3 Ways to WORDLE Share

Interested in learning more or sharing your WORDLES? Now, you can access the Diigo WORDLE Group.

Haven't used Diigo, the social bookmarking site? Now would be a great time to join.

While you're at it, consider joining the Diigo for Educators site that is protected, so you can use it with your students.

Here are webslide show of many of our group's bookmarks, to date.

Many Eyes on Bullying

Many Eyes is an IBM web application that people can use to visualize their data in unique ways. WORDLE is a part of this Many Eyes Project. Here is a sample of real data from a study by Ken Rigby, an associate professor of social psychology at the University of South Australia on Reasons Children Give for Bullying Others.

WORDLE: A Practical Application

WORDLE has a function that allows users to submit any del.icio.us user name to make a non-linguistic representation of bookmark tags. You can analyze the use of various tags within your bookmarks and look for areas of great emphasis, synonymous tags or areas of little emphasis. Each of these areas of analysis can drive future teaching and writing related to your professional development plan and the school's curriculum map.

I created my delicious WORDLE that could be used formative assessment, summative assessment or self-assessment by analyzing this snapshot from November 10, 2007 of n2teaching delicious bookmarks

Here is another version of the same set of bookmarks on the same day that contains more words. Controlling the number of total words is an aspect of WORDLE that you can change within the layout function. Hopefully, these ideas will lead you to think of more ways to use WORDLE as an interactive tool, not just a toy.

3 Reasons to ZAP Homework Blues

Photo by ms4jah
Attribution-NonCommercial License

One of the tenets of a Quality School is to encourage students' confidence in making choices that promote quality participation in school, I would suggest that ZAP, Zeroes Aren't Permitted, has the potential to help a school community accomplish this.

Students are encouraged to take ownership of their learning when they participate in ZAP when they learn to complete their homework. Once they organize their work process, students usually turn in most homework, completed in a timely manner.

ZAP is a process used in many schools, since the last century, to encourage homework completion that can, with the help of parents, teachers and other significant adults improve student's work completion skills. These are 3 primary expectations of a well developed ZAP program.

* Encourage student to improve work habits

1. students have opportunity to finish homework
2. students will receive one-on-one collaboration
3. major stakeholders are included in the collaboration
4. students will receive training on how to complete homework

* Involve parent in the conversation

1. share the visiion of the positive impact of ZAP
2. encourage parents to ask questions before beginning
3. explain the process
4. obtain buy-in or agreement to participate
5. expect follow through at home

* Use a collaborative, measured, well documented program

1. stakeholders follow the plan
2. teachers and parents help student have opportunities for best choices, based
on student performance in work completion
3. students understand that work completion gains positive feedback
4. ZAP program is ended when appropriate choices about work completion are made
over time

As you learn more about the Quality School Teacher, using the best instructional strategies and developing a positive student learning plan based on these ideas, you will see fewer behavioral and academic problems.

Remember, ZAP, Zeroes Aren't Permitted, is ONE tool, from a vast Teacher Tool Box. It was never meant to be used in a punitive manner.

The supportive idea behind ZAP, and similar tools, is that students make choices that can improve their quality of life. When a child's quality of life and learning improves, they will trust their teachers, parents and the rest of their community to have their best interests in mind in future educational adventures.