Creating Electronic Posters with GlogsterEDU

GlogsterEDU is the one Web 2.0 tool I have used consistently over the past several years.  I really like the idea that students can demonstrate their knowledge on any topic using images, video, and audio all in an easy to use electronic poster format.  Student engagement is usually quite high with GlogsterEDU in that it allows for the creation of a fun and interactive poster that students enjoy sharing with others.  To get a better sense of the potential of GlogsterEDU, there are links below of an "I AM" poem my students wrote and presented to their peers using GlogsterEDU this past school year.

http://sk755z3.edu.glogster.com/glog/
http://emmagott.edu.glogster.com/glog-8884/
http://sg8yf8p.edu.glogster.com/i-am-poster/

I have saved the best part of GlogsterEDU for last, however.  The time-saving, organizational features of GlogsterEDU are extremely useful for educators.  For instance, the educator account not only generates student accounts that teachers have full access to but also allows for the daily tracking of student progress.  I find this particularly useful as students who are struggling can be quickly and easily identified with a few clicks of the mouse.  To learn more about the GlogsterEDU features specific for teacher-use, please view my screencast below.




HINT: Assigning student account information can be problematic.  The strategy I use is to copy and paste the account information into a word processing document and then assign student names to each account.  Distribute the information as you see fit, but I do recommend having students record their nickname and password (cell phones are great to use for this) somewhere safe as the account information will be difficult to remember.  Be sure to keep a master copy!  You can manually change each individual account with more user-friendly information but that would take time.

Creating e-portfolios using Weebly for Education

Creating a website has never been so easy!

Weebly for Education is a fantastic resource for educators who want to create a class website or for students who want to display their course work on-line.

The easy-to-use drag and drop interface allows users to create professional looking websites with the many available features.  These include:

- stable, reliable website hosting
- dozens of designer templates to choose from
- easy to use blogging option
- lots of available multimedia such as video, audio, images, maps, etc
- an HTML option that allows for even more features to be added or customized

The best feature of Weebly for Education however, is the teacher-controlled working environment for students.  Not only can teachers bulk create up to 40 free accounts, but public access to these accounts can be directly managed by the teacher.  In addition, teachers, parents and students can be confident that all on-line activity is safely monitored on a regular basis.  

Sample Classroom Activity:

Creating a website is a great way for students to display their work to a larger audience.  The ease of on-line access to student work offers many advantages.  For instance, parents can be more involved in the learning process as they can view their child's work on a more regular basis.  

This year, my students used Weebly for Education to create an e-portfolio of their English course work.  To view some examples of my students work as well as my class website, click on the hyperlinks below.    

Sample websites:

http://skssenglish9.weebly.com/

http://drummingsoul.weebly.com/

http://skssrugbystar.weebly.com/

http://thehoog.weebly.com/


I highly recommend Weebly for Education as a web tool for classroom use.  Check it out here!


This post originally appeared on The De-tech-tive 4 Teachers.

photo credit: Ѕolo via photo pin cc