vocabulary – Page 2 – iLearn Technology

Automatoon: Create HTML5 animations

July 13, 2011Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment14828 views

What it is: Oh. My. Word. I’m slowly but surely making my way through my Google Reader and stumbled on a post by @rmbyrne on his EXCELLENT blog Free Tech 4 Teachers about Automatoon. I immediately started playing with Automatoon and cannot say enough about how COOL it is! Automatoon makes it simple for students (or teachers) to create animations within a web browser. My very favorite part? It was built-in HTML5!! Do you know what that means? It works on iDevices (like the iPad and iPod touch). A non-flash animations site! Pure genius. This is one of the easiest animation programs I have seen. Students can draw characters in pieces (kind of like a puppet or paper doll) and then create points where the pieces connect. The drawings can animate by moving, bending or adding pieces to the picture. SO cool! After watching the demo video, I think even young students could have Automatoon mastered in no time. The tools built into Automatoon are pretty robust for what a simple program it is to use. Your students will look like animation masters, bringing their creations to life. When students are finished creating their animations, they can download them as a zip file to be uploaded to any site. There are two ways to login, students can login with a “throwaway” login that will not save their animation (but will let them create and download a quick animation) or login with a Google account. This is fantastic for schools that take advantage of Google apps for education!

How to integrate Automatoon into the classroom: Kids of all ages love cartoons and animations, Automatoon gives them the tools to be the creator of those cartoon animations. Students can create animations to animate processes in science (think the water cycle, plant life cycle, rock cycle, etc.), vocabulary words (in either native language or a second language), animate a piece of creative writing, animate a persuasive argument (think advertisement), animate a “book report”, animate solving a math problem, animate a story problem or animate an event in history. The possibilities are really endless on this one, students will only be limited by their imaginations.

Automatoon is easy enough to use that with a little pre-planning, students could create animations in 5-10 minutes. This is handy for those situations where you have one or two computers in the classroom or a limited time in a computer lab. After learning how to use Automatoon, students can quickly create animations to illustrate learning. Automatoon is a FANTASTIC little tool for your visual learners…they will “get” it.

Are your students having a hard time understanding a math or science concept or a vocabulary word? Why not create an animation that illustrates the concept/word and share it on an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer? The animation can be saved on the classroom website so that students can go back and access it throughout the year.

If you have a classroom website or wiki you could create a classroom animation collection. Students can upload their creations to the class site for a great collection of learning. It would be neat to animate sight words (Snapwords style), math or science vocabulary and create a visual “glossary” online that all of your students have contributed to. Classes can add to it every year or you can work with other classes around the world to create a collaborative glossary. This would also be a great tool to aid students in creating their own “e-textbooks” about any subject. Students can create animations to embed in their other research, reflections and links.

Way cool.

Tips: Be sure to watch the intro video (above) to get a 5 minute low down on how to use Automatoon…very useful!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Automatoon in your classroom!

Fraboom Online Children’s Museum: Online classes, videos, interactive book, games, oh my!

May 4, 2011Kelly Tenkely2 Comments7846 views

What it is: Oh. My. Word. I have just stumbled on gold my friends, gold! Fraboom is an online children’s museum packed full of games, interactive books, creativity, learning and-are you ready for this-LIVE online teachers! On Fraboom students can learn about US presidents while they play games, watch Fraboom TV cartoons to learn vocabulary, read interactive books that encourage creativity and join live online classes with real flesh and blood teachers! Fraboom TV has a variety of cartoons that will teach students content area vocabulary words. Each cartoon on Fabroom TV lists all associated vocabulary words so teachers can quickly find a video that will support learning. Cartoons can be searched by keyword or category. The very best part of Fraboom (in my humble opinion) is the live online teachers. Drawing classes start every hour on the hour. Students can drop into a class and learn how to draw cartoons. There is a new challenge every day so content is always fresh! Students can interact with teachers through the chat feature; students type a message and the teacher responds to them by name. Fraboom cartoon characters introduce the activity for the day and the teachers interact with the cartoon on the screen- very fun! Students learn how to draw step by step guided by the teacher and follow along on their own whiteboard space. When students are finished, they can share their pictures with the class. After drawing, the class completes a mad lib together. The teacher explains a part of speech and requests words for that part of speech from the class. Students can contribute words to the story by typing them into the chat area. Throughout the class, the teacher shares submitted pictures with the whole class. I attended two live classes and was really impressed with the teachers in both sessions. They are upbeat, engaging and fun. Fraboom was created for students six to twelve years old. Content is being added regularly and fresh challenges in the live classes every day. Plenty to keep kids creating and learning!

