Glogster EDU is fun for everyone; students and teachers alike. Make your classes and your students stand out, and help your learners to feel that they are expressing themselves, with custom Avatars. Here Glogster EDU discusses a few free avatar creators that might be right for your class.

Picking the right avatar creator is a delicate thing. If you’re the type of teacher who loves attention to detail, and loves to be creative, there are an embarrassment of possible choices for a great avatar maker. While many teachers use screenshots of student Glogs as avatars, you may want to allow students to prepare their own custom models, or you might like to try giving all your students the gift of an avatar made by their favorite Glogster EDU teacher. Here are a few services we’ve tried, along with our reviews of each.

The Na’Vi Avatar Creator:

He doesn’t look too familiar.

While we loved the concept of a class full of little Avatars (the Na’vi people from the hit film called Avatar), this Avatar creator from Doll Divine doesn’t measure up to expectations. While it’s fun to customize your Avatar’s clothing and the background, we can’t really say that this Avatar accomplishes its primary purpose: identifying the user in a unique way. The facial features were not really customizable, and so we didn’t really get that “wow!” moment of recognition with the end result.

The Simpson’s Avatar Creator

Thelma from Scoobie Doo?

We had fun with this simple Avatar maker. While the facial features are not overly customizable, there were enough choices that we didn’t feel constrained. Kid and adult versions are available, in both male and female shapes, and the tools allow for custom choices of color and clothing. It’s enough to make something that vaguely resembles a student, but is a fun reference to the popular show.

Picasso Head

One of our favorites out there, this fun and daring Avatar creator uses the concept of a Picasso drawing, with a drag and drop interface. You can layer, resize and recolor any of a handful of basic elements to create a unique face, and the feeling that it was drawn by Pablo himself. Here are some of our attempts:

Mr. Potato head?

Bad hair day

While we freely admit, the results don’t *exactly* scream Picasso, this was pretty fun. There are a limited number of objects to use, but the customization makes for endless possibilities. Add your signature in the Picasso style for added authenticity.

Pick a Face

Is that you Beiber??

We had high hopes for Pick a Face, but really, every Avatar we tried came out looking more or less the same. In a world of unrealistic body image issues and pressure on kids to conform to traditional concepts of beauty, it’s too bad that such a popular avatar maker produces such bland, “beautiful” images. Kids should just look like kids in our opinion. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Doppel Me

Serious Business

Doppel Me is a fun and easy full body Avatar creator. The faces are not so customizable, but there are plenty of clothing options to make up for this, and the size is right for a Glogster EDU Avatar.

So now you’ve got a few options to explore. Add Avatars to your Glogster student profiles today, and bring some personality to your Glogster EDU Classes and Projects. Each of these tools can yield fun and interesting results in under a minute, so don’t be afraid to dive in.

For the Latest from Glogster EDU

and

also, Sign up for our content streams

And sign up for our Daily News Collection

To help us grow our information network, and keep collecting the best content and new ideas for EDUcators, please LIKE US, share on Facebook, Tweet us, and scroll to the end of this post to sign up for alerts; we’ll let you know when new content becomes available.

40+ Ways to Innovative Teaching Using Glogster EDU in the Classroom

As a Glogster Ambassador, as well as an innovative educator, I am obsessed with finding new and creative ways to engage my students with technology, but also to keep them focused on deep and meaningful learning.  Often teachers use technology as just another tool to provide information to students.  Students remain the passive consumers of their learning and fact gatherers rather than active participants in the discovery of information and producers of meaningful learning experiences.  This should be our goal as educators:  To provide tools to discovery and allow creativity and independence in the learning process.

…

Glogster EDU is a fantastic tool whose versatility is limited only by one’s imagination.  It is one of the most underutilized Web 2.0 tools out there!  This blog is dedicated to sharing and celebrating innovations in the classroom using this remarkable tool.

1. Ice Breakers or Getting to Know You

Starting off the school year in the same old ways?  Try using Glogster EDU as an innovative tool to get kids to express themselves about who they are and what they hope to accomplish over the year!  Create a “Meet Your Teacher” glog with all the makings of a fantastic glog (audio, video, links, graphics, images, documents) and not only let your new students get to know you and your teaching philosophies, but train them on HOW to create a glog of their own!  Send it out before school starts to your parents’ emails or post on your website for instant Day 1 assignment fun!

At the start of this school year, I asked my parents and 2nd grade students to take photos of things they loved that filled them with joy and made them feel special.  They specifically had to try to spell their names with those things, looking for the letters in patterns, shapes, or designs.  They each took digital photos, uploaded them to a glog, wrote little  blurbs about why each item was special to them, and added songs, videos of themselves, and even links to their favorite sites!  We shared these throughout the first week and it truly set the tone for our school year.  The documents, videos, and links provided in my “training” glog eased the stress of learning a new tool for both parents and students alike.  This lesson brought a sense of togetherness between my families and myself and has sustained a sound, respectful, and open relationship throughout the whole year.

