Content vs. Delivery

I had heard about this video while on a little trip this week, but hadn't seen it until I was looking through my Google Reader.

This got me, as well as the great "staff" at Free Tech 4 Teachers, where I found this video at, thinking about how this relates to education. So I forwarded the link out to some of our local admins with a very simple question:

What's more important? The content or the delivery?

Obviously, in my opinion, the content is way more important than the delivery. If you compare the above video with the last flight that you were on, did you learn the same information? You should have. But were the passengers on this plane more engaged than the one you were on? Heck yeah. On a flight I was on recently, they actually stopped the mundane video because some people weren't paying attention. Any need to here? Nope. In education, if you are allowing your students to be creative in how they present the information, you should be able to use the same rubric for Billy's presentation as you do for Suzie's, although Suzie's was way more interesting and way more interactive. Teachers too many times think that Glogster should have a different rubric than a poster. What for? Glogster does the exact same thing that cutting out of a magazine does - it allows you to take pictures and arrange them, add in some meaningful information and share with others. Don't grade the students on the number of pictures any more than you would on the poster. Give your kids the freedom to deliver the content in the way that fits them best.

Glogster Review

There is absolutely no reason that any student should ever be forced to take out scissors, crayons or glue to make a collage or poster again, thanks to Glogster. Glogster is a poster on some series interactive steroids. While Glogster has been around, they've introduced education accounts which allows you to create and manage student accounts without them having to have an email address.

Creating a Glog is simple to do. Collect any pictures, video and/or text that you need. While their base materials (stickers, etc.) are all right, they don't, in my opinion, have a lot of educational value. That's why you collect your own! Take off their initial objects and put your own on. Pictures and video provide the visuals, while text boxes provide the meaty details. No more posters. No more news stories. All Glogs can be embedded in or linked to your school website. This is a quick and easy way to differentiate a fairly common activity (posters) with a simple, yet effective, interactive glog. I can't wait to see what 2.0 has in store...

Image is a screen shot from Glogster.