Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Glog-ternatives, Or Try These Alternatives to Glogster

If you had a chance to use Glogster in the past, you know how much fun it is to create web based posters with images, video, funky pictures (and what not). If you are a teacher, you probably thought it was the best thing since iPods. There were tons of free features for educators, but then the company started to scale back on the free stuff. You can still make Glogs, but it is not as easy to use in a classroom situation.

So, here are a few alternatives. Some of them offer features just for educators. Make sure to look for the educator information (if offered).

Biteslide
http://www.biteslide.com/
Biteslide looks a lot like Glogster. You can create what the site calls Slidebooks with images, video and text. Like the original education edition of Glogster, teachers can choose a free plan that allows them to have 30 student accounts and 1 project. The site promises that this option is free forever.

New Hive
http://newhive.com/
New Hive is also similar to Glogster in that it gives you a canvas to create a multimedia poster with embedded video, images and mp3 files. It doesn’t have the pizazz and cutesy backgrounds and graphics that Glogster had, but it does the trick. You have to request an invite to create an account, but when I did it, it was not big deal. It just sent the invite to my email account within a few minutes.

Uturn
http://www.uturn.com
The cool kid on the block is clearly Uturn. The site allows to add pictures, video, text, etc. to simple “expressions” that you can embed on social media sites, blogs, other websites, etc. This tool doesn’t allow you to do the anything as complicated or extensive as Glogster or the first two tools, but it’s kind of addictive nonetheless.

Smore
http://www.smore.com/
Smore allows you to create simple web based flyers. In other words, you can create a simple web page that has as much information as a printed flyer you post on the wall at school would have. You can add videos, text, images, etc. There are few basic flyer templates you can use and the drag and drop interface is pretty darn easy to use.

Big Huge Labs
http://bighugelabs.com/
Big Huge Labs is a little bit different than the other tools. You can pick a particular photo editing tool, add a photo and then do some cool stuff with it. Create a jigsaw puzzle, a movie poster or magazine cover. You can even create one of those infamous motivational posters that have a picture with an inspirational saying underneath. I would blame you if you put something funny there instead. Check out the Education link to find out how to create an educator account.

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