How to integrate Fraboom Online Children’s Museum into the classroom: With widespread budget cuts and art programs being cut regularly, Fraboom is a welcome new addition to the education landscape. Being able to connect every student in your class with another teacher is amazing. Fraboom could be used on classroom computers as a creativity/art/grammar center that kids can visit throughout the week. Students can get one-on-one attention from a virtual teacher freeing you up to work in small reading or writing groups knowing that all of your students are engaged in learning. Connect to a Fraboom online session as a class using a projector-connected computer or interactive whiteboard. Students can follow along with the drawing instructions and take turns engaging in the chat as a whole class. Students can take turns creating the class picture on the projector or interactive whiteboard while students at their seats create their own masterpiece. This would be a great activity for students to do while you hold one-on-one student conferences in your classroom.

Fraboom TV is full of fun cartoon videos that help students learn a variety of content area vocabulary. Use these videos to introduce a new unit so that students are familiar with vocabulary before engaging in new learning.

The interactive stories on Fraboom can be shared with your class using an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer. Read through the story as a class and practice comprehension strategies together.

Tips: Be sure to share Fraboom with parents, this would be a great opportunity for learning at home too!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Fraboom in your classroom!

Learning A-Z Teacher Appreciation week open house

May 2, 2011Kelly Tenkely2 Comments2355 views

What it is: Every year, Learning A-Z celebrates Teacher Appreciation week with an open house where teachers can explore all that Learning A-Z has to offer for FREE!! Each day you can access another portion of the Learning A-Z tools. This is one of those sites that I have paid for and used since I started teaching. I love Reading A-Z because it has books that my students can print off and take home with them for every reading and interest level.

All week: Raz-Kids is a student-centric site where kids can practice reading online anytime and anywhere.

May 2, 2011- Reaing A-Z is a fantastic collection of printable and projectable books and resources that spans 27 reading levels.

May 3, 2011- Vocabulary A-Z has 12,000+ words that are organized by categories and give teachers the ability to create customized vocabulary lists.

May 4th, 2011- Science A-Z has science curriculum resources spanning more than 60 units, all are written to three reading levels.

May 5th, 2011- Writing A-Z has many of the resources you need to teach writing in your classroom.

May 6th, 2011- Reading tutors provides more than 400 reading resource packets that can be used for one-on-one tutoring.

How to integrate Learning A-Z into the classroom: If you teach in an elementary classroom, you should take advantage of these resources during the free open house week. Find new resources for your classroom and explore what Learning A-Z has to offer your students. I think you will be impressed by the resources available here!

As a new teacher, I relied heavily on Reading A-Z to help bulk up my classroom library. Students loved being able to color in and take home the Reading A-Z books.

Set up your classroom computers with Raz Kids for the week, students can have fun practicing those reading skills in a fresh new way all week long!

Hunt down your science units and download resources that teach important concepts while being accessible to students of all reading levels.

Tips: Don’t forget to visit and explore each day this week! Everyone who registers for the open house will be eligible to win a free classroom license of Learning A-Z, 5 teachers will be selected each day!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Learning A-Z in your classroom!

Word Girl Definition Competition: Live vocabulary game show!

