Understand (describe, explain) – Page 5

Stormboard: Beautiful virtual brainstorming and collaboration

March 12, 2014March 12, 2014Kelly Tenkely5 Comments6824 views

What it is: Stormboard is a super beautiful virtual sticky note brainstorming and collaboration application that lets classrooms or teams share online whiteboard space. In addition to virtual sticky notes, Stormboard makes it simple to add quality and usefulness to your shared space with photos and video. Each idea that gets added to a Stormboard has a comment thread attached to it, this ensures that everyone’s voice gets heard and conversations about specific ideas don’t get lost. Users can also vote on ideas, this is a quick way to get feedback. Stormboard lets you instantly generate “innovation” reports so that all ideas can be easily captured and saved as a spreadsheet or pdf. Shared space is flexible, you can share both synchronously or asynchronously. Stormboard works on any internet connected device making it ideal for a BYOD (bring your own device) classroom, and seamless regardless of what platforms your school uses.

How to use Stormboard in your classroom: I’ve seen lots of sticky note type applications over the years. Stormboard is hands down the most flexible and the most aesthetically pleasing. It gets all of that without being difficult to learn, it has a really great intuitive interface. Stormboard is a great way to capture learning that happens. In an inquiry classroom, we are regularly brainstorming, asking questions, following bunny trails of important thoughts and ideas, and sharing photos and video. Stormboard would be such an ideal place to capture all of this thought during an inquiry unit. I love the way that it threads conversations so that everyone’s voice gets heard and captured as it relates to an idea.

At Anastasis, our kids are constantly discussing big ideas. Stormboard would be a great way for the students to take notes and capture those ideas all together. As they go through literature, research, current events, science experiments, etc. they can capture all of their ideas, quotes, related images and videos in one place. When it comes time to write a report, reflection, summary or do some design thinking with their learning, students will have all relevant information in one place that THEY created together. This could be huge! Our Jr. High has been going through a book chapter by chapter throughout the year. So many of the discussions they have should be captured, the deep thinking is truly awesome! Stormboard would be a great place for this to happen. Learning and thinking process recorded.

Stormboard would also be perfect when you are implementing design thinking in the classroom. It is the perfect place for the ideation and research phases of the project to be captured.

Students can use Stormboard to work collaboratively with others in their class or with other classes in their school. It would also be a great tool to use with a collaborating school. Because it has options for sharing synchronously or asynchronously, it can be used with schools in different time zones around the world for collaborative projects.

Teachers can use Stormboard to collaborate on units or lessons with other teachers, make plans for new team undertakings, or just as a place to share or capture ideas.

Classrooms can use Stormboard on classroom computers OR on an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer to capture learning each day. This would make a cool living “textbook” where students could gather materials, resources, share ideas and conversations. Each day assign a different set of students to be in charge of the record. If you have a one to one device situation, each student can collaborate in this process together. At the end of the day, download the PDF or innovation report and save it. What a cool yearbook of learning and insight into your classroom.

As a school, plan new initiatives with your administrative team. We are currently dreaming of our own building (right now we lease space). This is the perfect place to share that dreaming with all stakeholders and capture conversations and thinking along the way.

I think it is awesome that Stormboard works on all devices, but also provides the option of downloading your work. This way you aren’t SO reliant on a tool that if it disappeared, all would be lost.

Tips: Stormboard is free to use. However, the free account is limited to 5 collaborators at a time. I’ve got my fingers crossed that when they see the awesome way that educators are using Stormboard, they will consider offering a free education account with enough for a class or two to collaborate. For $5/month/user you can add as many as you want. For $10/user/month you get unlimited users and unlimited administrators.

Inquiry, magic, and blended learning: Anastasis Academy

March 1, 2014Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment11797 views

It’s hard to describe to people all of the magic that happens at Anastasis on a daily basis. It really does feel like something special, a magical quality of falling down the rabbit hole into another world where school is fun and challenging and wonderful. The learning that happens here is very organic, it lacks a formulaic approach. So when people ask us how they can do what we do, it isn’t a simple answer.

