The project
The Year 4 students were working on a UOI (Unit of Inquiry) about how water usage helped in the creation of cites and civilization. Together with the classroom teachers, we decided to Create a glogster.com multimedia poster showing the history of river technology. The posters would have to show 3 different tools used water in technology to help civilization form and grow. They were required to choose at least 3 different tools that were used by the ancient Egyptians. They needed to explain how they worked showing examples (images) of them.
The process
Here are the steps that they followed
- Research various technologies used by the Egyptians that is water (river) related
- Collect information and organize it for their presentation
- Learn how to use glogster.com
- Create and present information in glogster.com
Research
We had them do research on the subject using the history of irrigation museum website along with other historical sites. They were told they could only get one of their tools from Wikipedia and that they needed to find the rest on other websites.
Collect and organize information
The students were asked to collect their information in MS Word or Pages in a folder on our school server where they would also save the images they wanted to use. Some students also took pictures of the shivu that they made in class, while others recorded audio about, and others yet made videos explaining one of the other examples.
Learn how to use Glogster.com
This was the first time I had used the software, so it was a learning experience for all. I signed up for a free teacher accounton the edu.glogster.com website and added my students to my account.
[UPDATE: The account I had is now only available in a very limited version most of my students work is blocked because Glogster changed their policy and I can no longer access them unless I pay. Not Happy!!]
The students then logged in and were shown some example “glogs” and I showed them the basic steps that were needed to create their glogs. They learned how to add text, shapes, images, audio and video.They also learned how to change the background and wall, which seemed to be a little distracting.
Create and present information
After these short lessons the students worked in groups of 2 or 3 to create their posters. We were all very pleased with the results. It is a very high quality free software to use.
[UPDATE: The preview of student work is no longer available. As mentioned before Glogster changed their policy so all of the student accounts that I had created before are no longer available]
Assessment
I used a rubric to grade the students work.