2.  Student of the Week

Every week our campus celebrates one student from each classroom who demonstrates exemplary conduct and leadership.  In my class, we celebrate by giving a Glogspot to that student!  Using Big Huge Lab‘s motivator tool , I create an inspriational poster of the student’s picture with an educational quote.  Then, all of the classmates have a chance to enter text into the Glog telling the student how he/she matters to them and why they are so deserving of the honor of “Alpha Wolf” (our student of the week title).  This is a special digital memento that students can add to their websites or print to frame.  It means the world to them and is one of the most popular uses of Glogster EDU in my classroom each year.

3.  Classroom Newletter

Tired of boring paper newsletter?  Do you want to create excitement at home with parents and students about all the wonderful learning opportunities happening in your classroom?  Do you WANT your newsletter to actually be read!?  Look no further than Glogster EDU!  This is a fun, interactive way to get newsletter information to your parents!  Post images, videos, audio, parent support links, homework assignments and more!  It is fun and much more visually appealing to click away and interact with a newsletter than to receive a paper or link to a digital paper than only needs to be read.  The feedback on this use has been very positive!  My parents and students look forward to the newsletters because they showcase images from our classroom, links to learning, student made work, videos, and more!  This is definitely a refreshing change of pass from the mundane newsletters of pre-technology days.

4.  Parent Support

Want to help your parents feel connected to the classroom and supported at home with informative training videos or documents that teach them how YOU are teaching their children so that there is consistency between home and school?  Create glogs that link, info, share, show, and facilitate parent support at home!  I have sent glogs to my parents on everything from fact fluency expectations, to the scientific method, to solving word problems, to tips on reading with your child and how to ask good comprehension questions.

5.  Principal’s Corner

Glogster EDU is a great way for administrators to connect in innovative ways with their staff, community, and parents.  Create a Principal’s Corner glog sharing ideas, links, information, photos and more!

6.  Classroom Frequently Accessed Sites

Set up a glog that houses all of the frequently used and accessed site for your classroom.  Embed the glog into your webpage or wiki and viola!  You have a one-stop place for your students to access every site needed on a daily basis.  No more saving shortcuts to desktops or sentence strips with links.

7.  Flipped Classroom

When students are absent, or YOU are absent, or when you need to spend more time helping your students work the work rather than learn the material in the initial lesson, flipping the classroom is all the rage!  With Glogster EDU is it as easy as 1-2-3 or click, embed, click.  Glogs allow for videos, links, audio, podcasts, information, interaction, and photos.  You can embed an entire week’s worth of lessons into one glog and have kids work at their own pace or on a schedule.

8.  Classroom Blogging

Engage your students in writing in a way that will give them purposeful and meaningful opportunities to write daily.  Have students set up a blog/glog!  Each student can create or use a pre-made template in which they can blog daily or weekly about their learning.  These can be submitted to you as a way of self-reflection and communication between reluctant students and you!

9.  Cooperative Learning Tool

One of the best ways to help a child learn information on a deeper more meaningful level is to have them teach it to someone else.  Glogster is a great way for them to put together a lesson in one space that can be embedded into other sites for future use and reference.  Have students flipcam a video or do a paperslide, create images or take photos as visual aides, even record their lesson via Audacity or some other sound recording software, even provide problems and handouts.  They can also connect another glog template to the host glog and have students edit it as a response!  This idea is helpful when students are shy or nervous about teaching live in front of a class, but want to share their learning and ideas in a different way.

10.  Graphic Organizers

Create templates as graphic organizers and assign them to your students for them to fill out and submit back to you on a variety of topics from literary responses to scientific comparisons!

11.  Assessments

Give your students a digital version of a one-pager assessment!  The One-Pager is a creative writing strategy that can be used post-lesson as a way for students to organize information or review the content. Traditionally, students are given a plain piece of 8 ½” by 11” paper and asked to fill it up with elements from the reading such as quotations, definitions, charts, graphs, or anything else they feel is important information.  Students are able to use colorful markers, pens, or crayons, and they can be as creative as possible in their organization of information.  With Glogster EDU, students can create vibrant and interactive one-pagers and are more inclined to out-perform on these assessments as they motivate them to create and share more information than they might typically share with traditional assessments.

12.  Problem Solving Quests

Using STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) type questions, have students utilize Glogster as a way to poster links, photos, videos, and explanations to solving these problems.  Use Glogster to set them up for success by linking them to Web 2.0 facilitated clues and instructions that guide them to information that they can peruse, synthesize, and share.

13.  Research

This is a two-fold benefit!  As the teacher, you can create a glog filled with research information and links for your students to easily find and use.  But a more productive application could be to assign research topics to students and have them create their own resource glogs!  Imagine the powerful learning experience your kids could have if they are responsible for finding,  determining the validity and accuracy of information, and sharing what they discovered learning evidence for the planning and research stage of these types of projects.

14.  Biographies

Have your students research individual people of history, authors, or other significant figures and then collaboratively create a glog or series of glogs that showcase the biographical information they learned.