Anastasis learners are in a continual state of growth, discovery, and creativity. We are just wrapping up an Inquiry unit about “How the World Works.” As a school, we are preschool through eighth grade. All of our students engage the same big guided inquiry for a 5 week block. Although the driving inquiry is the same for all students, I break down the unit into some key concept lines of inquiry by age level. We have a primary, intermediate, and jr. high key concepts that provide entry points into learning at a developmental appropriate level. Our primary kids looked at How the World Works from the inquiry prompting that: people have daily habits and use time to help guide their day, week, month, and year. This gave them the opportunity to explore calendars, time, seasons, patterns in growth of crops, school habits, moon phases, sun, etc. Our intermediate students looked at How the World Works from the inquiry prompting that: predictable patterns help us explore objects in the sky and their connection to our life on Earth. This allowed our students to explore movement of the solar system, moon phases, constellations, galaxies, history of humans understanding of patterns in the universe, technologies that help us understand patterns, how the patterns in space impact life on earth, how animals and plants rely on patterns. Our Jr. High students explored How the World Works from the prompting that: Food comes from many places and goes through many changes on its journey to us. They discovered more about where produce comes from, what GMOs are, what the role of the FDA is, what chemical additives food has, farm to table, organic vs. non-organic, responsibilities of humans in food production and consumption, how food production has changed over time, practices for mass production of meat, what happens when our food resources have been exhausted?

The nice thing about having ALL students in the same big guided inquiry during a block, is the incredible overlaps in learning that occur between classes. This provides truly amazing opportunities for our students to learn from and with each other. We take advantage of that overlap as often as possible!

For each inquiry block I give teachers an inquiry guide with the driving inquiry question, the key concept, and the individual lines of inquiry that could be explored. This is a launching spot. I also provide resources for students and teachers on a Pinterest board. This board gets added to throughout the inquiry block as I know which lines of inquiry students are exploring (they often come up with great lines of inquiry that I haven’t considered). This becomes our “curriculum.” It is always evolving and growing based on the needs of students. Teachers send me requests for books, videos, apps, and hands on materials that they need throughout the block (I LOVE Amazon Prime!). The Pinterest boards are shared with students via QR codes that are hanging throughout the school. At any point in time, they can use their iPad to snap a picture and instantly they have access to a library of materials and ideas that they can explore related to the inquiry block. If you are interested in what this look like, you can check out the boards here:

This is the point that the magic I mentioned above starts to happen. Our teaching staff is awesome. They are some of the most creative, innovative, forward-thinking people I know. Even better: they provide the space for kids to be curious and expertly help them navigate that curiosity for new learning. This block offers such a rich picture of what learning looks like at Anastasis that I just have to share it. Notice that EVERY level of Bloom’s Taxonomy is addressed in this process, every subject woven into their learning naturally.

The students in Team Weissman began this block with a field trip to a local observatory. This was a really neat trip that I had the privilege of attending with them. Our students got a private tour of the observatory, complete with a history lesson of Colorado’s landscape when the observatory was built, the changes it’s gone through, the building history, and the science. The kids LOVED exploring each part of the building and learning about all of the little “secrets” around the observatory and why it was built the way that it was. They got to go into the basement to see how the base of the telescope is actually free-standing and not attached to the building. They got to open the ceiling. They got to explore each separate part of the telescope and ask questions and learn from an expert. The observatory expert’s passion was contagious. The spark for inquiry was lit in those moments. When the students were back at school, they each chose a line of inquiry that they wanted to know more about. They chose to learn about moon phases, galaxies, planets, constellations, Fibonacci, fractals, waves, plant life, etc. Each student snapped a picture of the QR code for this block to begin digging through resources. This was a great spring-board for discovery. As students dug into discovery, they chose different projects and ideas of how they could share their learning with others. This led to the building of a planetarium that the whole school could tour through to learn more about the universe, green house design, art work to teach about the relationship of plants/fractals/Fibonacci, a telescope, a black hole demonstration, a planetary model, a genius art demonstration of moon phases for the planetarium, and a model of different types of waves.

There was a lot of research that happened in this unit. One student showed me how she was using multiple devices to compare sources as she did her research…brilliant!

Throughout the 5 weeks I heard exclamations of excitement, pride in what students had created, excitement as they saw what other students in the class were doing. Completely fantastic, magical moments of learning! This week, the students invited every other class in the school to be a part of their learning. They gave each class a tour of the universe in the planetarium and each presented their findings over the last 5 weeks. They also walked them through how patterns in the universe are mimicked here on earth in their greenhouse (made with pvc and shower curtains!).

