Over a week ago, I had the pleasure of being able to spend a day and half of professional development time with four other instructional technology specialists and a dozen teachers (grades K-5) exploring Glogster. This time gave way for much needed “play” and discussion about how to integrate this tool into the curriculum. By the end of the second day, we had examples and resources to share as well as a new contact, Jim Dachos, Glogster’s Education Manager. (I originally started following Jim on Twitter and set up a Skype session with him during the second day. He is a tremendous resource!)

In a nutshell, Glogster is a service that allows a user to make glogs or graphic blogs. Glogster’s slogan describes its service well: “Poster Yourself”. This medium is very appealing to all kinds of learners because of the ability to express yourself not only through text, but with pictures, videos and sounds- all on a web page (glog) that is like an artist’s canvas. It’s also very simple to use.

I recently read on Sean Banville’s blog that he used a glog as a way to introduce himself to his students. Sounds like a great alternative to a PowerPoint! I also have used a glog where my normal inclination would have been to present with a slideshow. I used a glog as a backdrop for a Web 2.0 presentation that I gave to parents this school year. That was a different experience, but one that was very interactive and visual for participants. It really showed the parents a Web 2.0 tool in action. The first glog page is embedded below. (If I were to do it again, I definitely would embed some video!)

*Here are links to a few ideas/examples that we created on our PD day:

Biography

What If? Biography

Animal Report

Kindergarten Author Study

Once you get started, the integration possibilities are endless as you will see by visiting the site. Jim Dachos stressed the importance of a teacher signing up for an education account at Glogster Edu. There are many resources available to teachers there. Check out that home page! And don’t forget to scroll to see what’s been added. There are links to tons of student examples, step by step directions, the Educator Resource Library and even tips for Mac users. With the education account, a teacher can receive 200 student accounts (very nice!). All can be managed by the teacher from a dashboard. Also, glogs can be made private and shared only to certain individuals via a link or they may be embedded on a web page, wiki or blog. The standard service is free, and you do get a lot for that price tag! To upgrade to premium, it’s about $100 per year.

Glogs are great a vehicle to deliver instruction to students as well as have students synthesize their own meaning on a topic.

What do you think about glogs?

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Want to learn more? Here are two great Glogster resources:

Traci Blazosky’s Wiki

Karen Ogen’s (@teacherkab) Glogster Handout

*Thanks to Andrea Gardner, Joy Courcy, Margorie Nardini, Ruth Freeman, Sarah Rivard, Karen Burke and Liz Colantuonio for letting me share their terrific work!

Need to survey people, or want your students to administer a survey? Want to make online quizzes for students? Or even better: have students make their own quizzes for each other to demonstrate what they know? Then look no further than Forms in Google Docs.

Do you send out an email whenever you need to gather info from people? This Google video illustrates the hard work of compiling data using the email method. Can you say management nightmare?

Creating a form that is online and gathers data for me to analyze (with graphics!) right in Google Docs is slick. It looks so professional, and then to be able to download the data into Excel makes it even better.

Try out this sample one that has been embedded below:

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What will you need to do to get started making your own? First, you need to create a Google account or log into an existing one. From there you need to get into Documents and create a new Form.

I found this how-to use a Google Form to create an online quiz video on Wesley Fryer’s blog originally. It’s very easy to follow. You can use this video to create a survey, too. Looking to go one more step and have the form act as a self-grading quiz? Then you’ll want to check this screencast out as well.

There is one possible hurdle to overcome: Google accounts for younger students. The good news is that you don’t need an account or email to fill out a form or take a quiz. The form or quiz can be embedded or linked on a teacher’s web page or blog for students to access. All of the results go to the teacher’s or creator’s spreadsheet in Google Docs. If you want younger students to create their own surveys or quizzes and collect the information, you will need to set up Google accounts for them. Instead of managing all of those accounts, create a handful for your class and have students work in groups. Changing the passwords allows you to keep using those accounts with new students.

Google Forms are practical, yet cool. They will gather data, but also encourage the critical thinking of design. The integration possibilities are starting to take shape in my head…I’m thinking a choose your own adventure… How will you use them?

Resources to check out:

AHS Google Form Ideas (submitted by a Form!)

Google’s Lead Learners examples

Google Docs Help for Forms

By now, everyone has heard of Twitter. And many of you are thinking that’s just one more thing for me to manage… and who has time for it? And isn’t it really more for socializing anyway?

Lots of people have blogged about the stages of Twitter acceptance. The number of steps vary, but they all begin with “This sounds dumb and a complete waste of time.” and end with  ”How did I ever live without this?” Twitter is like anything: once you find its usefulness, it becomes a tool.

I, too, was not sold on Twitter when it was first introduced to me in June 2008. It was summer, and I convinced a few friends to try it out with me. Nothing earth shattering happened. Just some social exchanges. Then, I decided to set up a separate account for work to be able to share with colleagues. Unfortunately, a lot of us were in the  first stage of Twitter acceptance and didn’t update regularly. Feeling a little lonely and not wanting to give up on its potential, I then did a search and found a wiki where I could add my name as an educational tweeter. I decided to take a chance and follow several people who were listed on the wiki. (I think I went from following ten people to sixty in a matter of twenty four hours.) I then started clicking on the links that these people were sharing on Twitter. I read blog posts, liked what I read and started to follow more people based on recommendations of others. A year later, my PLN (Personal Learning Network) continues to grow. And I do learn something new everyday and make connections/collaborations that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. Even when I’m pressed for time, just scanning the tweets from my PLN gets me thinking. TweetDeck loads automatically when I log into my computer, so I have made it a ritual to check my email and Twitter first thing each day. Twitter is the place where I share and get my next great idea.

This school year, a few classrooms at Abbot started Twitter accounts to try to replace the traditional classroom newsletter. Essentially, tweeting is a classroom job. The account is protected, and parents request to follow. The students are enthusiastic about reporting what’s going on in their classrooms, and they are gaining quite the level of independence about what is good, safe tweeting etiquette. Like anything, the tricky part is getting people to follow us. The parents who do participate have reported that they love it.

Twitter is just one of those things that you have to experience to appreciate. I dare you to give it a shot and follow me in 2010!

Some resources:

Twitter Frequently Asked Questions

Article from School Library Journal

K-3 Teachers Guide to Twitter

Twitter Handbook for Teachers

Twitter for Teachers Wiki

Tweachers

How to Use Twitter in the Classroom