Hello students… It’s Me.
A teacher’s first meeting with a brand new set of students at the beginning of a new school year is always interesting. I really look forward to it. I love that moment of walking into class and the students stop and look at you. You know lots of eyes are on you as you log on to the teacher’s computer and shuffle your teaching notes. It’s great wondering what the class dynamics will be over the coming months. No two classes are ever the same. The incredible variety in the personalities of students always ensures each class has its own unique and very memorable character and dynamics.
This semester (started this week) I decided to do something different in my first class to make a change from my ‘things that work’ list of warm-ups and getting-to-know-you activities.
I decided to use a glog. My first ever glog. But not my last.
I spent a good few months looking at a good few tweets at the end of 2009 that absolutely raved about Glogster and its merits in the classroom. I felt I had to find out what it was all about or miss out on an important new classroom tool.
I downloaded Edu Glogster and made my first glog – incredibly intuitive and great, great fun. I quickly understood it was a learning tool full of promise.
I made a glog on me – my introduction to my new students (low pre-intermediates).
Here it is:
On my glog, I put photos, texts and images that related to me and my life and linked them all to readings, listenings and videos I created. I tried to make it interesting and fun for my students, while getting them to read and listen to English.
In the pop-up audios / readings / videos…
- I made an mp3 for the photo of me at 8 and explained it was a very special photo because I had hair.
- I told the tale of how I felt like a movie star on my wedding day in Japan and chatted about my wife.
- I wrote about the snazzy clothes I wore in the pic when I was 18 months old.
- I explained behind the smiley image exactly what made me smile a lot in class (and what might not make me smile).
- I interviewed my children about life.
- I showed off my kids’ piano-playing talents.
- I took my students through a brief travelogue of the countries I have visited.
- I put up a really good argument that Arsenal Football Club are “by far the greatest team the world has ever seen”.
- I explained my thoughts about living in the UAE.
- I told them the story of how I’d gone shopping the week before and bought a new iMac computer.
I was a little nervous about how the students might take to this glog. Was I really so interesting? But… I was so happy with the way things went. I showed them the glog on the smart board and pointed to the play buttons and links. I asked them to open the link in their e-mail so they could see the glog on their own computer (in pairs) and click, read and listen.
For the next 25 minutes they read, looked and listened. And laughed.
I felt it was a great way to meet a new class. They really interacted with my glog and were quite absorbed by it.
I followed it up with a light-hearted quiz on what they saw, read or heard…
… and then got down to some serious stuff… writing. I hope a lot of what I had included on the glog provided them with some kind of model (more in terms of content than language structure) for them to write about themselves. The scripts I got back from them were definitely more creative than those I’d received in previous years.
I thoroughly recommend making a glog to introduce yourself to students.
I’m greatly looking forward to experimenting with glogging possibilities this semester.
Will keep you informed 
Tags: glog, glogging, Glogster, introductions, posters, warm-ups
What a great idea!
Did you have the students make a glog about themselves? Or is that the next step?
Our advisory classes have to present something about themselves so they can get to know each other better. I think I will have them present it in this way next year.
Also, thanks for writing this up. I’ve been hearing about glogster for ages, but hadn’t investigated it as yet (too into ning and wiki to make time for it), but now I will for sure!
Shirley
Hello Shirley
Thanks for writing. I intend to get my students into making glogs. They absolutely love making things on their tablets. They love photos, YouTube, videos, music… I’m sure they’ll really take to glogging. I think this semester I’ll experiment with some projects but I can see possibilities for journals and other things.
Good luck with your glogging
Sean
What a great idea! I have had my students make glogs but never thought of doing one myself. I think it is sooo important to connect to our students. I really believe that if they don’t trust you and know you, they will never really learn anything from you. I think it is great that you opened up and communicated with your students and I think they will respond in same way with you! Best of luck!
