and get your kids glogging today!

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