March 17, 2011March 17, 2011Kelly Tenkely4 Comments3892 views

What it is: Mark your calendars now for the Word Girl Definition Competition on April 27, 2011; this is a live vocabulary event being hosted by Scholastic and is free to participate in! You must register by April 22 to recieve your webcast event kit, participate in the definition competition, and be entered for a chance to win books and Word Girl prizes. The Word Girl Definition Competition is a fun way to engage students with vocabulary words in a fun, interactive context. The competition includes a 30 minute live webcast where students will enrich their vocabulary and have fun. This will also be the kick off to the Scholastic summer challenge to get students excited about books and reading throughout the summer.

The competition is made up of 3 rounds plus a bonus round. The competition will be in game-show format, students will be challenged to work those vocabulary skills as they answer questions pertaining to word usage, definitions, using words in different contexts, and reading comprehension. Your students will play along with the game in real time by submitting answers online during the webcast and may be called out during the event. This event will help your students understand the meaning of words, use context clues for correct word usage, leverage visuals to define words, draw on existing vocabulary knowledge, and present vocabulary words in varied and interesting ways. Fun right?!

How to integrate Word Girl Definition Competition into the classroom: This one is a no brainer, if you teach elementary students this is an event that your class should participate in. Word Girl making vocabulary fun as it is, combine that with a fun LIVE game show format and you have got yourself a winner. This would be a great event to involve your students in and will have them flexing those vocabulary muscles. I love that this competition isn’t just focused on definitions but on helping students learn strategies for decoding words using visualization strategies and context clues…those are skills that can be easily transferred! Sign up your students today to participate in this fun, friendly competition!

Prior to the competition, build up some excitement and squeeze in some extra vocabulary practice by giving your students the opportunity to play on the Word Girl website. This could be done as a center in the classroom or in a one to one environment.

Tips: If you aren’t familiar with the Word Girl website, be sure to check it out here.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Word Girl in your classroom!

Little Bird Tales

February 25, 2011Kelly Tenkely6 Comments4132 views

What it is: I am late on this post, but it is too good to skip a mention! Little Bird Tales is a new way to digital story tell with primary students. With Little Bird Tales, students can upload their own artwork, record their voice, add text and email their finished creations to family and friends. Sign up on Little Bird Tales requires an email address for verification purposes. This can be a parent or teacher email address (the site is geared for 3 to 14-year-old children so a student address is not necessary). Little Bird Tales includes a built-in art pad where students can create pictures online. They also have the option to upload photographs and images they have created offline. Each page give students a place to add a picture, text and voice recording. Finished books can be saved and accessed online or sent via email.

How to integrate Little Bird Tales into the classroom: Little Bird Tales is a brilliant option for digital storytelling in the primary classroom. I love that it includes both online and offline student creations, as well as student voice recordings. Students can use Little Bird Tales for creative writing and imaginative stories, as a way to reflect on learning, or as a keepsake for parents. Students can take pictures of science experiments and create a digital science journal detailing the experiment with text and student voice reflections included.

Use Little Bird Tales to create whole class stories where each student contributes a page. This type of book can be made over a few weeks using classroom computers as a writing center. This would be a fun way to create an A to Z type book of learning, reflections by students after a unit, a 100 day book, fact vs. opinion book, an interactive glossary, a class book of poems, a phonics book, or a class book about a field trip that students took. The finished product can be shared with parents and families easily through an email. For a back to school night activity, take a picture of each student to add to a class book and record students sharing what their favorite part of the school day is. This same idea could be used in preparation for parent-teacher conferences. Students can upload pictures of their best school work, record thoughts about why they are proud of the work they did, and add reflections in the text field. These can be shared as a starting point for conferences, at the end of the conference, parents have a keepsake.

Because of the voice recording capabilities, Little Bird Tales, would be a great way for students to practice a foreign language. They can illustrate a word or phrase accompanied by the audio. Classes could work together to create a “living” digital glossary.

Do you have a planned absence coming? Why not create a digital story that your substitute can share with students? Upload pictures that support learning, text, and your voice.

Tips: If you have parent email addresses in Google, Yahoo, or Outlook, they can be directly imported into Little Bird Tales as contacts.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Little Bird Tales in your classroom!

