IT Project: Evaluating Glogster EDU 1. What is this program trying to teach?

Or, what educational value does the program have? Glogster EDU is a website that allows for users to make poster blogs-creatively nicknamed glogs on the site-- that involve word and text usage. This website utilizes pictures, videos, and other visual art that can be integrated with text to make captions, lists, and identify useful information pertaining to the graphic. While the excitingly colorful and creative site seems like all fun and games, there are plenty of educational features and relations. The many different templates available leave room for much creativity by the teachers to make learning more fun and exciting for children. Its also a great visual aid to enhance a speech or topic that will catch and keep the attention of the students during class. Lesson plans are easily created by teachers and students may use the program to design experiments and present them in an interesting manner. Glogster does a great job of putting the creativity back into basic classroom where it may enhance learning and teaching styles. 2. Software Quality Evaluation: Great Good Okay Weak Unacceptable Ease of Installation 5 4 3 2 1 notes:

The Installation of Glogster is very simple and extremely easy to conduct. To create an account, you will go to edu.gloster.com and sign up for a virtual class (the free edition) and it allows you to create a teacher account with student accounts under you. It will then take you to a new page, Register to EDU. This page will ask you to create a nickname, password, and personal information such as your email, birthdate, and gender. Once this information has been recorded, you may click on the sign up button and a confirmation email will be sent to the email you provided. I give this installation a 5 due to this simple and short sign up process.

Ease of Initial Use

notes:

Once the account was created, I was a bit overwhelmed with the amount of templates and options to add different texts and graphic options. This can tend to make people hesitant to utilizing all of the options available. Specifically, I found it difficult when working with the text boxes and graphics because it was hard to distinguish which color you were changing: the text or the background, trying to switch the font, etc. It did get easier once I became familiar with the different tools, and remembered which button moved which picture, but because this is based on a first-time use I would give it a 2 rating of ease. Ease of Overall Use 5 4 3 2 1 notes:

Once using Glogster a few times, you can definitely become familiarized with the site and easily maneuver it, but, I do not think a younger student would find this website easy to use. For teachers and older students, this site can be picked up easily just through habit of use, but for younger students it may prove to be quite a challenge, just due to the amount of options you can add to your poster, and then the different characteristics you may apply to them. For this reason, I give Glogster a rating of 3. Graphics Quality 5 4 3 2 1 notes:

The graphics Glogster uses are fun, bold, and colorful. They can spice up any poster and make information more visual friendly! What I personally love about the graphics is you can either choose one that is animated or realistic. If a student is using Glogster to create his science project, they would most likely choose a realistic graphic. On the other hand, a kindergarten teacher may gravitate to the colorful animated graphics that would draw the attention of a younger student. I think there are plenty of options that cover a wide range in the graphic department, which brings me to my rating of 5. Ease of Key Functions 5 4 3 2 1 notes: The key functions that are used in Glogster are not always clearly stated in text, but mostly only by pictures. This created some confusion for me, having to go

back and forth between the options just to find what I wanted to do. Although, they have an extremely handy Preview tool that allows the user to check out their poster before submitting or printing it off. I think this is extremely important in the world of projects. Due to its sometimes lack of upfrontness, I will rate the ease of key functions with a 3. Level of Intuitiveness 5 4 3 2 1 notes:

Using a program with so many different options of add-ins make for this site to be loaded with intuitiveness. Glogster provides such a wide range of options it is easy to interact with the site and enhance the creativity your final project will display. This is important for the continual use of the program after the first time. Because it allows you to be interactive and obtain full potential of your project, this will drive you to come back and use the site again. I rate the intuitiveness with a 5. Helpfulness of Program Instructions 5 4 3 2 1 notes:

