According to the VATE website, this is a competition that celebrates and promotes the integration of literacy and 21st century learning skills. Students read a novel and then create a media literacy project based on that book - either Glogster, Book Trailer, Podcast, Digital Movie, Photo Essay or Book Cover/Jacket. We introduced the project by having students select a book in the library and then I gave an introduction to the six categories. Next, we had the students narrow it down to three categories: Glogster, Book Trailers, and Book Jackets. Now we are in the phase where they are creating their project and so far it's been a blast (or should I say LITERACY EXPLOSION!?).
For the Glogster project, they are using ww to create a Glog, which is basically a web-based multimedia poster with images, text, sound, video, animation, links, etc. For the Book Trailers they are using PhotoStory 3 to create trailers and for the Book Jacket they are just using a template I created in Microsoft Word to create their Book Cover. Our school already owns PhotoStory and Word through their Microsoft Office package, but I had to purchase a subscription to Glogster EDU in order to get enough student accounts, and for all the bells and whistles. It was only $99 for the whole year though, for 200 student accounts, which was reasonable.
Although I was familiar with all the technology, prior to this project I had never used Glogster or PhotoStory to actually create something. As I started playing around with the programs, I found it to be relatively simple to use. With Glogster, at one point I had a question about adding student accounts and I instant messaged a customer service rep about 2 minutes before the class walked in and he helped me out right away. Crisis resolved! For PhotoStory, I was introduced to the program in a district training seminar about integrating technology. I created an easy trailer in about 15 minutes. Done. Ironically, the book jacket in Microsoft Word probably took me the longest to figure out how to do, but once I decided to create a landscape template, it was no problem. Once I learned the technology, I taught lessons to the students on how to use the programs. Now it's pretty much just computer lab time- answering questions about citing music and image sources, trouble shooting technical questions, helping students follow the rubrics, etc. As far as the technology side goes, as usual, I have found that the kids are very good at figuring out how to use the programs and they enjoy creating the projects and taking ownership of their work. It's cool to watch and be a part of.
It's been a lot of fun and I would definitely recommend this type of project. Although the idea of taking on several different software programs at once may seem daunting, you will find that the students are more comfortable with technology than most adults and can figure out the problems on their own or just work around any issues.