Color in Motion- Exploring Color

January 31, 2011Kelly Tenkely9 Comments3348 views

What it is: Amazing really doesn’t do this site justice. No really, this might be my favorite site of the month…that is saying something! Regardless of if you teach about color or art, Color in Motion is a must see just for the creativity and brilliance of the site. Color in motion is a wonderfully animated and interactive experience of color communication and color symbolism. Have you ever looked at an art website and thought, “really, this is the best they could do? It is a site about art for crying out loud!” No? Just me? 🙂 Color in Motion is not one of those sites. The minute you begin exploring you know that this isn’t just a site about color, it is a work of art. There are three activities on Color in Motion. The Stars introduces students to the color stars (primary and secondary colors personified). When students click on a color stars profile they learn about their blood (the color(s) that make them up), what the star is hired to represent (the feelings the color gives), the positive and negative traits, and what the color represents around the world. In the movies, students can sit back and enjoy the show as they learn about the symbolism of each color in a fun animation. In the Lab, students have the opportunity to interact with the different stars. Students can direct a scene acting as a movie director based on a word that represents the color choice. In project 2, students are a color star manager. It is up to them to decide which production their star is going to participate in based on what they learned about color symbolism. Project 3 is a kaleidoscope where students can just have fun and “play” with color in a virtual kaleidoscope.

How to integrate Color in Motion into the classroom: Color in Motion is a fantastic place for students to learn more about color in a highly interactive, engaging, and fun way. Students learn about color through story. They meet each of the colors as a different character being cast for a production. The site is great for any art or design class but could be equally wonderful for a creative writing project. After your students have had some time to explore the site and interact with the different characters, ask them to choose a character to write a story about. Students should write the story based on the character traits they know about the color.

As a getting-to-know-you activity, students could choose a color that they feel best represents them personally. Students can list all of the color attributes that they feel describe them. Are they a mix of colors? Have students write down what the mix is and why.

Looking for a way to spice up spelling/vocabulary practice? Have students assign each word a color based on the word meaning and the color character traits that match. Students can compare and contrast the colors they chose for the words with the colors other students chose for a light persuasive argument.

As students study historical and literary figures, they can assign each a color based on the matching character traits. It would make a really neat bulletin board to have a color wheel with pictures of historical/literary characters on each color based on the similar character traits. These types of activities help students draw parallels and think about history and literature in new ways.

Younger students can think about what color an animal would be if it was the color of its color character traits. The creative possibilities with Color in Motion are endless.

Oh yeah, in addition to all of those “spin-off” ideas, there are great creative activities right on the site many of which would be great for whole class with a projector-connected computer or interactive whiteboard, for small groups in a center activity, or individually in a one to one computer situation.

Tips: Color in Motion can be viewed in both English and Spanish. If you have students learning English or Spanish as a second language, the colors and adjectives on this site are wonderful!

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

Tag Galaxy: Visual Word Relationships

January 4, 2011Kelly Tenkely9 Comments5071 views

What it is: Tag Galaxy is a neat little tool that helps students to explore relationships between words and ideas as well as view pictures related to that word. Type in a word to search and immediately you are transferred to a galaxy with the original word at the center and the associated ideas orbiting around it. When you click on the word in the center, a globe populates with pictures from Flickr that are tagged with that word. Click on one of the orbiting words and tags related to that word start to orbit. Tag Galaxy is a very neat way to view information!

How to integrate Tag Galaxy into the classroom: Tag Galaxy is a brilliant way to visually explore word relationships. Students can use it to type in spelling or vocabulary words and discuss the relationship the related tags have to the original word. Students can click on the original idea to get a visual understanding of the word in the form of a picture globe. The connection with Flickr helps students to visualize words, ideas, and concepts by providing a variety of pictures that match the tag. Tag Galaxy would make for a fun story starter. Students can type in a word tag to get them started, view related words, and then click on the globe of pictures to spark creative writing ideas. Tag Galaxy can be set up on classroom computers as a creative writing centers, or used for whole class inspiration with a projector-connected computer or interactive whiteboard.

