words – Page 2 – iLearn Technology

Big Huge Thesaurus

November 23, 2009Kelly Tenkely3 Comments2061 views

What it is: Big Huge Thesaurus is a must add to your classroom publishing center. The tag line of Big Huge Thesaurus says it all: “synonyms, antonyms, and rhymes (oh my!)”. Big Huge Thesaurus goes beyond other online thesauruses by giving students a wealth of synonyms (for each part of speech), words that sound like the original word, and rhyming words. When students find a word that they are curious about, they can click the link and it will send that word through the Big Huge Thesaurus.

How to integrate Big Huge Thesaurus into the classroom: If you have classroom computers, set up a writing/publishing center where students have all the resources they need to write. Big Huge Thesaurus should be one of those resources. Students can visit the writing center to add richness and interest to their stories, poems, and other writing. This Thesaurus does an excellent job of breaking down words. Use Big Huge Thesaurus on an interactive whiteboard or projector when learning new vocabulary. Type in the vocabulary word and have students construct its meaning using the synonyms that are generated.

Tips: I learned about Big Huge Thesaurus on Twitter this morning from several of my PLN. If you aren’t on Twitter with other educators, I highly recommend joining and following the fine folks I follow!

Leave a comment and share how you are using Big Huge Thesaurus in your classroom.

Kids Spell

October 22, 2009Kelly Tenkely2 Comments2167 views

What it is: Kids Spell is another fun website for students to practice their spelling words on. Students can choose to practice their own spelling words or practice spelling in general with the “select a spelling list” feature. Kids Spell gives students a place to create their own spelling list and provides a unique url where they can access the list again and again. After students have entered their spelling words, they can choose to practice them with eight games.

How to integrate Kids Spell into the classroom: Because Kids Spell creates a unique URL to access saved spelling lists, it is an easy way for students to practice spelling from school or home. Just link to the spelling list from your classroom website, blog, wiki, or in your weekly newsletter. Bookmark the URL on classroom computers and create a spelling center that your students can visit throughout the week during literacy. Students can use the Kids Spell generic spelling lists to help them practice for a spelling bee type competition.

Tips: Be sure to let parents know about Kids Spell, they are always looking for new ways to help their children study. Games make spelling practice throughout the week much less painful!

Related Resources: Spelling City, Spelling Wizard, Spellitis, Word Safari

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Kids Spell in your classroom.

Word Safari

October 11, 2009October 11, 2009Kelly Tenkely1 Comment2062 views

What it is: Word Safari is an entertaining little game where students can enter and practice their spelling words. Kids can practice seven spelling words at a time by entering any seven of their spelling words. Students can choose from three difficulty levels for their game (this just speeds up the letters). The game puts students in a jungle. Their character is holding onto balloons and floating through the air. The target spelling word is in the upper left hand corner of the screen. As the character floats through the air, letters pass by. The goal is to “run” into the letters needed to spell the spelling word by moving the character into the letters.

How to integrate Word Safari into the classroom: While I don’t think this game could be used as the sole method for learning spelling words, it does provide students with extra exposure to their spelling words and that is always a good thing! This little game would make a great spelling center in the classroom. Students could take turns at the center playing Word Safari once through. Send the Word Safari URL home with students so that they can play at home. Parents are always looking for fun ways to get in a little extra spelling practice.

Tips: Another great site from my PLN on Twitter, I don’t remember who originated the tweet because their were several re-tweets. So, thank you to all for this fun spelling practice site!

Related Resources: Spelling City, Spelling Wizard, Spellitis

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Word Safari Typing in your classroom.

Word Ahead Vocabulary Videos

July 28, 2009Kelly Tenkely1 Comment2319 views

What it is: Word Ahead Vocabulary Videos has an amazing collection of animated videos that help increase student vocabulary. The extensive collection of videos can be used for study, SAT preparation, and increased word understanding. The Word Ahead study room provides students with a distraction free environment with vocabulary videos and flash cards. New vocabulary videos are uploaded regularly. Students can join Word Ahead for free and have a new vocabulary video sent to them each day (think word of the day 2.0). Want to inspire some creativity in your classroom? Students can create and upload their own vocabulary videos. Each video is reviewed before posting to ensure appropriateness.

