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Myriam Cousineau Professor David Stacey English 406 April 14 2010 Why Should Teachers Use Glosgter? Glogster is a web portal allowing users to create free interactive glogs (posters) and host them on the Internet. These posters can either be public or private. Using Glogster Edu, a teacher can even register his/her own class, get inspiration for different class projects and themes, find innovative ways develop cross-curricular and disciplinary competencies, but most of all offer a different interactive and creative way to involve students, parents and other professionals in student's education. Glogster is for everyone. It is free, accessible, and easily navigable. Even though, student in today’s classrooms are born in a computer and Internet era, many of them either do not have access to the technology or have limited knowledge of how to use technologies efficiently. For example, it is easy to use Wikipedia for any research, but do students know that the content can be changed by anyone. Filters have recently been set to prevent misinformation. Using Glogster for different projects can set the basics of how to use some of the tools (embedding videos, images, etc.) and practicing with technologies. This website in, in my opinion, a student empowerment tool allowing the students to gain confidence in their capacities to use technologies, awareness in terms of sharing information (with guidance), and to see how technologies can be used for personal and academic ways while appealing to their creativity. When familiar and at easy with Glogster, students can then be challenged gradually with more complex programs, such as Wix.com. Some students might already be ready for using Wix.com even before the first class. They should not be limited to use easier programs for too long otherwise their interest in the project might sensibly decrease. Gradually introducing other programs for all students, but that can be used if students feel ready will keep both stronger and weaker student learn at their own pace. Allowing students to choose which program they will use according to their level of expertise at first then once everyone is ready, moving on to those more difficult program should insure gradual learning and keep student’s interest in the use of technologies. For student or teacher who are not at ease working with technologies and get lost with the different programs and websites offering applications for different project, this website offers one portal for many use with simple functions but endless options. The multi-purposeness of Glogster facilitates gradual learning, for it can be used for different projects as demonstrated on the main glog I built . Glogster can be used to make different web pages that students, teachers, and parents can use either for personal and professional projects: portfolio, scrapbook, creative writing (self-expression), and more, or for different academic projects: research, book/movie report, a reference/resource page, a study guide, a creative writing project, a self introduction, a portfolio, a web prom album, etc. Even though Glogster does not provide the same features, it can be used temporarily to replace different other websites, devices and programs. On each glog page, students can comment on the glog. For a teacher this device can replace Twitter or, to a certain extent, blogs. If a study guide for a mathematics exam is provided via Glogster, students who encounter difficulties during their study sessions can post questions about a problem and the teacher or other students can answer, give examples, or references to solve the problem. The glog becomes the setting for community response. Furthermore, giving access to class glogs through class registration on Glogster Edu , allows a given group to use the glog as a wiki, and manipulate the content of the page; think about class website, class notes, prom album, etc. More than just the attractive form any context can take using Glogster, the Internet interface used to host the glogs allows anyone to access any information anywhere where there is an Internet connection/wireless network. With new technologies such as the iPad and the HP Slate, as well as iPhone and iTouch, students, teachers, and other professionals don’t need to carry anything else than these electronic devises to access personal or scholar information, to share, and discuss. In this sense, Glogster is a gathering application. Using it, you can but all the information that relates to each other at the same place, making it accessible within seconds. If a student is looking for videos and websites where he/she can find information on the multi-genre paper he/she is working on over the weekend or the spring break. It is the same easy access for a professional gathering link, information, and professional videos and pictures on a portfolio or for a teacher presenting to parents what he/she has done with their child during the year. The examples provided on the main website are personal I built all of them, though I borrowed a friend’s notes on an oral presentation on horror movies for the research poster example. Even the study guide on the soon-to-come science exam is personal. I am no science teacher, but I found really interesting videos that could be used in a Purple Circle with intensive ESL learners and then researched on concepts I could include on the study guide. All of this to say that those examples are not only personal, but reflect my personality, beliefs, tastes, sense of humour, future pedagogy, expectations, scholar and personal background as a human, a woman, a student, a learner, and a teacher. There are also many avenues I have not provided examples for, not yet, but are worthy of mention. I could list numerous paths, but will only mention three that seem to be really important knowing of: a creative writing project, a multigenre project, and a dialogue journal. I decided not to explore the creative writing project since there are numerous public and authentic glogs already unfolding the various ways in which creative writing projects could take the form of and demonstrating what students can do by themselves. The second avenue I mentioned above as not having explored yet is the multigenre project. As I worked on the website, discussed with my peers, and review my readings on how other teachers reinvent themselves, I could really identify my goal working on this project. This is my own attempt to reinvent myself as a learner and as a teacher, much like Nancie Atwell, Tom Romano, and many others. One of those teachers, Laura Lavellee who wrote to Tom Romano about her students’ experience and hers on multigenre writing (Romano 100 ), claimed the success multi-genre had with all of her students, reaching even the most reluctant students. Multi-genre reinvents writing the way students see it and the novelty and interest rose from the untraditional writing and gets them more motivated and involved in their work thus affecting the quality of their work. Tom Romano also add that some teachers even go further and: “ [They] encourage, and even require, students to go beyond words altogether and include in their multigenre projects drawing, photographs, paintings, and other visual elements. Some [of my] students have transformed their multigenre papers into multimedia projects that included computer graphic technology, digital images and recorded voices and music.” (Romano 89) Teachers are successfully trying to engage students in their writing. To do so, they reinvent the genre and sometimes even the medium, thus getting student involved in their work and pushing them to go further. Used either for a multigenre project or for any other use, it still reinvents writing as known by students by allowing them to use different media to express and explain their thoughts and personalised their work. The final avenue I did not explore with an example is the dialogue journal, a lot because I could not get involved with a dialogue with my own self, which I could have, even though I am not diagnosed with multiple personality disorder. What Nancie Atweel did is giving students a folder in which is letter paper in order to correspond with her via letters. She has students write about their readings and writings and how they felt about them, ask questions, answer to her, etc. Using a glog to present a written or reading project or assignment, a teacher can use the comment box to dialogue about the work itself, the problem the writer encounters during the process, questions to answer, etc. Doing a follow up on students’ progress and interrogations is easier and more accessible, and private Glogster is a free, easily usable, multipurpose, gathering, and easily accessible web portal allowing the users to create different interactive glogs that can be used anywhere as websites, wikis, blogs, portfolios, etc. either for professional, academic, and personal use. Not offering the same features as many other web portals, Glogster has the advantage of being easily workable and offering the basic tools allowing students to learn how to use different functions before going to the next level. It is a student empowering application working on student’s technology user’s development, but most of all, it reinvents writing or at least the way in which many students, teacher, and other professionals consider writing. Work Cited Newkirk, Thomas, and Richard Kent. "The Many Ways of Multigenre". Tom Romano. Pages 87-102. Teaching the Neglected "R" Rethinking Writing Instruction in Secondary Classrooms. Chicago: Heinemann, 2007. Newkirk, Thomas, and Richard Kent. "Writing and Reading from the Inside out". Nancie Atwell. Pages 129-149. Teaching the Neglected "R" Rethinking Writing Instruction in Secondary Classrooms. Chicago: Heinemann, 2007.
Why Should Teachers Use Glogster
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