Check out science, math, art, or geography vocabulary on Tag Galaxy, the resulting collection of images will help your students attach meaning to those tricky science concepts like my photosynthesis example above.

As a side note, Tag Galaxy also offers a pretty good visual aid for learning about orbit 🙂

Tips: ***Very important*** Whenever you are using tools that pull from other sites to populate, it is important to test out the words prior to using with students. You never know how people will tag an image and the image might not be appropriate for all age groups. When using Tag Galaxy with elementary students, have them suggest words that you test before using with the class. In my classroom, whenever students wanted to do an image search, I had them fill out an “image wish list” first. On the wish list students write down words they would like to search. I would do a quick test of the words and sign off on them. This worked well as there were a lot of similar requests (i.e. animals!) 🙂

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

Graphic Novel Creator: Comic Master

September 27, 2010Kelly Tenkely5 Comments5552 views

What it is: The Graphic Novel Creator: Comic Master is a portion of the Read Me program (learn about it here). This is a really cool online comic creator, the interface is fun to use and very intuitive. It is obviously geared toward students with a great look and even an embedded music player. I love the details on this site, including the headline “Reading isn’t only in books, it’s everywhere!”. Using the Graphic Novel Creator, students can create their own multi-page graphic novels with interesting backgrounds, characters, props, and customized text. The graphic novels can be saved and printed out.

How to integrate Graphic Novel Creator: Comic Master into your curriculum: Graphic novels are becoming increasingly popular reading material, particularly for boys. They have even the most reluctant readers excited to pull out a book. Now those kids who love reading graphic novels, can create their own. A graphic novel is a great way for students to show what they know. They can create a graphic novel re-tell of a story as a book report, describe a science experiment, re-tell a portion of history with a superhero twist, practice another language by telling a story, even define and demonstrate understanding of vocabulary words.

Tips: Be sure to check out the read me site for great teachers notes, ideas, and additional resources for teaching with the Graphic Novel Creator. A special thank you to @thebookchook for introducing me to this tool!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Graphic Novel Creator: Comic Master in your classroom!

The Write-n-ator

September 15, 2010Kelly Tenkely3 Comments12138 views

What it is: New Hampshire Public Television has created a great site based on the PBS Word Girl show. I learned about the site from a blog that I look forward to in my Google Reader every day, The Book Chook. The Write-n-ator site features video clips about words and vocabulary for students to watch; after completing the clip, students are offered a related writing challenge. The clips and challenges are all related to writing, word recognition, and vocabulary development.

How to integrate The Write-n-ator into your curriculum: The Write-n-ator highlights words and vocabulary through fun videos and writing challenges starring the PBS character Word Girl. Offer these challenges to your students as a class using a projector or interactive whiteboard. Watch the video clip and create a class response to add to the challenge. Alternately, each student can take the challenge in a writing journal. These videos and challenges make for a fun introductory activity to use as a writing warm up. They have the added benefit of introducing new words and vocabulary. There are 20 videos and challenges total, so these could be a regular feature in your class. If you have access to a computer for every student, students can complete the writing challenges online and view other students responses to the challenge.

Tips: Click on the “For Teacher” tab next to each mission for the correlated standards that each challenge meets.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using the The Write-n-ator in your classroom!

57 Ways to Celebrate National Literacy Day

September 8, 2010Kelly Tenkely8 Comments9273 views

Did you know that today is National Literacy Day? It is! I think that literacy is something to celebrate, being literate is a gift I enjoy every day but don’t stop to appreciate nearly enough. In honor of National Literacy Day, I thought I would share my favorite technology enhanced literacy tools. In no particular order, here are my favorite ways to celebrate literacy. What are your favorites?

