Glogs: Demonstrating Understanding with Multimedia Posters

Link to my Glog

Uses in the Classroom: Glogster has very apparent uses in the classroom! Both students and teachers can use Glogs to create multimedia posters on just about anything. Teachers can use them to convey information to students. Students can design posters to demonstrate their understanding of a topic, or to teach that topic to another student. Students can work independently or in groups using Glogster, which adds even more possibilities.

As an English teacher, I could see myself creating Glogs to teach anything from grammar to a novel, and just about anything in between. In the teacher's hands, information can come alive for students learning a new topic. I could see students creating Glogs to show relationships between characters, advancement of plot, or even to demonstrate the proper steps to the writing process.

Issues to Consider: The primary issue I have with Glogster is that it is not free to use and each person who uses it needs an account. This can become an ordeal, especially if a teacher doesn't plan to use it with his/her students often. Anyone outside of a K-12 setting has to sign up a different way, so this would make it nearly impossible for my students to use this program for school, because they don't have typical K-12 identification (being primarily online students). Also, if a school is unwilling to pay for that membership, that could also put a serious crimp in classroom use.

Information Resources:
Morgan, Hani. "Using Handheld Wireless Technologies in School: Advantageous
        or Disadvantageous?."Technology in the Classroom. 87.2 (2010): n. page. Web. 9 Mar. 2014.
        <http://0-go.galegroup.com.catalog.lib.cmich.edu/ps/i.do?action=interpret&id=GALE|A245884637&v=2.1&u=lom_cmichu&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w&authCount=1>.

Copyright: All videos and audio files used in this Glog are originals of Angie Burns.

Gliffy: The Moment We've All Been Waiting For

Link to Suzanne Collins Mind Map

Uses in the Classroom: Mind maps have many uses in the classroom. The most common use in an English classroom would be for pre-writing and organizing ideas. By taking the time to brainstorm and organize ideas using mind maps (and other strategies as well), students become better able to compare and contrast, see cause and effect, and identify other important relationships between ideas. This is an essential step in the writing process that often gets left behind. Students don't like to create them because it's hard to keep expanding ideas straight on paper. However, by using a mind mapping site like Gliffy, pre-writing and organizing ideas becomes a part of students' writing process again because mind maps are now legible and easy to create and modify. 

Gliffy is not only a powerful tool in the hands of the students, but teachers can also create useful materials. With only a little time and planning, teachers can create easy to navigate graphic organizers for students to use in the classroom or at home to help with homework assignments.

Issues to Consider: It was difficult for me to come up with an issue to discuss this week. Gliffy is very easy to use (much easier than similar sites I have tried in the past) and it's simple and free. All of these are really great things! One minor issue I ran into while working on this project was a limit to the amount of graphics available without having to use outside images. Gliffy included all of the basics, but I wanted to use state maps and other "clip art" type images, and I had to find these all myself. This would mean more student prepping time for projects requiring images. Other than this, Gliffy is a very use friendly site for mind mapping!

Information Resources: 
  "Biography." 2014. Suzanne Collins books website. Mar 02 2014,
         http://www.suzannecollinsbooks.com/.
  "Suzanne Collins." 2014. The Biography Channel website. Mar 02 2014, 

         http://www.biography.com/people/suzanne-collins-20903551.

  "Suzanne Collins." 2014. IMDB website. Mar 02 2014, 

         http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1056741/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm.

Copyright: This mind map is an original creation of Angie Burns. All of the images contained were provided by Flickr.com under an Attribution Share Alike Licence.