15.  TImelines

Have students create personal timelines, timelines or historical events, or science data over time using Glogster.  These timelines can be so interactive with photos, videos, interviews, soundbytes, and digital articfacts.  SO much more than a read-only paper timeline.

16.  Math Explanations

Create a template for math word problem justification responses and have students create a glog that uses photos, videos, audio, and writing as means to explain their thinking and how they solved the problem.

17.  Writing Practice or Assignments:

Tired of workbooks and worksheets for editing and revising practice?  Create a template for them to digitally fill in or complete.  They can easily submit them to you for grading and saves on paper!

18.  Infographics

All the rage in education and business, infographics are a beautiful way to display graphs, data, processes, and synthesized information!  Teach this skill to your students and set them up for success both in education and future business endeavors!

19.  Scientific Experiment Results

Give your students the chance to really show off their understanding and scientific results by creating a glog that expresses their project!  It is a digital science fair project media!  Just think of the pride they will have as their peers interact with the photos, videos, audio, and links that enhance their projects results and solidify understanding.

20.  Spelling Patterns and Practice

Spelling tests or practice are no longer just paper and pencil activities.  Have students respond to an audio clip of you dictating or pronouncing the spelling words and have them type in the word!  It’s as easy as that!

21.  Social Studies Reports

Anytime students can respond to social studies learning through presentation and response the level of understanding is deeper and more meaningful.

22.  Comprehensive Body of Classwork

Connect a class set of glogs to a “host” glog that features their photos or names that link to their individual glogs.  It is a fabulous way create an online digital classroom display.  Parents and other classrooms can peruse all of the wonderful work your students create!

23.  Homework

Send glogs to your students with links, videos, audio, and photos as well as guided questions for them to answer!  It is a fun and exciting way to get kids to do their homework.  No more battle at home (except maybe to do more glogs!)!

24.  Scavenger Hunts

Have students go on digital learning scavenger hunts across all curriculum and content! GIve little direction other than perhaps a pointed open-ended question and send them on the adventure.

25.  Community Service Projects

Get your community involved in your community service projects by creating interactive glogs that can send them to information about your cause, links to donate or volunteer, sign up for participation and so much more!  It is certainly impressive and worthy of the “word-of-mouth” publicity your community service project deserves.

26.  Art Gallery

Have students upload their artwork into a glog facilitated art gallery!  This is a great way for them to add commentary about their projects, the techniques being used, and even the historical impact of artists who pioneered the techniques!  This idea creates much more than a visually appealing gallery experience.  It becomes a digital interactive experience!

27.  Virtual Music Concert

Record songs and instrumental performances by your students and have them upload them into a glog that celebrates their talents through listener interaction!  Background information about the composer, singer, songwriter, or genre can be added to make the experience pleasant to the mind as well as the ear.

28.  Virtual FIeld Trips

Level the playing field for your students who have limited life experience and trump the budget cuts by creating a glog that sends your students on a virtual field trip!  Travel around the world by embedding videos, images, and anecdotal information.  Make it collaborative by asking students to each contribute an element to the glog!  Do a cross-cultural collaborative glog by having a global classroom create a “You and Us” glog with your students to share cultural information!

29.  Health and Fitness demonstrations and activities

PE coaches this one is for you!  Want your students to be more active at home?  Create an exercise demo glog or challenge to get kids off the couch and up and moving!  They just click on videos of exercises or fun songs to dance to and you have instant motivation to exercise!

30.  Library Book of the Month

Celebrate the BOok of the Month for grade levels or your campus by showcasing the book, author, and illustrator with interactive features and even student-created book trailors!

31.  Library Monthly Recommended Reads or Book Trailors

LMSs this one is for you!  Set up a recommended reading list for grade levels or your campus using GlogsterEDU and you can provide your students with instant access to information about the books, authors, illustrators, genres, and even send them to each other’s book review!

32.  Community Outreach

Have a concern or a project that addresses a concern in the community?  Need to send information about your community outreach project?  Create an interactive glog filled with information, resources, ideas, opportunities for volunteerism or donations, and even personal stories of people who have been affected through the outreach focus.

33.  PTO

PTO, you are not left out either!  Create your PTO page using Glogster!  Links, videos, photos, newsletters, fundraisers, and more all at the viewers fingertips!  No more shuffling through loose papers or losing important documents.  Now your families can have access to all things PTO and campus-focused anytime they want!

34.  Resource Glog or Virtual Anchor Charts

Are your walls filling up with anchor charts and resources for your students?  Are they boring and lack-luster?  Create or have your students create resource glogs or virtual anchor charts to use in class or to share with other classes in a cooperative learning situation!

35.  Campus Contests

Promote your contests and link data and current standings to a fun and beautifully interactive glog!  Photos, documents and more create a competitive and motivating experience sure to make the contest quite the event!

36.  STAAR (State Assessment) Test Prep

Help students study and practice for your state standardized test by creating an interactive experience of study, practice, and productivity.

