Glogster and Sproutbuilder: for extreme wiki makeovers (or any other web-type makeovers) - NeverEndingSearch

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Joyce Valenza

Glogster and Sproutbuilder: for extreme wiki makeovers (or any other web-type makeovers)
July 16, 2008

Remember the reading resource wiki I blogged about last week?

This is what it looks like on Glogster.

As my wikis grew and grew to multiple pages, as the media I grabbed or created made each individual page longer, I began to crave a way to make my wikis prettier, to create a front page, to organize the embedded media and widgets, to create a more attractive index for my pages and links. In short, to have better control of the real estate and attractiveness of that first screen.

Linda Houle, media center director at Westmont Junior High, emailed me to share two wonderful strategies. Glogster and Sproutbuilder. Both allow you to build a kind of collage of living content that you can easily embed in any type of website.

Sprout is the quick and easy way for anyone to build, publish, and manage widgets, mini-sites, mashups, banners and more. Any size, any number of pages. Include video, audio, images and newsfeeds and choose from dozens of pre-built components and web services. (I am just beginning to play with this one!)

Glogster allows you to upload images, audio, video. It allows you to add text, graphics, banners, and frames from a variety of galleries and to play with colors and fonts. And it allows you to use space freely, to move everything around, to rotate, to place with wild abandon!

The wonderful model Linda shared was Dr. Donna Baumbach's and Dr. Judy Lee's WebTools4U2Use. (Both are professors at the University of Central Florida.) Not only is the wiki a brilliant example of Glogster use, it is a brilliant example of a 2.0 professional development tool. You absolutely must explore it! And take a good long look at the valuable integration ideas for each tool.

I am wondering how tools like these might help us create far more attractive, better organized virtual libraries.

Note: I share images of the pages I made. I wish this blogging software would allow me to embed the glogs alive as I might in other 2.0 tools.

Another note: As usual, I got a little out of control in terms of design. Don't do this at home. Please try to demonstrate a better filter for taste.

Posted by Joyce Valenza on July 16, 2008 | Comments (5)

July 16, 2008
In response to: Glogster and Sproutbuilder: for extreme wiki makeovers (or any other web-type makeovers)
Mary Woodard commented:

Glogster is my new favorite thing! I created a cute new opening page for our library policies and procedures wiki in no time at all. Thanks for sharing it.

July 17, 2008
In response to: Glogster and Sproutbuilder: for extreme wiki makeovers (or any other web-type makeovers)
Laura D commented:

I read this post yesterday and I've spent the last 24 hours getting to know Sproutbuilder. . . and I'm hooked. I'm going to use it on our library's home page to highlight the Author of the Month and to bring some pizazz to our What to Read Next? section (yeah, I said "pizazz"). I always get great ideas reading your blog. Thank you for doing all the time-consuming searching for me!

July 18, 2008
In response to: Glogster and Sproutbuilder: for extreme wiki makeovers (or any other web-type makeovers)
Judy commented:

WebTools4U2Use, the wiki you mentioned, is truly a valuable resource for media specialists. I am using it as the class text for a graduate class I'm teaching this fall. However, the person responsible for designing, developing and maintaining the wiki is Dr. Donna Baumbach, not Beth Burke. Dr. Baumbach has done a masterful job with the wiki and I'd like to see her get the recognition she deserves.

July 18, 2008
In response to: Glogster and Sproutbuilder: for extreme wiki makeovers (or any other web-type makeovers)
joycevalenza commented:

OMG! I am so sorry. I'll make the change right away.

July 21, 2008
In response to: Glogster and Sproutbuilder: for extreme wiki makeovers (or any other web-type makeovers)
Sprout Builder commented:

Hey Joyce, We are very glad that you have found Sproutbuilder useful. Please follow us on Twitter username: Sproutbuilder or at our blog www.sproutbuilder.com/blog Cheers.