Glogster changes pricing…

I have written about Glogster EDU before (in such posts as Digital Posters and Top Educational tools of 2010), it is a great tool that allows you and your students to create digital posters.  As with any great free tool there is always the possibility of it going to a different pricing plan.  When it started it gave teachers 100 free student accounts, then changed and limited the free account to 50 students… now they are moving to only one free plan that gives a one account only (one teacher or one student).  With the free account teachers will no longer be able to have a dashboard where they can manage their students.  There new pricing plans and FAQs can now be viewed and take affect September 15, 2011.  All student accounts under teacher accounts will be converted to single accounts. This of course means that your student’s glogsters won’t be lost, but now you also won’t be able to supervise them or manage their accounts. Students will have to share their glogster url with you for you to review their work, or otherwise publish it.

Of course they do have accounts for teachers, and the minimum plan is $29.95/year which includes 1 teacher and 50 students. If you use this service a lot with your students you may find this useful and a cheap solution. There are also premium district plans that charge $2.00/student. If you have a software/web-access subscriptions process at your school you might find it worth it to try to get your school to pay for this plan.

This is of course the issue with many free web tools… we have to be flexible and realize that some come and go, and some come free, and go to a more structured pay plan.  It is the nature of the beast. Many of these tools are created by educators or techy designers who want to build a base of users. This of course is easy when they offer a free version.  As success builds, and those free users drive further developments, they sometimes move to increasing their revenue so they can add more features and offer more support. As technology integration educators we need to be flexible with the tools and always go back to educational purpose, and if a tool is key then maybe it is worth paying out a fee to keep it- or begging your district to buy it for you.  I do think Glogster.edu is worth the fee they are asking.  It engages students and can be used in many different ways within all content areas. (and is definitely more exciting then paper posters)