Introducing Yourself Becomes Easier

Glogster, a new tool that I have been using this year among many others in my classes.  I have been using this in my Production and Utilization of Instructional Technology, for two projects my professor has assigned us.  I am also presenting this next week in class, and I am excited to show my classmates who have never experienced this before how beneficial it can be to a classroom.  I think this is a great way to have students introduce themselves instead of standing in a group of people turning pale in front of there eyes and being nervous.  Most of the time people can tell you are nervous which makes it much more difficult because public speaking is one of the greatest fears among people, so finding any way to make it easier, such as Glogster makes it easier for students to tell the class a little about themselves without that fear.  Glogster is a website were you can add videos, sounds, graphics and pictures to tell your story.  It also gives you templates to choose from that fit any personality.  Not only are you including technology into the classroom, it gives the students a chance to open up and try something new.  I think it is something middle and high school level teachers should think about when wanting to come up with new and clever ways to get to know the students, it not only gives the students a chance to gain new knowledge, it eases the nerves for the first day of school, which pretty much all of us can remember that feeling.  It also can be tool for future projects they do in there middle school, high school, and college career.  I know where I went to high school I was rarely introduced to new technology and I wish one of my teachers would of introduced these tools to the classroom.  To be honest, most of the things we talk about in class I have never heard of because I was not fortunate enough to be introduced to these tools in high school.  I am so glad we are learning about all these new tools, technology and multimodality, it has opened me up to so many new ideas that I would have never thought about using, and I cannot wait to use them in my classroom.  To be able to open up new opportunites for my students that I never got the chance to experience until I got to college will be so rewarding.