This week we were asked to make and infographic about communication with parents, colleagues, and supervisors. I decided to try out Glogster. I made this decision because several of my fellow classmates had used the tools on Glogster for other presentations and I was curious to see how it worked. I have to say, it was not my favorite.
As I was working on this project, I became very frustrated with the maneuvering of the site. I felt as though I could not create the layout or design exactly to my own personal specifications. I had a picture in my head of what I wanted this infographic to look like and I spent a vast amount of time trying to size the fonts and individual graphics on my page. Still, it never turned out the way I had envisioned it. I was only given the option of enlarging and stretching the text or set frame. I had trouble placing each thing in the position I wanted it to be in and working through the overlapping of different ideas, graphics and pictures.
There were a few templates to choose from and that seemed to be the easiest way to procede. However, had I had the time, I would have created my page from scratch, placing in each graphic exactly as I wanted.
For those of you wanting to create a quick informational page, I suppose Glogster would be helpful.
I guess what I really felt is that there was little room for creativity and diversity in the layout and design of your page.
For those of you who have used Glogster before, what do you think?
Am I missing something? Not using it right?
I would love to hear about how others have used this program and figure out how to create something more personalized and unique.
We used Glogster for our first presentation. I liked the ability to embed links and other media, but I have to agree that customizing was very difficult. When making the presentation I felt like I spent more time formatting than adding actual content, but this seems to be a common theme for all of the infographic tools.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Anna. I found, for me, that it was best to add all images and then move them. Learning how to size the text was hard for me too. I think it's not intuitive that you have to open that second option to edit text, when you can write without opening that. I think students could have fun playing around with this, but if you do have a very specific format you want to create or use, it is not the best choice.
ReplyDeleteCaroline
Okay...all of you teachers need to find someone to develop something that is more user friendly for us and your students!
ReplyDeleteAnna,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you about Glogster. I have used it twice for presentations and found myself getting frustrated with the website both times. I was especially not impressed with the graphics and templates it offered. My biggest complaint, however, is simply the layout of the final products. No matter how much rearranging or formatting I did I could not seem to get my "posters" to look clean and professional - they just ended up looking too busy and sloppy. Maybe Glogster just isn't suited for academic presentations.
Kate