Literacy in Health and Physical Education Glogster

This post contains the link to my essay (including references) titled:

Literacy Education in Middle School Health and Physical Education. 


As a part of this assignment, I was required to produce a multimodal presentation about my essay and write a reflection on the process of creating the presentation.


Self-Reflection on ICT Learning

My goal for creating the multimodal presentation was to use a new program and include a significant amount of visual elements. These restrictions challenged my learning, as creating visual texts is difficult for me. I also wanted to use this opportunity to extend my knowledge of available programs that could be used once I am teaching. I chose Glogster as the medium to present my multimodal text as I have seen reviews from educators in my Personal Learning Network (PLN) that recommend using it for creating visual information graphics. Once I started to create my text, I discovered that audio can be included on the infographic. As I always have difficulties with articulating my thoughts while being recorded, I decided that I would also need to include a short audio clip. It required 5 attempts at recording to produce something that was adequate to include.

From the process of creating the infographic, I have learnt that it is possible to learn while doing as long as you have enough background knowledge to identify the features of the program in order to effectively use them without creating havoc with the existing design. I did not become an expert in Glogster, nor did everything go smoothly. I had problems using the image and text boxes already included in the template. I eventually just used them to scaffold my layout, and then deleted them so that I could add my own pictures and text boxes. What appeared to go smoothly was the attachment of my essay, including my reference list. However, when I viewed the published version, the attachment would not work. To overcome this, I added the link to a post I made on my blog and created a hyperlink from my infographic to the post.  The difference between how text is spaced in the text box in preview mode and publish mode also created problems. My attempt to re-edit and publish again did not work. I have concluded that the problem may be a glitch with the program itself or my internet connection as I found that when I attempted to view my infographic in a different web browser, even more viewing problems occurred. As the view looks correct on my preview page, I am unsure how I can go about fixing this problem. This will be something that I can discuss with my peers in my PLN.

To improve my results in creating a visual infographic, next time I will allow more time for editing and trialling of the published text. This will allow opportunity for requesting a peer to give me feedback about my design and to help me to fix the problems I encountered. The experience I gained completing this task that I can use to inform future literacy teaching includes gaining a practical understanding of the importance of design elements in the different modes of communication and recognising how important identifying what prior knowledge is available to be utilised in the designing process.