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 * Examples of Activities with Gloster**


 * 1.** An example of an activity using Glogster could start by looking at advertising in Peru, and in general, and examine which products we use and consume on a daily basis and how advertising influences our decisions. In class discussion can focus on how products are marketed in Peru by examining specific ads. As a culminating project, students create their own advertisement for a product of their choosing. By using Glogster, students could create their ads online and make them more interactive. In addition, to meet the cultures and communities standard, students could collaborate with a partner school in Mexico, their pen pals could also have made similar glogs and compare them. Questions to ask for this activity would be: what products were most commonly advertised by the American students? By the Mexican ones? Did you find the other class' ads appealing? Why or why not? There could then be either an exchange of emails or arrange a Skype session between the two classes to examine and discuss our findings.

This could be a great way to just communicate with students outside of the classroom, an alternative to creating a teacher Facebook account for this reason. Students these days LOVE technology. They live and breathe it. It comes out and is improved upon faster than they learn and master it. Aside from student work, I could have a “home” page that would include recent lessons, any worksheets and papers that students may need, and any other communications and important dates.


 * 2.** Another project could start with students being responsible for creating a dream vacation to Peru. They could then create one of the graphic blogs, or online posters, and present them to the online community. They could be shared among classes at their school or with “friends” they have made on LiveMocha.com (essentially a networking website for language learners). These other users could also give students helpful advice to improve their Glogs and Spanish.


 * 3.** You can use Glogster to develop a project around group glogs about the concept and practices of community in Colombia and The United States. There is s project called “The things that bring us together”. It is a project about the concept and practices of community in US and Colombia, and addresses the standards of Communication (1.3), Culture (2.1), and Community (5.1). The goal of the project is that students create a group, bilingual poster about the common cultural events/practices that create community in both USA and Colombia. That is, those practices in which Colombians or Americans get physically together and orient to a common purpose. For example, playing board games (USA) or drinking [|coffee in the afternoon with neighbors (Colombia)] . The project is addressed to a group of K10 learners in both countries, 25 in each country. As Colombian K10 classrooms usually have 40 students or more, the 25 accounts for the Colombian group will need to be shared. At least two Colombian students will group with one American and will create a group glog. The only design criteria for the glog is that it should include information about the two countries, and that this should be clear in the glog design (for example, students could divide the glog in two columns, with the topic of the glog in the center, and use one part for each country). Some easy rules will also need to be established: 1) The Colombian side of the glog should be written in Spanish by the American student(s), and the American side should be written in English by the Colombian student. In this way the project will provide opportunities for developing language proficiency and cross-cultural knowledge, 2) Both Colombian and American students will serve as ‘ambassadors’ of their culture and will provide information about it. For example, the Colombian students will provide information in Spanish about the practices in which Colombians get together, and the American students will do the same in English for Americans 3) The members of the group can (and should) exchange information online through a penpal account, messenger or Skype, and 4) Students will serve as editors of their ‘glogmates’ writing. That is, American students will revise the language and content of the American side of the blog that the Colombian students are writing, and vice-versa.

Once the glogs are ready, each group will present their glog to the rest of the class. This can be done in two ways: 1) American students present both sides of the glog to their American classmates in Spanish and Colombian students do the same but in English, or 2) The two classes get together through Skype using the teachers’ accounts and each group presents their glog. In this last option, the Colombian students will present what they wrote about American practices of community in English to both classes, and American students will do the same in Spanish for what they wrote about Colombia.