Inside the planetarium: Planets

Inside the planetarium: Black Holes

Anastasis is a 1:1 BYOD school. Each of our students has an iPad (the only supply on their supply list) in addition, sometimes they bring a phone or iPod as well. You know what? As awesome as the technology is, it fades into the background. It really is just another tool for learning that we use at Anastasis. It helps tremendously with research, connecting with experts all over the world, typing out and recording ideas. What I love about this last unit is that none of the students chose to show their learning through technology. Each of them chose something tangible to demonstrate learning. The use of technology was brilliant. Truly hybrid learning! The students who worked on the planetarium used an app called Sky Guide to figure out exactly where in the sky each constellation and galaxy was so that their planetarium would be a true picture of what it would be like to look up into the night sky. After building the planetarium, the kids decided which way they would align it in the classroom. Then, using the Sky Guide app, they would get in, find out where the constellation was in relation to where they were standing. They poked holes in the plastic in the shape of the constellation and labeled it with a piece of tape. A brilliant coming together of technology and creativity!

I wish I could bottle up the excitement that the whole school had as they watched the planetarium being built. The amazing anticipation of getting to see the finished product. The sneak peeks they tried to take. This was a school community learning and exploring together.

As Team Weissman worked on this, students in Team Baldwin each chose a pattern that they wanted to learn something more about. They connected to experts, researched, and came up with really incredible questions. The outcome of this was also student created projects to show others what they had learned. These kids also held an expo day to let others in the school see their learning. They got to be the expert. Students explored everything from patterns in the circulatory system, to service animals, to electricity, to dub step, to patterns in baking, the moon, coding, and plant growth. When I asked the kids what they liked best about their projects, the common answer was: getting to talk to my expert. Connecting students with an adult expert (usually using technology) was so meaningful and lasting. They were proud to share with others what they were now an expert in.

The Jr. High was so impacted by what they learned about where our food comes from, that they created a conference for Anastasis students and parents. They had sessions, round table discussion, asked parent experts to come in and share, and invited a keynote speaker. They also invited other classes in on their learning by asking them to share learning they’ve done throughout the year at their expo. The round table discussion among the students was hands down my favorite part of the day. Hearing these kids challenge each other’s opinions about GMO’s, Monsanto, being a localvore, food production, health, etc. was incredible. They were well researched, thoughtful and considerate of different opinions. They referred back to field trips they had to Growhaus and a local meat market. They started out in the community with experiential learning, used technology to learn more, and finished by inviting community to learn with them.

Primary students shared their greenhouse:

Anastasis Jr. High Round Table discussion

This is what learning looks like. It is hard work, there is challenge. There is also beauty and excitement and pride.

Stoodle: Instant Free Virtual Classroom

February 21, 2014Kelly Tenkely5 Comments10128 views

What it is:
Stoodle is a free, instant online classroom. Stoodle offers real-time collaboration on a virtual whiteboard with as many pages as are needed. With Stoodle you have the ability to use both voice conferencing and text chat for collaboration. All virtual classrooms can be stored for later access. Within the whiteboard, you can upload images and use whiteboard drawing tools. These virtual classrooms give you instant collaboration with students.

How to use Stoodle in your classroom: Stoodle is a great way to create an instant virtual classroom for you and your students to interact. Stoodle could be used for an impromptu tutoring session or class reviews. This gives you “office” hours that students can count on some additional support without you actually having to be in the office.

In addition to using Stoodle as a virtual classroom, it is a great place to offer students individual feedback on work that they’ve done. Walk students through their project and they can access the notes made and walk through later (as can parents).

Stoodle would be an AWESOME way to be everywhere at once in your classroom. I often set up centers and learning experiences that students could go through independently while I worked with a small group of two or three students during reading, writing, or math. Stoodle would make a great center rotation on classroom computers in any subject.

Students can use Stoodle to connect with other classes, work on homework or outside of school assignments with peers, and record their thought process for working through problems.

Stoodle is super simple to use, just create a new class session and share the link with participants. That is it! It couldn’t be easier to use. Stoodle works in any web browser AND on iPads!

If your students have a special skill or knowledge, this is a great way for them to share it with others!

If you lead professional development or sessions at conferences, Stoodle could be really useful for real-time collaboration that participants can access again at a later time.

Tips: Class sessions can be shared via email, link, Twitter, or Facebook.

