Instructional Multimedia

Final Exam

Robert C. Johnson
Central Michigan University
Running Head: Instructional Multimedia Final Exam 1
Instructional Multimedia Final Exam 2
One of the up and coming multimedia resources that teachers are beginning to use more
and more to teach their students is called a Glog. Short for Graphical Blog(Webopedia.com,
2009), a Glog is a tool teachers are using to create jaw-dropping multimedia posters quickly and
easily to represent understanding and share information, ideas, and opinions(Mass, 2010). In
short, a Glog is an online multimedia tool teachers can use to create digital posters composed of
text, audio, video, images, graphics and data. By combining all these types of media into one
medium, a Glog can help a teacher explain a single concept or a whole lesson while keeping their
students engaged.
A great instructional use of a Glog would be to do historical biography on historical
character. For instance, if you were doing a lesson on an United States President, you could
create a Glog showcasing important facts about him and the important events that shaped his
presidency. A great way to do this in a Glog is to create a timeline that has both pictures and
dates showing those events. For each event you show on the timeline you could also add an
audio le explaining that event and how it impacted the presidents legacy. This will leave a lot
of room for other types of media to be used because text wont be taking up space. If there was a
specic event that was more important than the other events, you could nd a video of it on
YouTube and add it to the Glog as well. This will make sure their visual senses are being hit and
in turn give the student a better chance of learning.
While Glogs are a great instructional tool, and far more advanced than just text and
images, they do have their strengths and weaknesses just like any other teaching medium. I
believe the greatest strength is the ability to add audio and video to a Glog. When students see a
lot of text on a page, they usually will just skim over it and more than likely miss some important
information. With a Glog, you can put the text in an audio le and have the student listen to it
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while they look at the picture they are listening about. This can also be powerful for students
who do not read as well. They will be able to keep up with the other students and not get far
behind. Along with audio, the ability to add videos to the Glog can be very powerful and be more
impactful than just audio and text. Videos appeal to the students visual senses and can really
bring together the topic you are trying to teach.
The strengths listed previously, while great, can also be a weakness when it comes to
using a Glog. One of the traps teachers can fall into with a Glog would be adding way to much
information to the Glog and then run the risk of confusing the students. A cluttered Glog can
have more of a negative impact a students learning ability than positive. When making a Glog, a
teacher needs to make sure they space out the information evenly over the canvas and refrain
from adding media to the Glog that isnt important to the subject being taught. Another weakness
of a Glog is the medium itself. GlogsterEDU.com can be a very glitchy site and can cause
frustration for the end user if items on the Glog do not work. It can be very frustrating for a
student if they are not able to access some of the information being relayed to them and can lead
to them falling behind other students. Really, anything online always runs the risk of not working
properly some days.
A great multimedia project, that would work perfectly with a Glog would be creating a
presentation on the development of a frog. There are ve stages of a frog that the student would
be responsible for showing. They are egg, tadpole, tadpole with legs, young frog, and adult frog
(Science With Me, 2012). They would then need to demonstrate the differences between each
stage, the different parts of a frog, and ve interesting facts about a frog that people would like to
know. This project would demonstrate four of Blooms Revised Taxonomy levels. Those levels
are Remembering, Understanding, Analzye, and Create (Hammond, 2011) .
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The rst level that would be demonstrated would be Remembering. Students would need
to nd, identify, and show different pictures of a frogs development and add them to their Glog.
They would do this through online research. Before adding the pictures to the Glog, they would
need to take notes, whether it be on a computer or pencil and paper, and organize their work so
all the information they nd could be added correctly.
The second level they would demonstrate would be Understanding. In order for their
project to get an A, they would need to dene and describe each stage thoroughly. Whether it
is through picture and text, audio, or video, each stage would need to be explained. In order for
this to be done properly the student would have to understand each stage themselves. Doing the
research and taking notes would help them understand the stages of a frog and allow them to
show it in a way that will help the watcher understand.
Analyze would be the third level demonstrated. Once the research was done and
collected, the students would need to break down the material and determine how the parts relate
to each other (Churches, 2009). They would need to distinguish between each stage and organize
all their research as they prepare to create the Glog. Organizing their information properly could
really make or break their project.
Finally, the student would demonstrate the highest level of Blooms Revised Taxonomy
Creation. Students would nally need to take all the information they collected and organized
and actually create the Glog. Creating the Glog would require them to set up an account,
determine the template they are going to use (if any), and then begin placing all the information
on the Glog. If the student does each of the rst three levels correctly then actually creating the
Glog should go smoothly.
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The second multimedia resource that I chose for this nal is a Digital Story. According to
edtechteacher.com a digital story is a multimedia resource that allows students and teachers to
take a series of events and turn them into a multidimensional experience (Edtechteacher.com,
2011). A digital story can be created through a variety of multimedia services or programs like
YouTube, Adobe Voice, iMovie, MovieMaker, and Adobe Premier. The teacher or student takes
pictures or videos and adds narration to them in order to tell a story. Digital Stories are great for
explaining a hard concept all the way to just telling a story.
A great example of a digital story would be for a teacher or student to tell the story of an
event that happened over their summer vacation. If the student knew this assignment was going
to take place, this would help them take pictures and record information about their summer. If
not, then they could always go online and nd pictures that represent the events in their story. It
would also act as a great ice breaker for the students to meet each other.
The biggest strength of a digital story is the ability to add narration to them. Narration
