Repurpose

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.

The weather in upstate NY is dreadfully hot and humid this week. I remember similar days when I was a kid, when we’d retreat to my grandparents’ lovely cool basement room, where my grandfather would show us family pictures on his slide projector. Years later, I still have a soft spot for the slideshow.

The web seems overflowing with slideshow apps, but VoiceThread is easily my favorite. To be more precise, Ed.VoiceThread, which is a dedicated K-12 / educational version of VoiceThread.

A “VoiceThread” is a series of images–still images or video–to which users can add narration, their own audio files, hyperlinks, or hand-drawn “doodles.” PowerPoints and .doc files can be uploaded,too. The end result is a multimedia slideshow. The site will generate the HTML code you need to embed on your own site for a lovely YouTube kind of look.

Here’s a VoiceThread my preK class made before going to the zoo.

I uploaded the pictures–though of course, older kids would be able to do that part for themselves, since it’s as simple as browsing your files for the images you want. You can also upload pictures from a URL or from other VoiceThreads you’ve created. Then I handed the microphone over to the kids. At age 4 or 5, they’re not writers yet–but they sure can make noise. That’s the sweetest-sounding polar bear roar I’ve ever heard!

The preK teacher told me that the kids were really excited to see the gate to the zoo–Holy cow! It was the same gate they’d seen in Library time! (Isn’t Flickr’s Creative Commons pool great?)

There’s a social aspect, too. Once you’ve created a VoiceThread, you can allow other VoiceThread users to add comments, too. This would work nicely in a classroom setting; students could collaborate on a project, or review each others’ work. A VoiceThread called Mr. G’s Shakespeare Page shows the possibility. The teacher created a simple, two-slide presentation. The kids then recorded their own reading of the prologue to Romeo and Juliet. Clever–the teacher has wrapped up his Shakespeare unit with a multimedia show that serves as a collaborative student project and an assessment piece, all in one nice package. The sense that they’re performing for a larger audience encourages the kids to do their best, too. School Librarians can seize the opportunity to talk about copyright–and copyleft–and the ethical use of other people’s media.

VoiceThread (without the “Ed.” in front) accounts are free, but K-12 educators are going to want to be part of the “Ed.VoiceThread” network. There are several pricing levels, but you can jump right in for a one-time $10 fee. Their customer service is excellent–when I’ve had problems, I have had e-mail responses from VoiceThread in as little as 15 minutes.