How to integrate Word Ahead Vocabulary Videos into the classroom: Word Ahead Vocabulary Videos are an excellent way to expand and enrich student vocabulary. The video format will help solidify new words for students. Register to get a new video emailed to you each day. Share these videos with your students as a precursor to class. Make the vocabulary video word the word of the day. Challenge students to use the word throughout the day. Word Ahead is also a great site to use with English language learners. The videos are a fantastic way for students to visually increase vocabulary development. As an extension activity, take vocabulary from class curriculum and have students create their own vocabulary video to upload to Word Ahead.

Tips: Tell parents about Word Ahead Vocabulary Videos, they are always looking for great sites to help their kids study.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Word Ahead Vocabulary Videos in your classroom.

Visuwords

June 18, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2450 views

What it is: Another fantastic visual dictionary, Visuwords shows a graphical representation of words and word relationships. Students can view word meanings and associations. Search for any word and immediately get word connections, find out which words are similar, an instance of, a substance of, a part of, a member of, a verb group, an opposite, a causes, entails, and offers suggestions for other words to see. Parts of speech are color coordinated so students can tell at a glance which part of speech the word is. When students hover the mouse over a word the definition pops up on the word.

How to integrate Visuwords into the classroom: Visuwords is a great way for students to learn vocabulary. Leave Visuwords projected on an interactive whiteboard or on a projector during any whole class reading session. As students come upon unfamiliar words, they can use Visiwords to look up the word. Discuss the word relationships and meanings as a class. Visuwords is a lot like Lexipedia, it may be more visually friendly for primary grades. Set up Visuwords on classroom computers as a writing center. During writing, students can visit the center and search for synonyms and antonyms that will enhance writing. Visuwords can be used as an introduction to any new learning, type in key vocabulary from new learning. Encourage students to guess what the new learning may be about based on the word connections.

Tips: Visuwords uses Prinston University’s WordNet, an opensource database.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Visuwords in your classroom.

Lexipedia

June 18, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment3201 views

What it is: Lexipedia is an amazing site for learning about words and word relationships. Just type in a word to look it up on Lexipedia and in seconds you will have a web of words complete with definitions. Lexipedia gives all nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, fuzzynyms, synonyms, and antonyms for the word. Students can choose to see all of these words at once or choose to show only one type of result. When students hover their mouse over a word, the definition pops up over the word. Students get an immediate visual of word relationships.

How to integrate Lexipedia into the classroom: Lexipedia is the perfect site to use during any literacy lesson. This site is an excellent resource to stretch and build student vocabulary. Use Lexipedia with an interactive whiteboard or projector during reading. When the class comes upon an unfamiliar word, invite a student to type the word into the search. Read the definition as a class and look at the synonyms and word connections. Bookmark Lexipedia on classroom computers for easy access. During writing, students can use Lexipedia as a editing center where they enhance their writing with vivid verbs and adjectives. Lexipedia is also an excellent place to start when learning a new science concept. Type key vocabulary into Lexipedia and encourage students to guess what science concepts they will be learning based on the vocabulary and word connections. This visual dictionary and thesaurus goes above and beyond and will increase your student’s vocabulary and word understanding exponentially!

Tips: I learned about this outstanding site from rmbyrne on his fantastic blog. Such a great, useful find!

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Lexipedia in your classroom.

The Children’s University of Manchester

April 30, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment1744 views

What it is: The Children’s University of Manchester is a site created by the University of Manchester that has some excellent mini-lessons and interactive lessons for students on a variety of science, history, literacy, and art topics. Topics include the body and medicines, energy and the environment, ancient Egypt, the earth and beyond, teeth and eating, micro organisms, the brain and senses, talking textiles, and words. Each lesson is like an interactive text book where students are engaged in and discover learning. Each lesson includes an interactive lesson, downloadable resources, educational games, and videos. The level of interaction is outstanding for helping students to learn about each topic.