The Glogster website provides a plethora of video tutorials. These include videos on how to get started, share and create, managing classes, projects and presentations, and school district and licenses. The videos provide clear instruction and would majorly help a user struggling with any of these subtopics. a. Does the program require you to set-up an account? Yes. When creating an account, Glogster asks you very basic questions such as to create a nickname, password, and required basic personal information. I think this is acceptable, and by creating an account this gives you access to use the program as often as desired. b. Is everything about the program free or are there Pro Features, meaning additional features that you only get if you pay for them? If there are pay features, what types of features do you have to pay for? There are two options when signing up for Glogster EDU; you may either choose a Free 30-Day Trial, or purchase the elementary, secondary, or faculty option. Whether you choose the 30-Day Trial or one of the upgraded versions, you get the same features, it just depends how long you would like

to use it. The pricing and specific criteria in each version are as follows: Elementary: $39.00/year; 1 teacher, 30 students. Secondary: $95/year; 1 teacher, 125 students. Faculty: $390.00/year; 10 teachers, 250 students. The 30-Day Trial and paid versions all include the same amount of features, the only difference is how long you need the program for and how many people will be using it together. c. What is the best software component of the program (i.e. ease of use, sharing options, etc) and why? In other words, what is the best feature of the program and how does it makes this program unique? Personally, the best feature of Glogster for me is the amount of creative features it offers. Not only does this program allow you to build posters, lesson plans, slideshows and many more projects, it enables you to make them in a creative way. I think that is what helps make the program so unique and useful. d. What is the weakest software component of the program and why? In other words, what is the hardest or most difficult part of the program to use? Once you get the jist of how to use Glogster it seems pretty basic and easy, but I would say the initial ease of use would be the most difficult part of using the program. It can definitely seem overwhelming when you first see the amount of options available. But, once the experimental process is over and you have created your first Glog it will become second-nature. The use of tutorial websites and tutorial videos specifically for Glogster can also be helpful when first beginning to use the program. Also, sometimes Glogster tends to freeze and get stuck when uploading various media. This is not a huge issue, but can get frustrating while working on a project. 3. Age Appropriateness a. What grade level would this program work well with? You can either research this answer to take your best guess. Just make sure to explain why you choose the grade level you did. I would choose the grade level appropriateness of Glogster to be beneficial to middle school, high school and college level students and classrooms. Although teachers may use this in basically any age-leveled classroom, if the project expectation is to be made

by students I think they would have to be in an upper-leveled classroom based on the amount of components and options available to use on Glogster projects. This may be overwhelming to a younger crowd which is why I recommend its use be for higher grade-leveled students. 4. Functionality a. Does the program do what you want it to? If so, explain. If not, explain. Yes, this is a fantastic program for creating posters and other projects that can be displayed using the templates. The program runs smoothly and uploads the graphics quickly. Not many technical problems occur like freezing or program-induced problems. 5. Fun Factor a. Does the tool allow you to be creative during the learning process? Explain. Yes, the entire goal of Glogster is to make projects with higher creative levels of text, picture, or graphic. b. Does the tool allow you to demonstrate creativity in the learning product? Explain. This program would allow you to be creative during the learning product, especially when used in an educational setting. If study assignments are created using the Glog students will be able to learn from the product, and even enjoy learning from it. c. Does the tool provide opportunities for different types of interaction (visual, verbal, written)? Explain. Yes, the program gives the creator a chance to upgrade their project visually and textually by the different use of graphics available. It can also be used to give just a creative outline to a presentation and be verbally elaborated by the creator, Having access to so many graphic and template options it would be extremely easy for a learner to follow along a slideshow without integrating text onto the project and just listening verbally, which gives a huge advantage to the speaker. d. Does the tool encourage collaboration? Explain. I would say Glogster

encourages collaboration in a couple different ways. First, it allows interaction between the teacher and students. This is beneficial if the students have questions, and for the teacher to check the students work. Another way of interaction would be student-to-student. Students can use this to get ideas from each other and provide feedback to other students projects. 6. Overall Thoughts Overall Rating 5 4 3 2 1 Is the anything about the program youd like to see changed? na

Overall I cant think of any major problems or details that need to be changed. However, it would be a nice edition to the program if it were easier to share it with more websites, for example, facebook. It is already available to be posted to Edmodo, but being able to post to other social media sites could allow for more interaction to the Glog from others outside of the classroom. b. Would you use it in your own classroom? Is so, why? If not, why? I would absolutely integrate using Glogster into my classroom. In todays education system, you must be always thinking of new ways to help students learn more effectively; this is what makes a great teacher! The use Glogster to creatively enhance teaching style is one way to do so. As long as the price is allowed within the school, I would encourage all teachers to take a look at the program and get use from it. Also, Speech Pathologists could utilize this in their therapy sessions. For example, they could create a Glog including the students vocabulary list of the week and create models for ways to help enhance the students listening and word retrieval techniques.