EDpuzzle: Like Video in the Classroom 2.0

February 6, 2014February 10, 2014Kelly Tenkely4 Comments9674 views

What it is: EDpuzzle is a neat new educational site to help you better utilize video in your classroom for learning. You can find and crop video to use only what you need, add audio notes within the video or do some voice over work for a video, and you can embed questions throughout the video to track student understanding. EDpuzzle collects data as students watch and interact with the video. You can see if and when a student watched the video, and see the progress of all students through the answers to embedded questions.

How to use EDpuzzle in your classroom: What makes EDpuzzle great is the level of freedom given in cropping, sharing, and tracking video use in the classroom. EDpuzzle enhances the “flipped” classroom by allowing you to embed formative assessment directly into your videos. As students watch, you can check understanding and ensure active watching vs. passive watching. In a flipped scenario, this gives you the ability to completely tailor a lesson the next day based on the formative assessment results you get from homework. This is truly utilizing assessment to inform instruction (which is the point of assessment!).

EDpuzzle can be used in conjunction with videos that you have made for your students, or with videos that you find. I like using video to introduce students to a brand new topic or idea. Well-created video has the ability to quickly and succinctly help students dive into new learning and formulate new questions and lines of inquiry. For example, when Anastasis Jr. High started our last inquiry block about “How the World Works” and explored the topic of food and farming, they started by watching the documentary Food, Inc. This was a great way to launch their thinking and lines of questioning about where our food comes from. Out of that video, students chose different lines of inquiry to explore and research. EDpuzzle would be a good way for students to help others see where their line of inquiry started from. Students could grab the clip of the documentary that intrigued them, and embed audio to show their thought process as they watched. Sort of a Saved-by-the-Bell Zack Morris “Time out” moment where they can describe their line of thinking.

For primary teachers, EDpuzzle could be used as part of a guided reading center. YouTube has lots of great read-along videos. (You can also create your own based on class reading!) Use these videos along with EDpuzzle to check for comprehension. As the video plays, embed questions to check for understanding. Students can independently go through the guided reading (or Close reading) activity, while you work one-on-one with other reading groups. Rotate the reading groups throughout the week so that each student gets the opportunity to go through the EDpuzzle guided reading activity, and each group gets one-on-one time with you. This is a fantastic way to maximize your time and get valuable feedback from all student learning. EDpuzzle could also be used in this way as a science center (with a video pertaining to an experiment or new learning), a math center, etc. I love using center rotations because it ensures that I have time to work closely with each group.

For secondary students, use EDpuzzle is a great way to check for understanding. It is also a wonderful way for students to create and demonstrate understanding. EDpuzzle would be ideal for sub days. I always dreaded being away from the classroom because it was essentially a lost day. Even if the substitute did EXACTLY what I asked, I missed the opportunity to see my students work and think. EDpuzzle would give you the ability to “teach” remotely and embed the same questions and promptings you would give if you were live in the classroom. While you won’t get to hear all of the discussion, you will have some feedback to better understand how your students were thinking.

With documentary-type videos, EDpuzzle can be used to embed writing prompts. Record a prompt throughout the video so that students can pause and write out their reflections and thoughts. I find that good documentaries are often SO packed full of good things that by the end of the video, only the last 10 minutes get well-reflected on. The documentary Baraka would be an incredible video to do this with!

Have you seen Vi Hart’s YouTube channel? I am obsessed! I love the way that she goes through math in a casual stream-of-conscious type approach. Embed related practice math problems based on the topics that Vi is sharing in her videos. As students get those light-bulb moments of, “oh, that is how that works!” capitalize on the new understanding by giving them a place to put it into practice and try it out.

Do you record your students learning? EDpuzzle could be a fantastic way to record audio feedback to the videos that they upload. These can then be shared with parents and students for review.

Tips: Don’t have access to YouTube at school? No worries! You can still use EDpuzzle with your students. EDpuzzle lets you search for video by topic, or pull video from Khan Academy, Learn Zillion, National Geographic, TED, Veritasium, and Numberphile as well. LOTS of incredible learning just waiting to happen!