37.  Global Connections

Create glogs to introduce yourclass to global friends or have each student create a “Getting to Know Us” glog.  Exchanges can happen via file share, wikis, or any other interface capable of embedding this type of widget.

38.  VIrtual Science Lab

Create a digital science lab using glog by connecting students to experiments that are inaccessible or too dangerous to perform in the live lab.  Students can add responses to these experiments as a way to assess their learning and experience.

39.  Paperless Campaign

Visit http://iluvearth.wikispaces.com/Earth+Day%3F++Learn+About+It%21 to see how Glogster EDU was utilized in a paperless campaign for Seimen’s We Can Change the World Challenge national finalist project in 2010!

40.  Literary Global Collabortation Settings

Visit www.mymth.wikispaces.com , an award winning literary global collaborative project and see how Glogster EDU was used as a competition category as well as a staple of this project’s interactive features.

As gaming and gamification in the classroom hit their stride in the current of educational trends, I have designed my classroom and lessons around a living game experience.  Here are a few more applications for using Glogster in this type of scenario:

41.  Game:  Unlockables
42.  Game:  Clues
43.  Game:  Secret Codes
44.  Game:  Level Tutorials

I encourage you to explore and share more uses for GlogsterEDU.  If you or your district are interested in renewing or obtaining an EDU account, please use promo code 5E9515!  Happy Glogging!

If you’re Interested in Subscribing to any of Glogster EDU’s Content Streams, Sign up here!

[contact-form]

Presenting Our Latest Ebook

Well, it’s been a voyage of discovery. Glogster EDU has grown by leaps and bounds in the past few years, and it has been a joy to be here, and to learn from every EDUcator and student using Glogster EDU for creative, innovative teaching and learning.

At Glogster EDU, we believe that education truly lasts a lifetime, and that it never ends. That’s why we keep learning and growing every day. We’ve got so many special things planned, and we’re so happy to have you all along for the ride.

We’ve been working on our latest creation for months, and we’re finally ready to share it with you in its final form. It’s our brand new Ebook: Connect to the Revolution: How Technology can Flip Education and How School May Never Be the Same (and why that’s a good thing). In it you’ll find dozens of new resources on digital education and flipped teaching, a history of education technology, and much more.

Download the Ebook Here!

It’s valued at $89, but it’s our Gift to You, absolutely FREE. We only ask that you share it with friends on Facebook, or Twitter, and email the link to your colleagues, and spread the word for us. 

Glogster EDU is Yours!

Your Glogster Team

For the Latest from Glogster EDU

and

also, Sign up for our content streams

And sign up for our Daily News Collection

Go Sideways with Glogster EDU!

Flip Your Classroom, and your Glogs! 

Yes, in a month of exciting announcements, including our Faculty Edition, and the introduction of many all-new features, it is no less of a pleasure to announce the arrival of the Horizontal Glog. You asked and we answered: the Horizontal Glog has been a popular request from our users, and we’ve worked hard to make sure it would blend seamlessly with all the great tools available to our Glogster EDU Premium users.

The Horizontal Glog, as well as all templates and examples from Glogpedia, will be available to ALL USERS for a limited time only. It will remain available in the future as a Premium feature of all of Glogster EDU’s Premium Editions, but not to free users.

Some Neat Ideas for Horizontal Glogs

We’ve only just begun to think of unique ways the Horizontal Glog can be used for teaching and learning. Here are just a few of our initial ideas:

Make a Timeline or a Graph

The shape of the Horizontal Glog lends itself perfectly to timelines and graphs. The really special thing about a Glogster EDU timeline or graph is the ability to embed images, graphics and video to highlight events on a timeline, or information connected with different data points. Create an animated graph that shows the important points with moving arrows and other animations- the possibilities are endless!

Create a Brochure or Storybook Using Presentations

By combining the layout of the Horizontal Glog with the power of a Glogster EDU presentation, you can easily design a brochure or storybook about a student project, a field trip, or any other subject. Make a Glog Presentation about the classroom rules, for example, or print it out and place it somewhere in the classroom.

Publish a Horizontal Glog With Glogster EDU!

Glogster EDU’s Horizontal Glogs are fully embeddable in Wikispaces, and other websites. Share presentations of your Horizontal Glogs on your Classroom Blog, or school website, to show off work to parents, or make your lessons easily accessible from anywhere. Go anywhere with Glogster EDU!

How will you use Horizontal?

Share your Horizontal Glogs on Twitter with the hashtag #Gr8Glogs @GlogsterEDU, and show us what you come up with! We’ll retweet all our entries to our thousands of followers and fans! 

For the Latest from Glogster EDU

and

also, Sign up for our content streams

And sign up for our Daily News Collection

What is it?

More than just Glogster EDU Premium, the Faculty Edition is specially designed for a group of teachers and their students, led by an administrator, such as a librarian or media specialist. It is an interactive environment where multiple teachers can use Glogster EDU to achieve their common teaching goals.