1. Save the Words– an excellent site that values language, vocabulary, and words.

2. Grammaropolis– an enchanting site that teaches students parts of speech through character and story.

3. Signed Stories– an online story collection accompanied by British Sign Language, pictures, and sound.

4. Learn Direct– where students can be the star in their own online storybook.

5. Inkless Tales– a literacy website with a beautiful mission statement “You can do anything. Try, try again. Don’t give up. Experiment. Write, draw, explore and more.”

6. Storybird- a beautiful collaborative storytelling website.

7. My English Images– images that illustrate difficult vocabulary and language concepts.

8. Lexipedia– a visual dictionary and thesaurus.

9. Tikatok– Students become published authors with Tikatok

10. Free Reading– an open source instructional program to help you teach early literacy.

11. Word World– a great site for kindergarten and first grade letter and word recognition.

12. Reading Rockets– free reading guides for teachers to improve reading achievement of kids.

13. Super Why! – a site that helps kids gain important foundational reading skills such as alphabet, word families, spelling, comprehension, and vocabulary.

14. Get Ready to Read!– a great site that helps teachers equip children with the basic skills necessary for learning to read.

15. Roy the Zebra– Excellent site for emerging readers.

16. Fable Vision– the beautiful virtual town filled with stories and games.

17. Kidoons– brings time honored tales from the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, Charles Perrault, Thorton Burgess, and more to life.

18. GameGoo– fun educational games that help students develop reading and language skills.

19. Read Write Think– a collection of online student resources that support literacy learning k-12.

20. Seussville– the wonderful world of Dr. Seuss brought to life.

21. Digital Booktalk– book trailers that will whet your students appetite for a good book.

22. Storybook Web– a website based on popular children’s stories where students can listen to author’s reading excerpts.

23. Mee Genius– where students can read books, personalize them, and share them with a friend.

24. Stage’d- a tool that helps students tell stories digitally.

25. Kerpoof– where students can create their own storybooks, comics, and movies.

26. Lightning Bug– “your writing partner, helping you write a story from beginning to THE END.”

27. ePubBud– for publishing your very own ebooks.

28. Magic Treehouse- a wonderful website where students can engage in the popular book series.

29. The Stacks– a wonderful creation by Scholastic that excites students about reading.

30. The World of Peter Rabbit– an absolutely captivating site based on the work of Beatrix Potter.

31. My Hippo Has the Hiccups– a free poetry ebook by Kenn Nesbitt.

32. Weboword– a visual vocabulary site.

33. N ational Geographic Young Explorer– non-fiction for the primary classroom from National Geographic.

34. Online Audio Stories- an impressive collection of free audio stories.

35. Story Nory– another collection of free audio books for kids.

36. Skratch Track– a virtual bookshelf for primary students.

37. Picture Book Maker– a place for students to create picture books.

38. Story Cove– a collection of stories from around the world.

39. Skype an Author Network– connects teachers, students, and authors over Skype.

40. Word Ahead Vocabulary Videos– animated vocabulary videos.

41. My Story Maker– a website where students are in charge of the interactive story.

42. Book Wink– an incredible site that motivates students to read through podcasts and web video.

43. Scholastic Story Starters– a tool that generates writing ideas.

44. Telescopic Text– a site that expands a sentence to demonstrate descriptive writing.

45. The Tale of Despereaux Adventure- a beautiful interactive story book.

46. Literactive- leveled guided readers, comprehensive phonics activities, and supplemental reading material.

47. Pic Lits- a creative writing site based on pictures.

48. Speakaboos– a collection of online stories and ebooks.

49. Animailia– a site based on the popular book by Graeme Base.

50. Mrs. P’s Magic Library– an absolutely enchanting site that celebrates books and reading.

51. Free Rice– practice vocabulary while helping others fight hunger.

52. Shelfari– a virtual bookshelf.

53. Read to Feed- Heifer International reading project for kids.

54. Into the Book– an outstanding site that teaches reading strategies for comprehension.

55. Google Lit Trips– exploring literature using Google Earth.

56. Starfall– a must see website for phonics.

57. Book Adventure– a free reading motivation program.

But the very best way to celebrate National Literacy Day…read a book!