4 things that make "Glogster" better than "GlogsterEDU"

We have been using GlogsterEDU for about the past 12 months now, while the initial reaction was great and many of our classes started using it right away, the use of it has died off significantly. Many teachers said that they grew frustrated with it over time, while some of these issues no doubt were to do with our network stability, it was not until I compared the "Glogster" and "GlogsterEDU" that I wondered are we really getting the most for of our education subscription.
I noticed 4 pretty obvious features that are in the standard platform which I would highly recommend being integrated into the education platform:

Portrait & landscape templates VS one size fits all:

Left: standard platform w/ portrait & landscape templates. Right: EDU platform w/ no templates.

Glogster's catch-cry "poster yourself" says it all here. Why wouldn't you  give the education subscribers the ability to create landscape posters?

Sleek interface VS cluttered & kiddish interface: 

Left: standard platform w/ sleek interface. Right: EDU platform w/ kiddish elements.

OK, so I get the EDU platform is aimed at children, however I think the teddy bear and the loading "donut" give the application a fairly immature feel. It is also interesting to compare the differences in the "dashboards" in each of platforms, the EDU one is considerable more cluttered, however this could be because the platform offers more features such as projects and classes that need to go here. The standard platform is sleek and stylish, and because of this the interface is more simplistic to use.

"Private Print" button VS no obvious print button:

Left: standard platform w/ private print button. Right: edu platform w/o print button (users must right click their Glog and select "Print Glog")

Once again the users of this application are creating a poster, it would be great if you could easily print it. A user should not have to figure out that they need to right click the Glog to be able to get the print option.

Embed option VS one size fits all (or does it?):

Left: standard platform w/ three embed options. Right: EDU platform with no options.

Have you ever tried embedding a EDU Glog into your blog? It doesn't quite work as the sizing is a bit too big. Of course you can always fiddle around with the HTML code, but should you really expect students to know or have to do this? In the standard platform you get three options when embedding; Full size (960x1300), blog size (560x768), feed (sidebar) size (360x488).

Three Ideas for the LOTE Classroom.

Language education is a particular area that can benefit greatly from many of the Web2.0 tools and technology advancements in computing. In-built microphones, web cams and the ability to be able create and share content online, has allowed the language classroom to be more than just the student

regurgitating what the teacher has just said. Here are 3 fairly simple ideas that language teachers could use with their classroom to engage their students using technology.  

1. Get your students to create a Voki of a famous person that resides within the country specific to your LOTE class. Students must then give their characters a voice by using the recording functionality of the Voki application.  Students can then embed their Voki into a a class blog or into a PowerPoint and show it to the class.




2. Get students from a senior class (Year 10) to mentor a lower year level (Year 7)  through their learning of the language.  Read this article about student mentoring for language education. By using a collaborative tool such as Edmodo a teacher could add students from each year level to a group he/she has created. Allowing younger students to ask questions or getting the older students to provide video tutorials or listening comprehension tasks.
3. Using a tool such as VoiceThread get your class to discuss a topic or theme relating to what you are currently studying. For a more advanced learning experience make it compulsory for students to use only the proper language for your class, making sure they have a variety of both written and audio comments on various slides. This page in the VoiceThread library provides a good example of the type of task you could complete with your  students.