WordSift: VOICE

What's more powerful than WORDLE or Tagul? What's able to access related images altogether on a single webpage?

Well, it's WordSift, an ELL resource, created by a research team at Stanford University. The image to the right is a representation of the WordSift of my blog post, Tuesday Trait: Voice

This web application was created to enhance student opportunity in learning English, yet WordSift can make a wonderful addition to any classroom, from kindergaten to college. This web application contains various tools you can use to more effectively teach lessons using the strategies discussed and explained in Classroom Instruction That Works: Research Based Instructional Strategies, written by Dr. Robert Marzano and his research team.

Try out WordSift! Only your imagination can limit your uses for this application.

McTeach and the Map!

It's all about the learning and having fun makes it better. Karen McMillan, @McTeach, develops the research based presentations for teachers wanting to use technology in their classroom to inspire and improve learning. Her presentations are smart, informative and easy to use right away, plus she invites the participants to join our Professional Learning Network (PLN).

When they join our ad hoc network, they have access to teachers and others interested in improving technology use in education from around the world. The participants can refer to their new network for ideas and guidance. Later, as they become comfortable being part of a worlwide network, they can pay it forward by inviting more people to the network.

For her latest presentation, Karen will share ways to use a Google Map to connect to an education network. In her blog, Notes From McTeach: Where Are You My Wonderful PLN?, she asked her Professional Learning Network (PLN) to help out by adding our geographic locations to the Google Map she developed. Each of us entered our name and a bit about ourselves, including our online presence in her PLN.

 If you are interested in following us, you can reach us on Plurk, Twitter and other similar networks.

Anticipate and Skype Your Reaction

Impatience by mdezemery
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License

Integrating technology organically turns the unobtrusive, the familiar into something new and unique.

These are Skype techniques that belong to the Anticipation Reaction learning strategy family.

• If students are away from class, but able to virtually participate, they can watch, text and be viewed through Skype.

• Total class involvement: ask or display a question, statement or problem in class, then students answer through Skype. Begin the discussion after all have answered.
  

• If a student wants to ask a question, they can ask in private, through Skype, without other students knowing, if they are shy or think it would be embarassing.

After all anticipatory answers are received by the teacher and discussed in class, students can skype their reactions(answers)to the lesson. Changing some answers and leaving others as they were originally skyped will encourage student learning in a non-threatening environment using this user-friendly, ubiquitous online web application.

BubbleSnaps: Quick and Easy

BubbleSnap was recommended by a colleague in Plurkadia, so I tried it out. Whether you have unlimited time to think of a clever saying to go in the bubble, or you need something NOW, BubbleSnap will work for you.

My colleague used shared how she used BubbleSnap to develop an introductory letter for her students. I think another use would be to develop a captioned BubbleSnap picture to be used as an anticipatory set, questions on a test or any number of other educational ideas.

I downloaded, captioned, emailed, saved and copied my sample BubbleSnap to blog in under 5 minutes. You can also use your Flickr pictures.

BubbleSnap is easy to use, and the steps are very straightforward. You can email, print or blog your BubbleSnap. I recommend it for anyone, but especially for teachers and students.

It's del.icio.us!

Del.icio.us was the first social bookmarking web application I ever used. As a teacher, I thought, "Wow! I could really teach my students to paraphrase with this tool!" Yes, I love the online bookmarking part of del.icio.us, and I love the sharing, the social networking part of this bookmarking system.

Unfortunately, the research part of writing; the paraphrasing, the note-taking, the quoting of sources, can be a tremendous stumbling block for students in middle and high school. As soon as I was introduced to del.icio.us, I knew I could teach this to students and they could use it effectively to learn and practice these skills. Since I am always on the lookout for web applications for use with effective instructional strategies that will greatly boost student achievement, I knew del.icio.us fit the bill.

Over the years, I realized that my students could write fairly well, and I credit that to the commitment Kansas has made using the 6 Traits of Writing in a systemic immersion from Kindergarten to high school. Parents, teachers and students know it is a good system. I can depend on students knowing the basics of writing because of it.

Often, students believe this idea, or misconception really, that someone else's words are better than their own. In its pure form, I have to admire that idea, because it means that students honor authors, books and reading. The misconception lies in the idea that THEY can't really learn how to research and write well, but they can. Once students learn to take notes and paraphrase, their writing always takes a great boost in quality.

Another problem for me, as a teacher, was helping each student stay organized throughout the research/writing process. In a way, it seems rather odd that writing or looking for sources is not the beginning writer's downfall, the difficult part is keeping lists of resources, notes, and quotations throughout the writing process. As soon as I saw how del.icio.us worked, I knew it was the solution for this developmental milestone. The wonderful folks at CommonCraft do also, and here is their excellent video, Social Bookmarking in Plain English.



All the organizational problems are solved with del.icio.us and other social bookmarking networks. Students can bookmark their sources and take notes as they find them. First impressions are always helpful to remember. The writer can easily edit, yet it is often difficult to remember just what attracted you to a particular resource. Using del.icio.us, a student can quote, paraphrase or note future areas of research.

As a teacher, I can access all the students bookmarks because I put them into my class network, a social educational network. I can use del.icio.us to check student organization, progress, quality and reliability of resources on the fly. This makes it easier to give timely feedback which encourages students and increases their overall achievement in writing.

That is the beauty of social bookmarking. It's del.icio.us!