can really help impact how a story is told and can help the watcher better understand the story.
The tone in the narrators voice can be more impactful to the story than just plain text. The other
great thing about narration is it can really help a student who has issues with reading keep up
with the other students in the classroom and can really help them understand the story better.
While a digital story is a great tool for a teacher or student to use, is the difculty in
creating a digital story. Students can nd it very hard to produce original work and will resort to
just copying another digital story they might have seen elsewhere (Educause Learning Initiative,
2007). Also, students and teachers must be aware of the intellectual properties with digital
storytelling. They want to be careful not to steal another persons work and claim it as their own
(Educause Learning Initiative, 2007). Another weakness is the possibility of overloading the
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watchers senses. As stated before, a digital story can be made up of text, narration, pictures, and
video clips. However, you dont want to have all of these items in one frame at the same time. If
text and narration is added to one slide, then you dont want to add pictures or video clips to it.
Only two of the items should be present at the same time. Another weakness of digital story
telling is the temptation to go overboard with animation. The better the software that is being
used, the more options there are. The creator needs to pick and choose the times they will use
transitions and animations. To much use of animations and transitions and the viewer can
become overwhelmed and actually lose focus.
A great project which would work perfectly with digital story telling would be to do a
short documentary about an important event in history. The student would be responsible for
picking the event and creating a three to ve minute digital story explaining it. A great way of
determining what event the students do their digital story on would be to take the current social
studies chapter the class is on and assign groups of students a section in that chapter. Each group
would be responsible for creating a digital story about that section. Once all the groups have
nished their digital story, the teacher would show them in the order they appear in the chapter. It
would be a unique way of explaining the events of the chapter. This project would demonstrate
four of Blooms Revised Taxonomy levels. Those levels are Remembering, Understanding,
Applying, and Create (Hammond, 2011) .
In the beginning of this project, students will need to outline the important events they are
going to show in their digital story. The outline they will create will demonstrate the
Remembering level of Bloomss Revised Taxonomy. The size of the outline will be determined
by the size of the section they have been assigned. However, they should have at least three main
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points and three sub points. They will state the main points of their section by writing down the
main headlines in a numerical sequence.
After nding the main points in their section, the students will then demonstrate
Understanding, the second level in Blooms Revised Taxonomy, by identifying the sub-points on
each of their main facts. Once the students outline the main points they need to discuss in the
digital story, they will need to go online and identity the facts, or sub points, about each of those
main points. Identifying these sub points will help them understand their section better, and will
in turn help them create a better digital story. If the students dont understand their own section,
then they wont be able to explain it to their classmates.
Once the students have nished their outline and identied all the main and sub points to
their section, they will now demonstrate the level of Applying by sketching out a storyboard of
how their digital story will go. A storyboard is a sequence of drawings, typically with some
directions and dialogue, representing the shots planned for a movie or television
production (story board, n.d). The storyboard will give the students a picture outline to follow
when they actually make their digital story. For each picture or video clip they have, they will
draw a frame showing a picture and below that frame write the narration that will accompany
that picture. A well done and detailed story board will allow them to visualize what their digital
story will look like, and will also save them a lot of editing time when they actually create the
digital story.
The nal level that will be demonstrated of Blooms Revised Taxonomy is Create. This is
the process of actually using digital software to create the digital story. Once the student has
outlined their section, identied the main points and sub point, and created the story board, they
will now be ready to design and assemble their digital story. Once the student pics the software
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they will use, it is time to take all the pictures, text, and narration and assemble it into a working
digital story. With Adobe Voice, a student has the ability to pic a template to go along with their
digital story. This will include certain fonts, background, textures, and colors. However, if the
student were to use a software like iMovie, then they are responsible for designing the fonts,
colors, and transitions that will take their digital story to the next level. If the student is very
familiar with the software they are using, there is a good chance they could add the transitions in
their story board. If not, then this will be the phase where they will have to work through trial
and error on getting the fonts, colors, and transitions right.
A Glog and Digital Story are two very popular mediums that both teachers and students
can use to teach a topic. Both are easy to use and can be very powerful, depending on the time
they put into them. The positives of both outweigh any negatives, so teachers and students
should not shy away from using either of them.
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Reference

Churches, A. (2009). Bloom's Taxonomy. Retrieved from http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/
Bloom's+Digital+Taxonomy

Edtechteacher.com. (2011). Digital Storytelling in the Classroom. Retrieved from http://
edtechteacher.org

Educause Learning Initiative. (2007). 7 things you should know about... Digital Storytelling. 7
Things You Should Know about Digital Storytelling, 1-2. Retrieved from https://
net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7021.pdf

Hammond, J. (2011). Web 2.0 Tools Based on Bloom's Digital Taxonomy - Web 2.0 Tools Based
on Bloom's Digital Taxonomy. Retrieved from http://www.chambersburg.k12.pa.us
Mass, D. (2010). 6 things you should know about Glogster EDU. Retrieved from http://
maasd.edublogs.org

Science With Me. (2012). #Learn about the life cycle of the frog. Retrieved from http://
sciencewithme.com/

Story board. (n.d.). Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition. Retrieved
June 23, 2014, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/story board

Webopedia.com. (2009). What is a Glog? Retrieved June, from http://www.webopedia.com





















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