Glogster

My friend Jody has this theory that you should never buy a new car. For one thing, buying a used one is so much nicer to the planet–why let one more car rust in a junkyard? But she also makes the point that it’s nicer to get behind the wheel of a car that you know has been driven successfully, and all the bugs shaken out.

Web apps are kind of like that. I tried a site called Glogster a few months ago, and was really hooked. The site has only gotten better and more educator-friendly over time. Glogster lets you make a “glog,”–think of it as a poster that you build online. Just imagine that old posterboard science fair tri-fold, now with all kinds of multimedia build right in! You can include pictures, video clips, audio, music, and text. There’s an extensive file of clipart and animated goodies free for the using, too. Glogster accounts are completely free.

It appears to me that the original target audience was teenagers, who jumped right on the social aspect of the site–you can comment on other people’s creations, invite them to be your friends, and send little messages about everybody’s latest work. However, the potential for educational use is huge: it can be used to build interactive web pages without the least knowledge of HTML; to feature a student project, as a student news website…and lots more. You can also make a glog and embed it in your own webpage, as you would a TeacherTube video.

If you have ever located a file on your computer, you’ll find Glogster easy. You can even try building one without registering. Click on the kind of element you would like to add, such as text, audio, or graphics, and follow the prompts to choose from Glogster’s library or to upload your own images and sounds. Click on any element to select it, change it, or delete it.

Here’s an example. Click on the little arrow on the “TV screen” to play the video portion.

I will confess that I had to look at the HTML code and change the “width” and the “height” figures in order to fit into my edublogs page, but that was an easy fix–I changed the height and width to something around 400, to fit into a blog post. Most of the time, the easiest thing to do is just provide a link to the whole page.

The site is not without problems–some school districts may look askance at the social aspects–friends lists, commenting, etc., and also at some of the graphics. Browsing the site, you can see one heck of a lot of copyright issues. Making glogs with kids would be an excellent opportunity for some brushing up on citations, copyright, and fair use. (Bring on those ALA 21st Century skills!) In an e-mail exchange with a friendly Glogster rep, he commented that Glogster was considering some educator features. We’ll see soon what progress they’ve made.

Here’s a glog (I know, the word is SO strange…just keep thinking “poster” or “interactive webpage!”) for professional development Here’s an interactive glog for kids, embedded in a PBwiki page. And a glog made by a seventh grader as a student project.

Photostory

A picture is worth a thousand words, so what’s a picture with words attached worth? How about if we add music?

If you haven’t yet played with Photostory, run right over and get it. Yes, it’s from evil giant Microsoft and it won’t run on your Mac (but you have iLife on your Mac, so no complaining!) but it’s easy, and it’s free. How easy? I’ve used it (with guidance) with kids in first grade. If you can browse for files, something everybody does, and have access to a computer microphone, you can use Photostory.

Basically, the program asks you to upload your pictures. Then you can add narration for each picture, add a pre-recorded audio file or some music, and save. It’s a little harder to get your video online that with Animoto (see below) but you have much, much, more control over your content, and no limits on length. Once you’ve saved your .wmv file, you can easily upload to Teacher Tube or to your own website or blog.

How could this be used? To record and share library or classroom events, to create narrated stories (just upload images of kids’ artwork instead of photos), to create slideshows without the hassle of all the “stuff” kids want to add to PowerPoints. I, for one, would like to see a student slideshow with no clipart and no flying text! With Photostory, the kids are focused on the images and the audio. Older students can add more sophisticated looking transitions, or alter the timeline to keep a particularly important image on the screen for a longer time. Titles and text can be added to any slide.

Here’s my video.

I did discover that Photostory has an annoying habit of “fading out” the last few seconds of your music or audio file, but I solved that problem by recording about 10 seconds of silence when I was done recording my voice. Worked like a charm.

Animoto

Animoto is a web-based application that lets users create short 30-second videos with the look and feels of a music video.

There are a great many slideshow makers out there in WebLand. What makes Animoto worth a look?

It does a few things that will make educators happy.
–First, the interface is really easy to use. Browse for photos (even young students can locate a file on a computer), upload music, click “create.”
–The site is free when making 30-second short videos (a good length for a student project–especially if you have to watch a lot of them…) that can be embedded in your website, or just linked to.
–Animoto provides the HTML code you needed to embed the video in your website, à la YouTube.
–The site strongly encourages the use of Creative Commons music. Many–maybe most–web 2.0 sites bleat a bit about not using copyrighted materials, but don’t really go much further than saying, “please don’t do that.” The burden is usually put on the copyright holder, to discover the infringement and contact the site to protest. Animoto goes further, in actually maintaining a “music lounge” of freely usable music, providing links to Creative Commons-licensed music, and actually listing the creator of the music in the brief credits that appear at the end of the video. When you upload music, a little message pops up reading, “Love your artists. Make sure you’re using legit music or have permission to use what you want.” Animoto even runs a monthly contest for musicians; winners are showcased as “Featured Tracks for This Month.”

How could this be used? In myriad ways. Use it in a music class, to explore what visuals seem to match the music, the way the makers of Fantasia did. In an art class, do the opposite–have kids discover what music fits the work of a particular artist.
Of course, you don’t have to restrict yourself to music–after your students have written a poem, have them illustrate it with homemade art or photos, or with freely usable photos. Then record the poem as an mp3 (try the free program Audacity) and put it all together in Animoto. Or have them read any famous passage, prose or poem, and illustrate it.

Learning standards:
NETS (National Educational Technology Standards) call for students to use “”digital tools and media-rich resources” to communicate ideas, and to demonstrate “digital citizenship” by respecting copyright and correctly attributing sources. ALA‘s learning standards similarly call for the ethical use of source materials, and to “use technology and other information
tools to organize and display knowledge and understanding in ways that others can view, use, and assess.”