How to integrate The Children’s University of Manchester into the classroom: The interactive lessons on this site are perfect for instructing whole class using an interactive whiteboard. During the interactive lesson, students can be called on to interact with the material. Most lessons will have enough opportunities to involve the whole class. The site is also ideal for individual instruction in the computer lab setting. Introduce students to a new topic with these mini lessons, videos, and educational games that can be expanded on as part of a larger unit. These mini-lessons begin with a bio of a scientist, historian, etc. in the field of the topic. Read these bio’s together as a class and discuss these real-world applications to the topic being studied.

Tips: Computers will need Flash installed to display The Children’s University of Manchester lessons, games, and interactive activities.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using The Children’s University of Manchester in your classroom.

Telescopic Text

April 6, 2009Kelly Tenkely1 Comment3227 views

What it is: Telescopic Text is a very simple website that could be very handy in the language arts classroom. The site starts off with a very simple sentence: I made tea. Each time you click on a word, the sentence expands adding adjectives, adverbs, and makes the sentence more interesting.

How to integrate Telescopic Text into the classroom: Use Telescopic Text to teach your students about creative, descriptive writing and how to improve writing with descriptive words. Compare and contrast what students knew about the sentence “I made tea.” at the beginning and how each addition of words helped them understand more about the original statement. This can be done as a whole class using an interactive whiteboard or a computer with a projector. Students can take turns clicking on words to expand the statement with discussion after each addition. This is a great exercise to use before writing. Have the students write their own simple sentence and expand it into a story with the addition of descriptive words.

Tips: The highlighted words are those that can be expanded by clicking.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Telescopic Text in your classroom.

Spell with Flickr

April 3, 2009Kelly Tenkely4 Comments2364 views

What it is: Spell with Flickr is a site that has been around for a while but I was reminded of it again this week when I used it with my students for a project. Type any word or name into the Spell with Flickr website and the site will pull letter pictures from Flickr to spell out the word in pictures. You can click on each letter to get a new picture and when you are satisfied with your picture word, you can drag and drop the word onto a desktop to use later or you can copy code to embed on a website, blog, or wiki.

How to integrate Spell with Flickr into the classroom: Spell with Flickr is a simple but neat website to use in the classroom. Students can use Spell with Flickr to type in and practice their spelling words, to create titles for reports, to spell out their name for an auto biography poem, and to practice letter recognition. Teachers can use Spell with Flickr as a fun way to create titles for bulletin boards, classroom signs, to make a unique word wall, or to make an alphabet banner. Spell with Flickr can also be used on wikis and blogs making it perfect for fun titles. Create an alphabet book, phonics blends book, or sight word book out of Spell with Flickr pictures.

Tips: If you aren’t happy with the pictures that were chosen for your letters, click on the picture for a new one.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Spell with Flickr in your classroom.

Count Us In

August 14, 2008August 14, 2008Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment1749 views

What it is: Count Us In is a fun basic math skill site with 15 interactive games that teach kids basic math skills. These include counting, patterning, counting, ordinal numbers, representing number with words, addition, subtraction, sorting and grouping, time, numbers, chance, halves, length, and volume. The flash based games can be played online or downloaded to a Mac or PC for offline play.

How to integrate Count Us In into the classroom:
These are great games to teach kids basic math concepts. The site is good for individual use in a computer lab, or center group use in a classroom setting. Students can work at their own level, going onto the next game after they have mastered one. The games can be used to help teach concepts or as review and practice for math skills. The site is best for k-1 students or struggling math students in second grade. The site is also perfect for an interactive whiteboard. Call students up to the board to interact with the games individually or split your class into teams to play the games.

Tips: Visit the “other activities” section of the Count Us In website for some great teacher resources including well thought out activities to use with the games on the website.

Leave a comment and share how you are using Count Us In in your classroom.