Thank you Michelle
I found my students really liked the glog – so the next step is for them to do one. I also found it a useful way of modelling language and ideas (i.e. what an introduction might look like) for my students. I’ll probably use glogs for this purpose again – model things that students might also be interested in.
Love how you used this medium! Traditionally, teachers use PowerPoint to introduce themselves, but a glog is so much interactive and appealing to all different kinds of learners. I just spent a day and a half of professional development working on glogs and how to integrate them into the core curriculum. I definitely am going to share your idea and example (if it’s OK with you) with my teachers at a future workshop. Thanks!
Thank you very much for your comment
I would absolutely love a day and a half of PD – on anything – Lucky you
Please do share my example with your colleagues – I would be extremely interested to hear back how people are using glogs. I agree with you wholeheartedly that they are more interactive and appealing to learners. I found my experience last week to be quite liberating – no more PowerPoint to keep me centre stage. I enjoyed casually wandering round and sitting down to chat with my new students – my glog meant they had real questions to ask or comments to make. It was all very relaxing, communicative and …. nice.
The very best of luck with your glogging.
[...] Sean Banville presents a clever way to introduce yourself to students through a glog in his post, Glogster – My Glog. [...]
Hallo!.
My name is Teresa. I’m writing from Canary Island, in Spain. I’m studing at the Lenguage School and I want to thank you for your help because I have two classes a week but it isn’t enough. Our teacher told us about your web and I’m learning very much with your listenings and readings. It’s fantastic. We must past an exam , but that exam come from the Govern , not the School, and we have to know much vocabulary.
Thank you very much.
–Sorry for my English. I’m learning.
I think that this sounds like a great idea. I had heard of Glogster as well and considered it a great way to introduce students to creating and presenting English content online. I had a couple of questions about your class. Are you teaching in a computer lab because you reference them looking at your glog in pairs. Do you think that this will be as effective if we aren’t teaching in this kind of classroom? Did you feel like they were interacting more with the computer version of you than the human teacher standing before them? In any case I am eager to give it a try in my class, thanks for sharing another great idea.
Hello Martin
Thanks for your questions. Each of my students has a laptop of their own. I think the glog on the whiteboard wouldn’t have been so dis-similar to a powerpoint – still teacher fronted.
I definitely interacted a lot more with them looking at the computer version of me. First-class reticence was almost non-existent as I wandered around from pair to pair and sat down with my new students. They all had questions they wanted to ask me or comments to make about the photos. Even the one-word response “cute” (said by a student pointing at pics of kiddies) did more to break the ice than several lessons stood at the front could have. I really hope you try it.
Hi Sean,
Thanks for this great post! Like some of my fellow posters above (and yourself) I had heard a lot of buzz about glogs and glogster, but hadn’t had the time/inclination to finding out exactly what they’re all about. Certainly from your post it seems that they really are full of potential.
The first few lessons with a new class are still something that I fret about – Is it going to go ok? Will they get on with each other? Will I get on with them?? I can see this can be a great tool for introducing yourself as a teacher, hopefully in a light-hearted way, but also being useful in terms of a language focus (i.e. in this case, providing a model to follow for an introductory task).
A great looking tool then, and something I will definitely try to use next year!
Mike
[...] recently read on Sean Banville’s blog that he used a glog as a way to introduce himself to his students. Sounds like a great alternative [...]
Hi Sean,
Great idea. Simple, straightforward, and gets you where you want to get. I’ll definitely consider using it with my students! Thanks for sharing (yet another) resource with us!
I’ve never created a glogster myself, but I’ve been thinking about using it with students since the end of last year, because of all the buzz in twitterville as well.
Cheers,
Henrick
Good luck with your glog Henrick. There’s so much that’s buzzing on Twitter it’s difficult to know where to begin. I’ve never been presented with so many really cool tools, articles and wholly useful stuff.
Hello, my name is Teresa, Terry when working on-line.
I´m an English teacher at a High School in Spain and still learning… about everything!
I like this idea, thank you for sharing it.