Glogster EDU Faculty Edition is Community

What makes Faculty Edition special is its support for a community of educators and students working together. Teachers can collaborate with each other to accomplish projects and share lessons, helping each other to build wonderful student portfolios that can be shared and shown off in presentations to parents, and the school community. With Faculty Edition, the possibilities are boundless for creative cooperation.

And it comes at a price too good to pass up. Less than 50 cents per student, per year, or less than a dollar per month for every teacher who uses it.

Introducing All New Features!

Aside from the Horizontal Glog which is also being released for all users today, Glogster EDU Faculty Edition features a new, completely innovative and unique Administrator Dashboard, and a complete Administrator Tour. 

Click Here to Check it Out!

Based on the powerful award winning User Interface tools developed by the creators of Twitter, Glogster EDU Faculty Edition’s new Administrator Dashboard (now also available as an option for all school and district administrators), is more powerful and easier to use than ever before.

Our New Look

The Glogster Team have been hard at work developing an all new user interface, that will soon set the standard for users across all editions of Glogster EDU Premium. The new look is clear and friendly, with easily readable fonts and very clear buttons and other interactive objects. More than just a look, Glogster EDU’s new interface is powerful as well, and allows for faster and more effective use of all administrator tools. We’re really excited about it, and we know you will be too once you get your hands on it. It’s really amazing!

Wait, There’s More? 

There’s More!

Even better, by popular request, the Glogster EDU team has developed a tour for all administrators- an interactive on-site explanation of all admin functions, accessible at any time. This is the most powerful and user friendly administration tool we’ve ever developed, and it will set a new industry standard.

There Couldn’t Possibly Be More!

There is!

Glogster EDU is excited to announce that we have begun work on many, many other improvements and new features. As we phase out the Classic Glog and begin focusing all of our energy on making the NextGen Glog even better, you’ll see boatloads of great new features being added. For example, we’re working on ways of integrating your own or your favorite Youtube Channel into the Glog editor, for even easier embedding of videos from your collection, or your favorite creators like Khan Academy, and SchoolTube.

We’re also working on a Glogster EDU Commons- a place where graphics and images uploaded by the Glogster EDU community can be tagged, used, and shared by others for creative teaching and learning- also accessible from the Glog Editor.

Sound pretty good? We hope so!

For the Latest from Glogster EDU

and

also, Sign up for our content streams

And sign up for our Daily News Collection

At Glogster EDU, we work day and night preparing new features, templates, and the other bells and whistles that make Glogster EDU the beloved digital learning and creativity tool it has become. Well, we’ve been working on this one for a while, and we know you’ve been waiting for it!

Allow Us to Introduce: The Horizontal Glog!

Glogging takes us in all kinds of directions. Don’t be limited by formats. With the horizontal Glog, the possibilities of the Glog are even more endless than they were before- if that’s even possible!

It’s so… wide!

Endless Possibilities + Horizontal Glog = Endless Possibilities Squared

(See? We did the math.)

Here’s a Sneak Peak from our Lead Designer, Martin Santorci

What to Expect:

The Horizontal Glog will be rolled out very soon, and made available as a Premium Feature of Glogster EDU. It will also be available for a limited time to Free users, and Premium Trial users will have access during their trials. Included with this release will be a package of new templates to exploit the benefits of the Horizontal Glog, as well as other unannounced goodies!

Stay Tuned!

If you’re Interested in Subscribing to any of Glogster EDU’s Content Streams, Sign up here!

Since Glogster’s founding in 2007, the backbone of the Glogster experience has been what we have come to call the Classic Glog. By the beginning of the next school year, we will have phased out the Classic Glog editor, and replaced it completely with the NextGen Glog. For technical info on the reasons for this switch, read our post about it.

Introducing the NextGen Glog.

History of EDU

Glogster EDU started as an offshoot of Glogster.com, “The Visual Social Network.”  We noticed right away that the tool was being used by teachers and students for creative expression and learning. Glogster EDU was born;  based on the same technology that had made Glogster.com so popular: the Glog. Three years after the launch of EDU, we are proud to say that we have won major awards, have over 10 million students, over one million teachers registered, and we get almost 50,000 new registrations at EDU every month.

It all started with a simple idea.

Technology Marches On

At Glogster EDU, we work hard to stay at the forefront of new trends in education technology. We’ve been a pioneer voice in the Flipped Classroom movement, and have the securest online educational service out there. Our EDUcators and students look to us to lead the way.

The NextGen Glog

Beginning last year, we developed and launched a whole new Glogging Engine, which we called “G3″ or The NextGen Glog. The next-Gen Glog is viewable in HTML 5, meaning it is accessible on the iPad and any other mobile device without flash installed. In addition, it allows Re-Glogging: the ability to copy and redesign a Glog from Glogpedia, giving EDUcators the ability to use it as a lesson template or a starting point for a new project. Not only that, but the NextGen Glog is built to allow deeper integration with other services, such as Google Apps and Youtube, meaning that currently users of Glogster EDU can log in to Glogster EDU with Google, access videos on Youtube through their Google accounts, and will have increasing access to other Google Apps resources through Glogster EDU in the future. 