Timelapse: 3 decades of photo imagery of the world

January 20, 2014February 10, 2014Kelly Tenkely1 Comment4253 views

What it is: Timelapse is an incredible visual satellite timeline powered by Google. Timelapse is about as close as you can get to a time machine, if that time machine hovered above the earth and gave you a bird’s eye view of development and change. Students can choose from some highlighted Timelapse views including: Las Vegas, Dubai, Shanghai, Oil Sands, Mendenhall Glacier, Wyoming Coal, Columbia Glacier, and Lake Urmia. Alternatively, students can use the search box to view a satellite timelapse of any place in the world. Students can change the speed of the timelapse, pause the satellite imagery, and zoom in or zoom out. The imagery begins in 1984 and goes through 2012.

How to use Timelapse in your classroom: Timelapse would be a fantastic way to begin an inquiry unit. The site itself sparks lots of questions. Depending on the location, students may inquire into climate change, history, development, expansion, human impact on land, satellites, etc. Timelapse could also be used in science classes and history classes. This is a great tool for students to use to analyze and evaluate visual data.

Timelapse would be a neat way to explore history of the world from a completely different perspective. Students could use Timelapse as a creative writing prompt to imagine the world from a new perspective. What changes when you aren’t down in the midst of life on earth? Do problems appear different? Does success get measured differently?

Tips: Below the Timelapse map, students can read about how satellites are used to capture the imagery they are exploring. Well worth the read! It is also separated into “Chapters” that each tell a larger story about the featured Timelapses.

Buncee: Digital Creation tool

January 16, 2014February 10, 2014Kelly Tenkely1 Comment4905 views

Okay, it is 2014…time to kick it into gear and get back to blogging. The awesomeness of what exists in educational technology is stacking up and NEEDS to be shared. I’m on it!

What it is: Buncee is a super cool creation and presentation tool. Buncee is useful for students and teachers alike as a digital canvas. Students can use Buncee to create neat interactive presentations and stories. Teachers can use it to help teach new concepts, in a flipped classroom, or to share information with families. There are three account types to choose from within Buncee. The free account lets students and teachers share finished presentations with social media, upload your own photos, create Buncees with two slides, offers 500mb of storage, and lets you save the Buncee as a jpeg. The education version cost $9.99/month or $59.99 for the year and includes: sharing to social media, uploading of files (audio, media, image), record audio, create Buncees with unlimited slides, storage of 2G, ability to save as a clickable pdf or jpeg, 1 teacher account to create and manage 30 student accounts, create and post assignments, and view/grade student submissions.

How to use Buncee into your classroom: Buncee is a great creation webapp. As a teacher, use Buncee to assist guided reading by recording a read aloud. Use the recording as part of a classroom reading center where struggling or emerging readers can get a customized lesson. Stop during the reading just like you would if you were doing a read along sitting with the child. Include slides with questions that students can answer, ways that they can reflect on the story, etc. While you are working with a small group of students on close reading, other students can still get some great reading support. This is also great for those kids who don’t have a parent at home that can read with them- you can “go home” with your students every day! Buncee can also be used for guided learning. Create your own digital “textbooks” complete with multimedia, images, audio, and text. I’ve often been let down by what a boxed curriculum provides for students, create your own resources for students to access. This is especially helpful for young students who won’t be able to independently research using the Internet on their own.
Buncee could be a great help for the flipped classroom model. Send students with learning to complete at home in preparation for a project or activity that will be done at school with your support.

Students can use Buncee for multimedia presentations to demonstrate learning. Students can create interactive presentations when learning a foreign language connecting vocabulary words with meaning. Because it is so easy to combine multimedia types, students can create their own digital “textbooks” where they collect learning in history, government, geography, science, social studies, etc. and present it in new and meaningful ways. These digital “textbooks” can be shared and commented on by other students.

Buncee could be a great way for students to reflect on a book that they have finished. They can complete character sketches, retell, or combine media types to create a book review.

If you have a digital camera (built in or separate), students can take pictures of a science experiment and create a digital review of the experiment including any hypothesis and conclusions.

Tips: With the education version, students can submit their work and it can be graded and commented on directly in Buncee. This could be a really great way for students to keep a digital portfolio that you, and parents, can comment on throughout the year.

Our Little Earth: Global News for World Citizens

November 20, 2013November 16, 2013Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment4187 views

What it is: Our Little Earth is a great international online newspaper for kids. It is delivered every two weeks directly to email and best of all, it is free! Past editions of Our Little Earth can be found on the site for students to read and explore. Each issue helps students stay informed about what current events are happening in the world around them. Every edition has a map showing students where the news came from for the issue. The articles are easy for students to read and do a great job of offering enough background information so that students can make connections to the text and better understand it.

