Tech Tools: Glogster.edu and Museum Box

PowerPoint is not the only tool students can use to present concepts and ideas visually. Two classroom mainstays – the poster presentation and the diorama – have digital counterparts that students can use for class projects (and that you can use to present course material in engaging ways).

With Glogster.edu students can create posters enhanced with multimedia. The interface walks you through the creation and gives students a wide range of scrapbook-inspired templates. The finished projects (such as this one on the causes of the American Revolution) can be presented with a projector or whiteboard, saved and/or printed. (Note: be sure you go to the .edu edition of Glogster. The regular site contains some content that is inappropriate for a classroom setting.)

Museum Box takes the old standbys – dioramas and presentation cubes – and kicks them up a notch by enabling the creation of 3-D dioramas with a series of interactive cubes.

You might want to give students one of The Learning Network’s graphic organizers to help them plan their Museum Cubes or Glogster posters. For example, students could read a Times article or The Learning Network’s 6 Q’s About the News feature and use The 5 W’S and an H (PDF) to plan a Museum Box cube in which each side answers a question from the article. Or the K/W/L Chart (PDF) can be used as a brainstorming sheet for students before they create their own visual K/W/L posters on Glogster.