hi, the GL2 is awesome!
It features a really useful hotshoe, for several adapters, including an XLR adapter that will become useful in the future.
The picture quality is great, the manual controls are nice as well.
There's everything a budding videomaker could ask for.
Personally, I don't own this camera, its the schools, but you could say i moved on to the XL2, which i don't own either.
The XL2 looks a little bit better, has more picture control, inputs and outputs, but nothing a beginner would miss.
I hope you enjoy the camera, don't break it, and have fun.
Goodluck making movies!