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Virsona

What it is: Have you ever wondered what it would be like to sit down and talk to Albert Einstein, George Washington, or Susan B. Anthony?  Wonder no more, with Virsona, your students have the opportunity to do just that!   Virsona is an interesting tool that lets students create a virtual character of themselves (or a virtual literary character).  Students answer a variety of questions about themselves (or another character).  They can create automatically generated responses, greetings, and choose a personality for their virtual selves.  After they have created their virtual persona, they can share the link to their virtual self.  Anyone can ask their virtual self questions (via chat) and responses are automatically generated based on the answers that were given.  Virsona has some excellent built in historical, political, and literary characters that students can interact with..  Students can chat with a virtual George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Henry Ford, Pocahontas, Babe Ruth, Susan B. Anthony, and more.  Students choose the persona to chat with, asking them questions about their stance on politics, entertainment, beliefs, and more.  It is very cool!  Try chatting with Abraham Lincoln here. How to integrate Virsona into the classroom: Virsona can be used to connect students to historical characters.  Students can “chat” with the historical character asking questions about their life, beliefs, politics, and more.   Put your students on assignment as news reporters.  Ask them to “sit down” with the historical character and interview them, taking notes about the answers they are given.  Students can then fact check the interview, using primary sources, text books, and encyclopedia articles.  Students can then write a newspaper article, a character sketch, or create a fake video interview using a tool like Xtranormal. Virsona is a tool that will connect your students to historical figures and learning in a way that wasn’t before possible.  I have yet to meet  a student who doesn’t love to chat.  Put those chatting skills to good use by having them chat with historical figures. If you teach in the elementary classroom, use Virsona as a whole class.  Have students brainstorm questions they would like to ask the historical figure.  As a class, chat with the VIP using an interactive whiteboard or projector. For students over 13, Virsona can be used as a way to create an in-depth character sketch on a historical or literary figure.  Students will have to really research the character in order to create a Virsona virtual persona.  Students can answer questions as the literary or historical figure would have.  As a culminating activity, students can visit each other’s Virsona’s to learn about other historical or literary figures. Can’t find a character that you want your students to chat with?  Why not create the character yourself?  In one of our fifth grade classrooms, we have an invisible ninja who can see everything the kids do.  The invisible ninja is an enigma that the students often want to know more about.  It would be fun to take these fictional characters and let students chat with them virtually.  Sometimes younger classrooms have “desk fairies” that leave treats randomly for clean desks.  Enter into a spirit of play with your students and create a virtual version of these classroom characters. Tips: To sign up to create a virtual character, student have to supply an email address, first and last name.  To create a virtual character, students must be 13 or older.  Students under 13 can still use Virsona to chat with pre-created characters without signing into the website. Please leave a comment and share how you are using Virsona in your classroom.

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Corkboard: Classroom Collaboration

Posted by admin | Posted in Analyze, collaboration, Create, Evaluate, Middle/High School, Primary Elementary, Secondary Elementary, Subject, Teacher Resources, Understand (describe, explain), web tools, Web2.0 | Posted on 30-12-2010

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What it is: Corkboard is a neat little collaboration tool that I learned about on Twitter yesterday thanks to @Grade1. Corkboard reminds me a lot of Wallwisher (which has been a little unreliable lately). Best of all, it is literally a one step set up process.  Just type in the web address: http://corboard.me and it automatically creates a unique url for your corkboard.  Click to add a sticky note on the corkboard. Give students or other teachers the unique url so that they can add a sticky note. Easy!  Sticky notes can be as big or small as you like.  Click and hold down on a sticky note to move it around the corkboard.

How to integrate Corkboard into the classroom: Corkboard provides an easy to use platform for students to brainstorm, collaborate, and share ideas. Students can use Corkboard to brainstorm ideas for writing, research, and collaborating on group projects. Ask students to add their thoughts to any conversation on history, literature, science, phonics, or vocabulary corkboard.  Students could practice spelling by typing out their spelling words along with a sentence or synonyms on sticky notes. Students can share a board to discuss a book they are reading together, predictions for a class science experiment, and to share what they are learning in any subject or lecture. You could create a new corkboard each week where you post homework, resources, to-do items, etc. for your students. Students can add sticky notes to the board about what they are learning throughout the week. These Corkboards can be added to a Weblist.me so that there is a record of the whole year.

Tips: Looking for other alternatives to Wallwisher? Check out: Edistorm or Stixy. Each has a little different features!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Corkboard in your classroom.

Comments (19)

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by ktenkely and others. ktenkely said: Corkboard is a great alternative to Wallwisher for classroom collaboration http://bit.ly/eRpjxI So easy to use! Thanks to @Grade1 [...]

Lino-it and Popplet are two other tools worth exploring. Lino-it has that “sticky note” look but like Wallwisher allows you to embed video and images. It also comes with some project management & collaboration features. Popplet has a different look and feel, allowing you to embed images, videos & even link to books on Amazon. You can also link different “popples” (the sticky note equivalent) together so you can use it as a mindmapping tool.

[...] to LifeHacker and iLearn Technology for the heads up on this webapp. Bookmark on Delicious Recommend on Facebook Share with Stumblers [...]

[...] highly recommend checking out Corkboard Me by clicking here.Thanks to the award winning iLearn Technology for the tip!! Sphere: Related Content Posted by dkapuler at 12/31/2010 Labels: [...]

Linoit.com is another great one. The cool thing about that too is that you can install a bookmarklet and do a Lino that you can quickly open up and use and put it away when you’re done. Great stuff!

I like to use sites like this as an alternative to the KWL. My students brainstorm questions they have about a topic. As we progress through the unit and discover answers, we add them to the original sticky note.

[...] Corkboard: Classroom Collaboration [...]

Thanks Kelly for sharing Corkboard! WallWisher is so frustrating at times. It is nice to know about lots of alternatives! Happy New Year!

I agree, alternatives are always a good thing! Thanks Melissa!

Great idea for using Corkboard as a KWL brainstorming tool Aimee, thanks for sharing!

That is a great option thanks Rob!

I absolutely love learning new and innovative ideas and this has been one of my favorites. I use a lot of graphic organizers in my classroom and the KWL is one that I use often. The idea of corkboard would be more meaningful and a great motivator for students. I plan to incorporate this into my curriculum because it would be a great learning tool.

Hi, I just came across your blog and I must say I absolutely love it. So many great ideas I look forward to implementing in my own classroom. I especially enjoyed this Corkboard site. I’m currently teaching 6+1 traits in writing, and we’re working on the “Ideas” aspect, so this would be a great avenue for students to brainstorm ideas for a topic and share them with others. I look forward to using this! Thanks!

I’m really glad that I came across your blog. I think that I will definitely be using this technology in my classroom at some point. Corkboard seems like it could or would be the step before using Google Docs when students are working on a group project. Students within a group could be looking up different information that is contributing to the same project simultaneously and thus work much more efficiently. I could also have students jigsaw using Corkboard. I’m excited about trying out this new program.

Stacey, great ideas for using Corkboard in your class! Thank you so much for sharing your ideas with us!

The 6+1 traits of writing brings back memories! I was in school when they had just introduced the 6 :) I think you are right, Corkboard is a great place for students to brainstorm and share ideas. Thanks for the comment Nicole!

Good idea for a KWL exercise Kim! Thanks for sharing your ideas!

How do I get more than one sticky on the board?

Lisa,
You should be able to just double click somewhere else on the board to create another sticky note.

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