How to integrate Our Little Earth into your classroom: I really like Our Little Earth kids news, it is simple in its delivery, but packs a substantial punch of great information. This is a fantastic source for students to read just-in-time, non-fiction text, at a level that is accessible to them. Subscribe to Our Little Earth and read through a story-a-day for the weeks following. Make sure to model for kids how to explore the themes, politics, geography and history that is related in each article. This is also a great starting point for kids to fact check, make connections, and confirm the reliability of a source. The news is current, so there is always something fresh!

I love using current news with students, it keeps the classroom relevant and touches enough transdisciplinary themes that students can make connections to other reading and learning they are doing. Combine Our Little Earth with @angelamaiers What Breaks Your Heart project. As students are more informed, they will be able to better articulate things about the world they would like to be a part of changing.

Use Google Earth to help students learn geography at the same time. Create a pin on the map for each story read. Ask students to come up with a title for each story (or use the title provided) to help them remember what they read about that location. Add to the same Google Earth map all year-long so that students can begin to see common themes by geography.

Tips: Use the search feature to help students dig even deeper into events and themes. What happened a year ago at this time?

What do you think of Our Little Earth? How do you plan to use it in your classroom?

ASCEville- Engineering Just for Fun

November 17, 2013Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2616 views

What it is: ASCEville is a good place for students to try their hand at civil engineering through online games, offline activities, videos, and contests. In ASCEville, students can explore civil engineering history and where civil engineering is found in our daily lives. Online resources for kindergarten through 12th grade will help you find just the right activity for your classroom!

How to integrate ASCEville into the classroom: ASCEville is easy to use in any classroom. With activity ideas and games for every age level, this is an easy site to use and integrate into the math or science class seamlessly. Students will appreciate the hands-on nature of the site, and the ability to see what all of that math they are learning gets applied to. The activities on ASCEville will give your students a tangible connection point to math and science concepts that they are learning.

Create a mini engineering fair in your classroom. Invite each student to independently choose an offline activity in the Just for Fun section of the site. Students can choose to build a gumdrop dome, build a globe-shaped clubhouse, stack a tower of cups, test out pressure on paper, design a paper table, build a high-rise tower, or build a paper bridge. Students should approach each activity expecting failure (love that!). Ask your students to record their successes and failures as they build through drawings, pictures, and notes. What tweaks made a difference? Why? On the day of the “fair” students can set up their final projects and include a small collection of observations they made and their pictures/notes along the way. Ask students to share with each other the challenges they faced, what they tried, and if they were able to overcome the challenge.

This site is a great resource for students inquiring into civil engineering, how buildings and cities are designed and built, or how engineering can be used to keep us safe during natural disasters. There is enough information on the site to spark new lines of inquiry and some great ways for students to use design thinking to further explore engineering concepts.

Tips: Don’t forget to check out the Educators section for some great additional resources, lessons, and ideas! Thanks to Anastasis parent Paul for sending us this great site!

What do you think? How will you use ASCEville in your classroom?

Wordsmyth- outstanding illustrated e-dictionary

November 16, 2013Kelly Tenkely1 Comment5194 views

What it is: Wordsmyth is a fantastic online dictionary for kids. WILD is Wordsmyth’s Illustrated Learner’s Dictionary. It is a truly well done young reader’s dictionary for k-3 readers or ELL students. WILD is a simple-to-use visual dictionary that includes definitions for 1500 words, developmentally appropriate sentences for each word and for each meaning of the word, integrated visual environments that help kids really explore language, audio for each word, and fun activities that promote literacy. Wordsmyth has a dictionary for intermediate elementary and middle school students called Word Explorer Children’s Dictionary. The Word Explorer includes a related-words feature where students can see concept maps, easy-to-read and understand definition, word histories, Language Notes, and thousands of images and animations to help students build literacy. Finally, Wordsmyth has a comprehensive dictionary suite with easy to read entries and definitions, illustrations, synonyms/similar words/antonyms under each definition, audio pronunciation and thousands more images. Wordsmyth has different options for use. There is a free subscription available to everyone that will allow students to freely access all 3 dictionary suites, advanced search options, puzzles, words of the day, look up history, customized pronunciation and dictionary formats, and a glossary maker. MOST of the site is totally free to use with the free registration! For $9.95/year, you can also purchase an individual subscription that gives some additional features such as the ability to customize the dictionary and gain access to premium features.

