Glogster

Glogster is a wonderful tool to use in the classroom. In it's most basic sense, Glogster is an online poster board. Teachers can make a poster for their students to see or to use and simply give them the link so they can view it. To make a Glog, you begin at the home page and click, "Create New Glog." You will get to pick different designs or keep it simple and select the blank one. At the top of the screen is a toolbar which allows you to change the background, add text, add graphics or images, video, audio, and you can even upload files. With all the tools available it could take hours to make your glog look just the way you like it. Once familiar with Glogster and how to use it, you can really get advanced with it. Almost everything you add to your glog, you are able to change the size, color, direction, position and usage of . One of the best parts about Glogster is how interactive you can make it. You can insert a graphic and link it to a webpage, or even another glog! In view mode, this will allow students to be very engaged because of the interactive features.

For my glog project, I choose to make my glog a web quest covering common core standard 4.NF.3c.Add and subtract mixed numbers with like denominators, e.g., by replacing each mixed number with an equivalent fraction, and/or by using properties of operations and the relationship

between addition and subtraction. This glog is part of my stations lesson. The glog would be one of the stations they needed to work through together. When they are brought to the home page of my glog, they are introduced with a problem. Jenny is having a family reunion and needs their help to make the brownies. As they navigate themselves through the glog, they will be given a brownie recipe, and a guest list. They need to modify the recipe based on the amount of people coming to the reunion. This will require them to add mixed numbers. Once they have gotten the recipe down for the 45 people attending, they find out that 10 of the people will not be coming because of bad weather. For this reason, they will need to subtract some of the ingredients to get a new andaccurate recipe. This section requires them to subtract mixed numbers. Within the glog there is also a few review videos, and links to sites that could help them along the way. Each student will use 3 index cards along the way to create the brownie recipe for 12 people, 35 people, and 45 people that will be used later in the day. They will also be allowed to bring the index cards home to add to their parent's cook book at home!

All the links to other pages are pretty easy to find. The only one that is a little tricky that I would probably tell my students in advance is the link to the home page. On every glog page for this project, I have a little purple thumbtack in the bottom left hand corner of the screen. This thumbtack is a link to the home page in case they ever need to get back!

Glogster is a fantastic tool to use in the classroom. In addition to this assignment, I could see Glogster being a tool to use as a review. In my classroom I hope to use Glogster in my stations lessons. It's perfect for small group review. Glogster can also be used in any subject area. I thought math would be a challenge but it turned out be so much fun to make! Depending on the age of my students and availability of technology in my classroom I could also see my students making glogs of their own to present to their classmates. My favorite part about Glogster is that when used correctly, your students don't realize that they are learning. They are using skills that you have taught them to solve real world problems. This will validate all the lessons taught if your students can connect the lesson to the real world.