Have you Glogged lately??

So much has happened since my last post.  I have found myself so busy, that finding time to  record anything has been difficult.  At the beginning of the month I was honored to be awarded Francis Howell Central's Teacher of the Year.  I am shocked, humbled and so thrilled to have received this award.

My French 1 students just finished their first Glog of the year.  In the past, I have loved this site: edu.glogster.com.  I use it throughout the year for different projects.  Glogster is one of my favorites because students can create an eye-catching electronic poster.  For language classes it is a great way to have students  use their learned language and display attractive pictures or even videos.  They make for great presentations because of all of the features they can include.

This year I changed a "weather" project that I have done in the past and used Glogster to have students publish some research findings paired with learned grammar and vocabulary.  In an effort to tie "Global Awareness" into this particular unit, I assigned students different francophone regions.  I gave them the instructions that they should create a "Publicité" or advertisement for a tourist visiting this area.  They were to use weather, temperature and include popular places to visit, as well as things to do in the area.

I introduced the project last Thursday and gave them time in class on Thursday and Friday to do research using only their mobile devices.  They were to complete a KWL chart for their region.  Those research days were really fun to witness.  It was great to see them using discretion in choosing the information that they planned to use from different sites.  In hind site, I wish that I would have checked in with each group on the following Monday to see what had been completed on that chart.  I was out of the classroom on Tuesday, so I was not able to monitor their progress.  Since many of my students are not extremely self-directed, I realized on Wednesday, when many pairs had not completed much of the project that some students were not as far as I had expected them to be. Because our time with computers was limited, I had to stick to my deadline.  They had four days with computers, but one more day probably would have been better.  There is nothing that teaches expectations better than a model.  I didn't show a model until the day before the project was due.  There were some students who had completely misunderstood the requirements, and it wasn't until they saw my example, that they realized exactly what they were expected to produce.   When I do this next year, I will make sure to have a daily accountability meeting with each group/pair.  Projects were due on Friday, and I was discouraged when there were groups that had nothing ready on their Glog.  Project due dates are always frustrating because the most interesting/creative excuses come from everywhere.  I wasn't clear enough in my explanation that excuses are not acceptable because I got far too many.  As with any project, I have learned what to do and what not to do next time, but I will continue to use Glogster as a way to help students use their language.