The Future with Flash

Adobe, creator of the Flash graphics platform, announced in late 2011 that it would discontinue work on mobile platforms, to focus on developing its desktop features. Since the Glog was based on Flash from the very beginning, this signaled a big change for us in how we would be able to work with Flash in the future. Since developing workable mobile applications is important to us, and will be a part of Glogster EDU’s future development plans, we developed an HTML 5 viewer for Glogster EDU, to allow Glogs to be viewable on any device produced by Apple, or using Google’s Android OS. As Adobe discontinues support for those devices, EDU will remain accessible, and we will be able to develop new applications that fit a changing digital education environment, increasingly focused on tablets.

Part of what this decision meant was that Flash would be changing more rapidly in the future, as Adobe worked to integrate it more fully with a desktop environment. Updates to the Flash platform meant that it would soon become impossible for Glogster EDU to continue to support its Classic Glog platform. A total rebuild of the Glogging platform was required to accommodate new changes in the way that Flash works. In launching the G3, NextGen Glog, Glogster EDU has been able to ensure that its future stability and usability across the broadest range of platforms remains at the same high standard.

What it means for Educators and Learners

For relative newcomers to Glogster EDU, the NextGen Glog is already a go-to tool. It allows more flexibility for teachers and students in using Glogster EDU’s great resources, and in collaborating on new projects. It also promises a future of greater integration with Google Apps and other web 2.0 tools that many teachers are already using, and are eager to integrate with Glogster EDU. The NextGen Glog will allow EDU to integrate calendar functions, new grading and rubric systems, and many other features that would not have been possible with the Classic Glog engine.

We Listened!

What about my old Glogs?

As the next school year approaches, we will be introducing special tools to “migrate” your existing Glogs over to the new NextGen Platform. When Glogster EDU turns off the Classic Glog editor for good, all of the remaining classic Glogs will be migrated to NextGen. As some minor changes may take place in the look and layout of a few Glogs during the migration process, we want to give our long-time Educators plenty of chances over the summer to look through their existing Glogs, and choose a time to upgrade, making sure everything is in order. Current users who have signed up in the past few months haven’t had access to the Classic Glog editor, and so they will not be affected by any of these changes.

More Stability, More Support

These changes not only allow Glogster EDU to offer you the best and latest version of Glogging technology, it also allows us to focus all of our attention on supporting ONE great platform for Glogging. The future with this new platform will see increased stability and speed, easier, richer, and quicker integration of many new features, and the addition of many pieces of new content, including new graphic libraries, a new Glogster EDU media commons as a compliment to Glogpedia, and improved communication, reporting, and community tools on Glogster EDU, along with other exciting developments we can’t even tell you about yet. The future with Glogster EDU is exciting! And we just can’t wait to share all that we have in store.

What’s the Reason for the Switch?

The Classic Glog editor was originally written in a programming script that Adobe, the company that created Flash has stopped supporting. Why is that important? Well, in order to run anything based on Flash, which is a graphics platform that many hundreds of thousands of online applications are based on, including Glogster, it is necessary for Flash to be installed on the user’s computer and browser. It appears that when you edit or save a Glog, you are doing so “at Glogster EDU,” but in fact, the program that you are using is one that is installed on your computer. Glogster EDU sends that program a special code: a “script,” telling that program how to run, and that program sends back the data that you create to be stored on our servers.

Every time that program from Adobe is updated and downloaded to hundreds of millions of computers, thousands of companies around the world must also update the script, the code they use to interact with Flash, in order for it to work properly. In Glogster’s case, the script that the Classic Glog uses is no longer supported by Flash, and had to be completely rebuilt and replaced. This means that future versions of Flash will “ignore,” whether they work with certain types of scripts, in order to focus on newer scripts that have been developed. Many, many programs and many scripts have to be rewritten to comply with the new standards.

Last year, we introduced the NextGen Glog, and any new development and features, were created for NextGen instead of for the Classic Glog. While the Classic Glog remained more stable in the short term (it continued to work with Flash as it had before), any updates to Flash, as expected, have made various elements of the Classic Glog stop working. While temporary fixes can be and are being made, the only real solution to this issue will be to phase out the Classic Glog, and replace it completely with the NextGen Glog.

When is the Switch Happening?

New users of Glogster EDU have already been switched to NextGen. They don’t have access to Classic Glog creation at all.

Long time users will be transitioned to the Next Gen editor and viewer in steps: if a user opens a Classic Glog, it will be opened in the NextGen editor. Due to the many different sources of media on Glogster EDU, as well as the many versions of Flash that have been used to upload and save content, certain pieces of media may not display correctly when the Glog is first opened in the NextGen and will require some editing and then saving. This is unfortunate but unavoidable, as certain elements of Classic Glogs, based on a now unsupported script, are not compatible with the new version of Flash, and are thus not compatible with the NextGen Glog. There is a positive note though: this switch does give users an opportunity to categorize their old Glogs upon saving for easier searching, as well as make those Glogs available for ReGlog, which wasn’t a feature of the Classic Glog.

