Nicole Madison is mom to three wonderful girls and one literally bouncing boy. She is a freelance writer and editor, which allows her to enjoy homeschooling her children while also earning an income. Nicole incorporates free resources into homeschooling as much as possible and has come a long way since spending hundreds of dollars at the beginning of every school year. She has a passion for reading, science, and math. Visit Nicole’s website at Madison Copywriting.

Link to Product/website: http://www.Glogster.com/

Description of Product: “Create your poster in ten minutes without any design knowledge. Just create your first Glog and explore our fly and fresh galleries to show off your style and use your own images, videos and sounds.”

Nicole’s Description of Product: Glogster is a FREE tool that allows you to make and share online posters, called Glogs, complete with text, graphics, photos, and videos. You can even add songs and other audio files to your Glog. There’s no need to download anything to use this FREE tool. In order to save, publish, and share your Glogs, you just have to sign up for a FREE account. To do so, you just choose a username and password and provide your date of birth and full name. Glogster seems most appealing for preteens and teens, but it can be used for any age group.

Homeschool Uses: This site can be excellent for allowing children to express their creativity. They can use pictures, videos, and sound files stored on your computer to decorate the Glogs. Glogster has a handy tool that makes uploading them very easy. They can also use pictures, videos, and sound files from the Internet. Glogster doesn’t check copyrights for such materials, however, so you and your child will be responsible for making sure you only use copyright-free materials or obtain permission to use files that belong to others.

Besides personal creativity, Glogs may be good for documenting homeschool events and activities. If your child participates in a sporting event or does an experiment, for example, you could take pictures and have your child add them, along with text and decorations, to the Glog. You can print the finished product out and include it in your homeschool portfolio, store it on the Glogster website, or even print it for your personal enjoyment. You might even use Glogs to reinforce lessons, creating a Glog based on a particular educational topic. You could create a Glog to share with your child on a topic you’re teaching or have your child make one to demonstrate what he or she has learned.

Content and Safety: I browsed through some of the public Glogs and I did find some things parents may find disturbing. One Glog had some rather gloomy, fatalistic writing on it, and another one had a picture of a girl holding up a pair of panties. I didn’t see much profanity, maybe a stray word on a couple of Glogs here and there. Glogster does have a system in place for handling inappropriate Glogs. These are defined as Glogs with nudity, pornography, racial slurs, or anything deemed inappropriate for those under 18. Users can tag such Glogs as inappropriate, and after a Glog is tagged inappropriate five times, it is hidden. If the Glogster team reviews it and agrees that it is inappropriate, the Glog is deleted.

Since there’s potential for your child to see inappropriate content despite the tagging system, you may want to sign up for Glogster for Education.  This allows you to register for your own account and add profiles for each of your children.

With an educational account, your kids can only share Glogs with other members you sign up, such as family members and friends. If a person is not a part of the group you create, he will not be able to see your child’s Glog or share his Glog with your child. However, since the address for the educational site is very similar to the regular Glogster address, it may be best to supervise your younger children while they use the educational portion, as they could easily click a button to go to the Glogster website and view any of the posted Glogs. If you want to use the EDU site, you’ll have to create a separate account by choosing a username and password and filling in your name and date of birth. You’ll also be asked how many student accounts you want. So if you have four children and you want all of them to use the educational portion, you’ll type “4″ in the “How Many” box. The main Glogster site doesn’t allow you to sign up additional accounts under your own. For that part of the site, you’ll have to create separate accounts if everyone wants his own.

Nicole’s Experience Using the Product: I signed up for a Glogster EDU account and let each of my children create a Glog. Since we recently watched the presidential inauguration, I asked my 14 year old to create a Glog about it. She had no trouble figuring out how to use the tool without any help from me. She said adding videos, text, and decorations was easy. I also let my 11 and 9 year old try it out. They did enjoy using the tool but needed my help with figuring out where to get pictures and videos and how to add them to the Glog. However, the process is very easy, and I’m sure they’ll be able to do this on their own with time. I also signed up for a regular Glogster account, but given how I plan to use this tool, I find the EDU version more appealing.

(Editor’s Note: The following images are examples of student Glogs.  Click on the image to see the full Glog.)

Summary: Overall, I think Glogster is a good tool for homeschoolers. I plan to use the educational portion as an occasional supplement to our learning as well as for some portfolio pages. I may even add accounts for my children’s grandparents, so they can see our Glogs and keep up with the children. At the very least, it can be a lot of fun! I recommend this tool for use with children who are at least 8 years old.

Editor’s Note: Check out these other FREE online tools:
Create FREE stained glass photo collages - great for homeschool memories and unique gifts!
Calling all creative minds! Homeschool possibilities are endless with this FREE tool!