My first attempt at a glog! Reflection comments are below.

The purpose of this glog is two-fold. First, I hope to use it as a learning module for fifth grade students. Their prescribed curriculum in social studies calls for a unit on the United States Constitution based on the Diocese of Allentown curriculum guidelines for grade 5:

VI. THE CONSTITUTION
A. The Articles of Confederation
B. The Constitutional Convention
C. The Constitution
a. The Executive Branch
b. The Legislative Branch
c. The Judicial Branch
d. Know duties and responsibilities of each branch

and I know that the teacher of that subject struggles to just make it through the Revolutionary War by the end of the school year. Hopefully this activity will fill in the gap in the curriculum, and perhaps take off some of the pressure the teacher feels to rush through some topics.

Second, I hope to use it as a model for students to create their own glog. I have set up accounts for each of my technology classes, and hope to have students using their own log in during this school year. I would like to start with seventh grade using Glogster to create a standard project in a whole new way. Each year the students in that grade study Latin America and Canada, and are assigned a country on which to report. We began by making travel brochures, then a few years ago switched to travel videos using PhotoStory. I can see that a glog would be a wonderful vehicle for them to share information about a country in a unique way. Their glogs could then be posted on their individual blog pages and shared with the class.

I struggled a bit with the Discovery Builders. I lost some work and had to re-do when I switched back and forth between tabs making adjustments. I would love to see a SAVE option on the bottom of each page for that reason. I would have preferred having the link I added to the video segments right in the text/instruction area instead of at the bottom of the page. I didn’t see how to make that happen, so I created my own hyperlink to the video within each set of instructions.

Unfortunately the builder site, or perhaps all of Discovery Streaming, had the “wrench” symbol up as I began to write my post and I do plan to make some adjustments on the Quiz Builder included in the project. I was not seeing my response for the correct and incorrect answers when I took the quiz. Also, I need to figure out how to add the video links as review. Even though I pre-selected the video content, it seemed not to be available when I wanted to add the video as a review component and I needed to search for it all over again, with My Content not being available as a search option. It is obvious I need to spend more time honing my Builder skills. I have also noticed that the glog embedded here does not show the background wall as does the one on the Glogster site.

I signed up for a Glogster account quite a while ago, but at that time decided that there were too many potentially inappropriate side paths for students to travel down, and so I put it aside as a tool. With the coming of the EDU version, I have considered it again, and was able to learn more about it through the Digital Media course. One thing I need to explore further, however, is that clicking on a “friend” and then saying “Next” can still bring up something questionable. I will need to investigate this further.

The incorporation of video content as an instructional tool, with the visually stimulating format of a glog, can not only keep a student’s interest, but also allow for the student to begin to think and plan projects of his own. There would be much to discuss with such a project: Including copyright approved images, keeping within a theme, having a cohesive layout (I am still not comfortable with the “clutter” of the glogster page, but I will learn to deal with that!) and of course, quality content overall. I believe the students will be excited to leave their creative mark and jump into such a project eagerly. Little do they know they will be synthesizing information from a variety of sources, while their “creative minds” are flexing their muscles.

Added Saturday morning, 10/3 – I have gone back today to try to see what was wrong with my Quiz Builder activity. I cannot see anywhere that I need to select to have the correct response comment I entered (Good job!) and the incorrect response comment directing them to review the video and have it show up during the quiz. When I took the quiz as a student these comments did not appear. It does say you may not edit questions if anyone has taken the quiz. I also am still frustrated not seeing where to add my pre-selected videos in the appropriate place for each question. Help!