At the end of summer 2013, after all users have had a chance to review and update their libraries of Glogs (and we understand that in some cases, this may include a great number), we will auto-update all remaining Glogs in the classic format to NextGen.

But Why?

While we would prefer that teachers who would like to remain with the Classic Glog be able to do so, continuing updates and changes to Flash are beyond our control, and it will become increasingly problematic to support two platforms. Because the script is no longer supported, Adobe will soon stop updating its developers on expected problems with compatibility in its new versions, which means that we would soon have no idea what potential incompatibilities Flash would have on any given day. This would greatly impact our high standard of performance, and would deliver a sub-par experience for Glogster EDU Educators and Learners -the most vital part of Glogster EDU.

I Tried NextGen and I Didn’t Like It.

If that’s the case, we know we can change your mind. There were some challenges when the NextGen Glog was first introduced, but we have been hard at work improving every aspect of the new editor. It is now faster, smoother, and more stable.  Aside from its more modern look, the ability to ReGlog and link your Google Youtube account to your Glogster account to easily integrate your favorite videos in Glogs, features that are already available, we have amazing new features planned for the NextGen Glog. In the future, thanks to the updates that we have made, Glogster EDU will be able to integrate more deeply with Google Apps, and incorporate all new features like Calendars, Grading and Rubrics, and things so exciting and new, we can’t even tell you about them yet.

The Glogster Quiz

Welcome EDUcators! We had a lot of fun last week making up our Glogster Quiz and seeing so many responses. The winners will be notified by email about the special drawing to be held for participants and winners of the quiz only.

To participate in the quiz, check #Glogsterquiz on Fridays for a link. The Quiz is active from Friday to Sunday at midnight. RT (ReTweet) the quiz on Twitter for extra chances to win prizes.

Some prizes for the last quiz included: A guest post on the Glogster EDU blog, a Free Year of Glogster EDU premium, and an Upgrade from 125 to 200 Students for a Premium Educator.

Quiz Questions and Answers

The noble gases are typically noted for their tendency to be non-reactive. They make up group 18 of the Periodic Table. Hydrogen, the simplest of all elements, readily combines with most non-metallic elements and is present in most organic compounds. Hydrogen makes up most of the mass of the universe in the form of stars and plasma. 

Biology: James Watson and Francis Crick first described the double-helix structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) in the journal Nature in what year? *

•  1961
•  1951
•  1953
•  1957

James Watson and Francic Crick authored the paper: “Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid,” in 1953 and had it published on April 25th of that year in the journal Nature. The article they published was a keystone of research into the origins of life. 

Our DNA also has a Glogomine base-pair.

We have to admit, we were a bit tricky with this question! While popular culture is very familiar with the Velvet Revolution, the peaceful dissolution of the former Warsaw Pact and the withdrawal of Russian troops that culminating in the touching spectacle of thousands of Czechs and Slovaks jangling their keys on Wenceslas Square in 1989 to symbolize the opening of a new era. 

What some don’t know is that the split of the two regions that made up Czechoslovakia, now the Czech and Slovak Republics, was nicknamed the “Velvet Divorce,” for its model of peaceful cooperation. The nations divided their resources 2 to 1, with the Czech Republic getting the larger share. Today, the nations are still very friendly, and as members of the European Union, they are close allies. 

The Republic of Iran is bigger than many people realize, bordering Turkey and Iraq to the west, and Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Turkmenistan to the East. It is connected by a narrow strip of territory to Armenia, and it shares the Caspian sea with Azerbaijan. However, it shares no borders with Georgia. 

Thanks to those who took part in the #GlogsterQuiz, and we’ll see you this Friday for our next installment!

If you’re Interested in Subscribing to any of Glogster EDU’s Content Streams, Sign up here!

Did you know that Glogster EDU was active on Pinterest? Well we are, and it won’t be a surprise to hear that we’re visual learning types. We LOVE infographics, and working creatively with visual information. So we’ve rounded up 10 of the latest infographics in Education that we think say something important.

What are the vital elements of a good infographic for us? Valuable data (and lots of it!), engaging design and pictures, a logical flow of information (cause and effect demonstrated), and a strong conclusion. A great infographic isn’t just a fancy way of broadcasting a message: it is an elegant argument for a new idea, or a new way of looking at an old problem. Here are some favorites:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

If you’re Interested in Subscribing to any of Glogster EDU’s Content Streams, Sign up here!

What say you? 

It seems as if some of the writers over at Edudemic must be reading the Glogster Blog these days, because yesterday, they wrote the post we were planning to write today! The fourth part in our Flipping the Classroom Series: Timelining and Planning Ahead. 

But not to worry. We’ve got more than a few tricks up our sleeves. So we bring you our tips for Timelining and Planning your new Flipped Classroom.