An educational subscription allows access to ALL tools including teacher tools. Best of all, it is FREE for schools for the 2013-2014 school year. Worth taking advantage of this option!

How to integrate Wordsmyth into your classroom: I’m seriously impressed with the Wordsmyth dictionaries. They are truly an impressive option for a digital dictionary in the classroom. The downfall of this site: the illustrated dictionary (WILD) is flash-based. This means that it is not easily accessible on iDevices in the classroom. It also means that it takes a bit to load each page if your Internet connection isn’t great.

What I appreciate about this dictionary, is the accessibility for emerging readers, non-readers, or ELL/ESL students. The dictionary is really easy to use, the definitions are easy to understand, and the accompanying audio and images are fantastic!

If you have a dedicated writing space in your classroom, make sure to include Wordsmyth in it. Bookmark it on classroom computers, send it home to parents, include it on your classroom blog/website, etc. This is a wonderful place for kids to be empowered during their writing and literacy time.

If you are lucky enough to have a 1:1 device setting, this site is worth making a web clip for to make it easily accessible to everyone.

Right now our students are inquiring into how we express ourselves. Our intermediate students are looking at different mediums and methods that people use for self-expression. Part of that exploration has led them into a study of words. Wordsmyth is a great way for them to explore in a place that is developmentally appropriate and helps them see the way that language is connected and can be used for expression.

Wordsmyth has words separated by topic. As you begin a new unit, give students the opportunity to explore the vocabulary on the front end. You can do this as a class using a projector or interactive whiteboard or individually on classroom/personal devices. As you go through a class book or unit together, create a custom glossary that students can refer to.

Tips: Be sure to sign up for the free educational group subscription for the 2013-2014 school year. With the subscription you get unlimited making/using/saving/sharing activities, customize the dictionary, access premium dictionary features, and access to the teacher tools.

What do you think of Wordsmyth? How do you plan to use it in your classroom?

Book Writer: create books on the iPad

October 21, 2013Kelly Tenkely4 Comments28869 views

Book Writer

What it is: Book Writer is a great app for the iPad (and iPhone or iPod Touch). This app makes it a snap for kids to create books that can be read directly in iBooks. With Book Writer, students can create their own ebooks with photos, video, audio and links. Images and video can be annotated over in the book. Finished books can be shared using iTunes and E-mail. One of the best features of Book Writer is the huge number of applications that books can be shared through including: iBooks, Nook, Instashare, Bump, Evernote, Dropbox, and Send Anywhere. This makes Book Writer wonderfully flexible no matter what apps your school uses regularly.

How to integrate Book Writer into the classroom: Book Writer is a great app for students to “publish” their writing in. Students can compile research, notes, images and videos to create their own textbooks. Why passively read through a text when students can be a part of creating their own? This makes the learning so much more valuable and gives students the opportunity to “own” their learning. Each student’s finished book will be just a little different. Students can compile class notes, images of work and examples from class, and videos (either their own or other videos they’ve downloaded), reflections on learning, etc. into a book that can be shared. This would be a fantastic way for students to share what they’ve learned at the end of a unit. Because of the variety of content that can be included in Book Writer, it would make for a great science journal. Students can take photos of a scientific experiment or process, label the images, and reflect on observations, hypothesis, etc.

Students could also use Book Writer as a place to keep all of their creative writing based on visual writing prompts. Students can include the picture prompt on one page and their writing on the facing page. Students can add to this book throughout the year and share their “published” writings at the end of the year.

Younger students will find Book Writer easy to use. These students could create their own word bank picture dictionary. Ask students to create a new page for each letter. Every time a word gets added to the class word wall, students can add it to their dictionary. Students can also add pictures to accompany the words, or audio of themselves saying the word.

Book Writer can be used for a class yearbook and then shared with all students digitally. The extra fun part are the videos that can be included!

Tips: Book Writer has a clean, easy to use interface. If you are using with young students, you may want to walk them through where to find tools for the first time.

Compatibility: Requires iOS5.0 or later

Devices: iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch

Price: $3.99 (iTunes link)