By Michelle LeBlanc

Area Focus Statement Will the use of technology to create graphic organizers with PowerPoint or glogster during independent reading, increase student reading comprehension?

About Glogster  Glogster was developed in 2007 (Glogster).  Started as a social network for teenagers  Now more than 14 million students and 1.5 million teachers use GlogsterEdu (Creativity).

What Glogster Can Do  User can create an interactive poster (glog)  Can incorporate text, audio, video, images, and a variety of graphics (Dunn).  Includes all subjects as templates for educational lessons.  Shared with the public or other peers

How Glogster Can Be Used to Improve Comprehension  Students read a literary or informational text  During their reading the students highlight and annotate the text.  Students create a glogster that will serve as their graphic organizer Example of a public glogster about Macbeth. Click on the picture to see it fully

How Glogster Can Be Used to Improve Comprehension  Incorporate pictures and text that describe the main characters and or theme.  Use video or audio to introduce main ideas and details  Ability to share projects with other classmates and people

Using Glogster for Reading Comprehension  Having students create their own graphic organizer can help increase reading comprehension  Students creating their own videos and audio to describe events can increase retention of information.  Giving opportunities for other students to share what they found from the text and compare to other students glogster.

Glogster Abilities Different backgrounds Variety of graphics Audio Different text boxes Template Options Video

Research  In the study published in Learning Disabilities: A Multidisciplinary Journal., after using a text to speech program to listen to an article, the subjects were given a comprehension exam. According to the study the results indicated that the use of a text to speech program increased the subjects reading comprehension and reading rate  According to the article “The 100 Best Classroom Tools Chosen By You”, Glogster was rated 26 for the most popular Web 2.0 Tool for the classroom.  “The presentation type of graphic organizer does affect student’s comprehension and retention of text” (Ozmen, 787).

Work Cited "Creativity Is Learning." Glogster EDU: A Complete Educational Solution for Digital and Mobile Teaching and Learning. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 May Dunn, Jeff. "The 100 Best Web 2.0 Classroom Tools Chosen By You - Edudemic." Edudemic. Edudemic, 11 Nov Web. 25 May 2014  Effects of Text-to-Speech Software on the Reading Rate and Comprehension Skills of High School Students with Specific Learning Disabilities. (2010). Learning Disabilities: A Multidisciplinary Journal. "Glogster." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 21 May Web. 25 May "Macbeth Project." : Text, Images, Music, Video. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 May  Ozmen, R. G. (2011). Comparison of two different presentations of graphic organizers in recalling information in expository texts with intellectually disabled students. Kuram ve Uygulamada Egitim Bilimleri, 11(2), Retrieved from