Timeline

While we’ve posted a bit in the past about brainstorming and organization using calendars and other software, timelining is a little different. More than a plan, your timeline and master plan is a roadmap for not just you, but everyone connected to your new blended digital classroom.

Make a timeline that is rich and engaging with Tiki Toki, a relatively easy to use, and free online program that allows you to create interactive timelines, complete with different media to demonstrate the process you will follow in flipping your classroom. Your timeline is more of a proof of concept: it shows that the tools exist to explain everything your parents and fellow teachers need to know about your plans, meaning that when they meet with you, they can discuss the more important details, instead of covering the basics of your plan.

Now if you’ll all turn to section C-11 of the B Appendix, for information on Child device use policy in the event of a sandstorm occurring unexpectedly…

Plan Communication

This is a big failure point for effective change in the classroom. Spending your time communicating the same information, again and again, to different people (parents, other teachers, administrators, etc), is exactly what you are trying to avoid doing, by using the flipped approach. We will discuss this more in the upcoming Habit for Successful Flipping: Seek Variety, and Keep up with Social Media, and we discussed this a bit already in Be Organized, as well as our blog post about what social media teachers should be using but it bears some attention here as well.

..

Make a Map (A Mind Map!)

Your communication plan is your “roadmap,” for how you communicate information and make that information available to students, and to teachers. It starts with a list of resources you will use, such as the Twitter application Hootsuite, or the mass texting application Remind101, as well as your resource websites, discussed here (we plan on expanding our talk about resource curation in a future blog post… stay tuned!).

Your roadmap is more than just this list however. It consists of your “rules,” for communicating with parents and students, and defines what information these parties can expect from you, and in what format. These rules apply to both you and your students together. This means, for example, that you will not hold students responsible for an assignment if it is not posted on Twitter, but you can expect that your students will be responsible for knowing what is on your Pinterest boards, or for checking their twitters after a certain time period every evening.

This roadmap is of a two-way street: you follow your rules, and your students follow them as well. Once you have communication channels and specific criteria for giving assignments and for digital responsibilities that the students have, stick with the rules. This is why planning and choosing your resources is so important. Any vacillation will be seen as a sign by students and parents that your system isn’t working, so pick a system that will work, and use it!

Develop Your PLN (Personal Learning Network)

Building your PLN can be a process of trial and error. You want more trial, and less error. So do your reading first. Some vital tips to guide you through the process:

Keep your personal life, and your “teacher identity” completely separate.

Go so far as to only conduct your teaching work on one browser, such as Google Chrome, and your personal affairs in Firefox. This will save you forgetting who you’re supposed to be talking to, and who you’re supposed to be at any given time. Keep an email address associated with your teacher materials and socials, and don’t use it for anything personal. This way, your “teacher identity” is easy to switch off on weekends, or vacations, but also easy to switch back on when you need to access it. The only exception to this rule is Facebook, which does not allow multiple identities to be used. No bother here: a Facebook Page solves this problem- just never forget that what you post as yourself will lead your students back to your own personal timeline

I’ve seen this character before somewhere…

Use your PLN for professional development.

Your PLN is more than just social networking and chatting. It is content curation and sharing. It is a snapshot of you as a professional. Find and observe other effective teachers, and see how they use their PLN to get things done, and to grow as professionals.
Be consistent, but also varied. Post on a regular schedule. Don’t let a day or two go by without “tending” your PLN. It’s like a garden- it needs care to grow. The more tended it is, the better a resource it can be. You’ll find after a while that it becomes more and more useful as a resource, an inspiration, and a tool.

Yes my pretties… like my status. Repin me… I will soon rule.

Don’t be a packrat.

This one is tough, but as with the garden metaphor, social media and content has a lot of “weeds,” or content and content sources that are not very good, or consistent, or up to date. Follow everyone for a while, but if you don’t get clean, consistent and good content from a source for a long while, consider deleting, unfollowing, and ignoring nuisance or irrelevant sources.

Divide and Conquer

Don’t do everything in one place! Each content source or communication tool has strengths and weaknesses. Don’t use Twitter to curate content, use a more appropriate service like Scoop.it or Mashable. Don’t use Pinterest to communicate either: Pinterest is passive and impersonal. Use the tools the way they are intended to be used. Observe others, and follow the “rules” of any given network, spoken or unspoken.

Take a left at the timeline, and don’t stop till you see a large bird with a chat bubble floating above its head. Then you’re there.§

Crosspost

 That said, you should interconnect your different platforms to allow your followers, students, teachers, parents and professional connections to skip between your different social networks and content streams seamlessly. Do this by tweeting your pins and scoops, or embedding your pins in blog posts, and then tweeting those. Use all your networks as platforms for displaying your activities on other networks: this gives all your followers and connections a chance to experience your content and communication in the form most relevant to them for any purpose.

What say you? 

What are your effective habits for Flipped Teaching? How do you plan ahead and roadmap your way to success? What tools and rules of communication do you use? We’d love to hear from you!