This morning I received an email from a reader who was looking for an alternative to Glogster. For those not familiar with Glogster, it was a darling of the ed tech world about six or seven years ago when it empowered users to make free multimedia collages. Teachers everywhere had students making multimedia collages to summarize topics, events, and books. Glogster was free for a while then shifted to a subscription model. Here are three tools that your students can use to create multimedia collages.
Buncee:
Buncee is essentially an online slideshow. But you can save your Buncee offline as an interactive PDF which makes it a great way for students to build ebooks. A Buncee can also be used as an online invitation to an event. When you have completed the creation of your Buncee you can select "RSVP" when you share it and recipients will have an option to register their interest in attending your event.
Within Buncee there is an integrated image search which pulls images from Bing. The search is filtered for Creative Commons licensed images. Any image that a student chooses to use in his or her Buncee is automatically added to a list of citations.
Buncee has a huge catalog of stock images and animations that students can add to their slides. During the demonstration that I saw, a running dog animation was added to a slide. That animation played on a continuous loop until the slides were advanced.
Adobe Spark:
Adobe Spark is a suite of free tools for creating images, videos, and simple web pages. Adobe Spark can be used in your web browser or you can download the Adobe Spark video, image, and web page iPad apps. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how to create images, web pages, and videos with Adobe Spark in your web browser.
Key features of Adobe Spark's web app include an integrated Creative Commons image search tool, the option to download images as JPEGs, and the option to download your videos as MP4 files.
Pic-Collage:
Creating collages can be a good way for students to organize their thoughts in a visual manner. In creating their collages they are organizing images that may later become writing prompts for them. I've had students create collages as a way to summarize field trips. Pic Collage is the app that I like for doing that activity. Pic Collage is a free app available for Android and iOS devices. The collage you see above is a very basic use of the app on my Android phone.
After creating a collage students can add interactive elements to it by using Thinglink.
Watch the two videos that I made and embedded below to learn how to use Pic-Collage and ThingLink to create interactive collages.
Disclosure: Buncee is a client of MindRocket Media Group. I am a minority partner in MRMG.
Showing posts with label glogster edu. Show all posts
Showing posts with label glogster edu. Show all posts
Monday, December 5, 2016
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Five Alternatives to Traditional Book Reports
On Tuesday evening I gave a presentation in Second Life for school librarians and media specialists. One of the topics that I talked about was alternatives to traditional book report assignments. While this post is a follow-up to that presentation, the post on its own should give you some ideas for alternatives to traditional book report assignments.
1. Create book trailers. I ran a post about book trailers during the summer which you can read here. In short, a book trailer is a short video created by students to highlight the key points of a book. When creating their book trailers students should be trying to "sell" viewers on a book. To create their videos your students could use Animoto for Education, JayCut, or PhotoPeach. Learn more about these free video creation tools in my free guide Making Videos on the Web.
2. Create animated or stop-motion videos about a book's plot. To make an animated video try Memoov which is a free service that your students can use to create an animated video book review. Memoov allows users to create animated videos up to five minutes in length. Creating an animated video with Memoov can be as simple as selecting a setting image(s), selecting a character or characters, and adding dialogue.
If stop-motion videos are more your speed, Kevin Hodgson's Making Stopmotion Movies is a fantastic resource for directions and advice on making stop-motion movies.
3. Create literature maps. Using Google Maps or Google Earth students can map out the travels of character in a story. Google Lit Trips has many examples of teachers and students using Google Earth in literature courses. If you're not familiar with how to create placemarks in Google Maps, please see my free guide Google for Teachers for directions.
4. Create 3D augmented reality book reviews. ZooBurst is an amazing service that allows you to create a short story complete with 3D augmented reality pop-ups. Students could use ZooBurst to create short summaries of books that really jump off the screen.
5. Create multimedia collages about books. Glogster allows users to create one page multimedia collages. Students could create a collage containing videos, audio files, text, and images about books they've read. For example, a Glog about Into the Wild could contain images of Chris McCandless, chunks of text about the book, and this video featuring a song from the movie based on the book.
1. Create book trailers. I ran a post about book trailers during the summer which you can read here. In short, a book trailer is a short video created by students to highlight the key points of a book. When creating their book trailers students should be trying to "sell" viewers on a book. To create their videos your students could use Animoto for Education, JayCut, or PhotoPeach. Learn more about these free video creation tools in my free guide Making Videos on the Web.
2. Create animated or stop-motion videos about a book's plot. To make an animated video try Memoov which is a free service that your students can use to create an animated video book review. Memoov allows users to create animated videos up to five minutes in length. Creating an animated video with Memoov can be as simple as selecting a setting image(s), selecting a character or characters, and adding dialogue.
If stop-motion videos are more your speed, Kevin Hodgson's Making Stopmotion Movies is a fantastic resource for directions and advice on making stop-motion movies.
3. Create literature maps. Using Google Maps or Google Earth students can map out the travels of character in a story. Google Lit Trips has many examples of teachers and students using Google Earth in literature courses. If you're not familiar with how to create placemarks in Google Maps, please see my free guide Google for Teachers for directions.
4. Create 3D augmented reality book reviews. ZooBurst is an amazing service that allows you to create a short story complete with 3D augmented reality pop-ups. Students could use ZooBurst to create short summaries of books that really jump off the screen.
5. Create multimedia collages about books. Glogster allows users to create one page multimedia collages. Students could create a collage containing videos, audio files, text, and images about books they've read. For example, a Glog about Into the Wild could contain images of Chris McCandless, chunks of text about the book, and this video featuring a song from the movie based on the book.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Wikispaces Makes it Easier to Embed Glogs


Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:
Glogster Video Tutorial
Glogster EDU Resource Library
How-to Week - Day 1 - Using Wikispaces
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Glogster Video Tutorial
Glogster is a great tool that students can use to create multimedia collages. I've written about Glogster on a number of occasions in the past (examples here, here, and here). One of Glogster's strongest supporters is Traci Blazosky who created an excellent video tutorial that walks teachers through the process of using Glogster. Watch the video below.
Applications for Education
Glogster is a great tool for having students create collages of information they've found and or created. Students can combine videos, images, text, and audio into one online display that can stand alone or be embedded into a blog, website, or wiki. This fall some of my Civics students will be creating Glogster "glogs" about the candidates running for political office this fall.
Applications for Education
Glogster is a great tool for having students create collages of information they've found and or created. Students can combine videos, images, text, and audio into one online display that can stand alone or be embedded into a blog, website, or wiki. This fall some of my Civics students will be creating Glogster "glogs" about the candidates running for political office this fall.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Glogster EDU Resource Library

Glogster has also released a PDF guide for educators interested in using Glogster in their classrooms. The Glogster Educator Resource Library is a free 29 page PDF containing lesson plans and examples of Glogster used in classrooms. The lesson plans come with scoring rubrics are are aligned to national standards. The Glogster Educator Resource Library also contains links to additional sites offering media that can be use in Glogs.
Learn more about Glogster EDU in these posts.
The New Glogster EDU is Live
Just in Time for School - Glogster EDU
Glogster Announces Changes to EDU Accounts
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Glogster Announces Changes to Edu Accounts

If you're not familiar with Glogster, here are some previous posts you may want to review:
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Help Glogster Get Better

Here are some posts about Glogster that I've previously written:
A Great Glogster Tutorial
Coming Soon from Glogster
The New Glogster Edu is Live
A Gallery of Glogs
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
A Gallery of Glogs
Thanks to Lee Kolbert for the link to Jim's list.
Applications for Education
Glogster provides a good way to transition a 20th Century poster project into a 21st Century multimedia project. If you have colleagues that are reluctant to use web-based technology in their classrooms, Glogster can be a good first step for them to take. Share Jim's list with those reluctant colleagues to give them an idea of some the great things kids can do with Glogster.
Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:
A Great Glogster Tutorial
Coming Soon from Glogster
The New Glogster Edu is Live
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Popular Posts
-
I spend a good deal of time talking to myself. I often do this while riding my bike. Sometimes I do it to motivate myself to get over a hill...
-
Upon the publication of my latest video about how to add Google Drive videos to Google Earth Pro my playlist of tutorials on using Google E...
-
Good, old Microsoft Word has come a long way since the days that I used it on a computer lab desktop as an undergrad. Now it has AI features...
-
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory website contains a large library of infographics that you can download and print for free. The libra...