word wall – iLearn Technology

Book Writer: create books on the iPad

October 21, 2013Kelly Tenkely4 Comments28877 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)

Image Chef

July 21, 2009July 23, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment3415 views

What it is: Image Chef is a great little web tool that takes words and transforms them into a graphical image. Image Chef is similar in look to Wordle but works a little differently. In Wordle, the size of the word changes based on how frequently the word was used in the text. In Image Chef, the word size doesn’t change based on how frequently it is used in the text. Image Chef takes the words typed in a text box, and displays them in a word mosaic. Image Chef has a variety of shapes and symbols to choose from. Any text entered will be displayed in the shape selected. Registered users can also create their own shapes to display text graphically. Image Chef has the added bonus of graphically displaying text inside letters. The look of the image can be changed by adjusting font, text color, background color, and symbol or initial. Individual words can be highlighted by changing the color and clicking on a word in the mosaic. Word mosaics can be shared on blogs, emailed, printed, or saved on Image Chef.

How to integrate Image Chef into the classroom: Image Chef is a fun web tool for displaying words in new and interesting ways. My favorite feature of Image Chef is the ability to create word mosaics inside letters. This feature would be a good way for students to practice phonics. For example, students could create a letter “a” word mosaic filled with short a words (see my example above). Students could type blends inside of the blend letters, long and short vowel words, r-conrolled words, etc. These word mosaics could be printed out and bound into a phonics booklet for students, or displayed on a word wall. Image Chef mosaics would also be a great way for students to explore synonyms. Students can type synonyms into the text box and find or create an appropriate symbol to represent the words. Image Chef would make for a fun first week of school activity. Students could type in their initials as the shape for the word mosaic. In the text field, they can type in words that represent them. Print these out and display on a bulletin board next to student pictures. For older students, Image Chef could be used to create a large periodic table of elements. Choose the initials that represent the element on the periodic table and type the name of the element in the text box to fill the initials. Create a large periodic table for the classroom with the printed elements.

Tips: I learned about this awesome web tool from a tweet by @njtechteacher, definitely a teacher to follow this #teachertuesday! When you click on the Image Chef Link you will be taken to the Image Chef homepage (the site contains much more than just the word mosaic) To create a word mosaic click on “Word Mosaic” under “Create” in the left column of the website.

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

Magnetic Poetry

April 6, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2205 views

What it is: Magnetic Poetry is a virtual edition of magnetic fridge poetry. Students can choose from four kits to create their ‘magnetic’ poem. There is Kids Kit, First Words, Best Friends, and Storymaker. After students have chosen a kit they can choose from three backgrounds for their poetry (refrigerator, locker, or whiteboard). Students are given a virtual tub of words to choose from that they can drag, arrange, and rearrange to create a poem or story. When they are finished, students can send their Magnetic Poetry to an email address or save it for later viewing on the site.

How to integrate Magnetic Poetry into the classroom: Magnetic Poetry is a great site to use in April as part of national poetry month. This site is wonderful for those students who are hindered by spelling (you know the students who will only write with words they know how to spell). Students can pull from the word bank of words to create a story or poem that can be saved, sent to an email address, or printed out as a draft and turned into a published piece. This would be a fun website to use with the whole class and an interactive whiteboard, encourage your students to take turns adding words to a class poem or story. This would also make a great center activity for students to visit and create with during the week.

Tips: If a student saves their poem, they are granting permission for the site to use their poem as a possible example on the site or on packaging.

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

Spell with Flickr

April 3, 2009Kelly Tenkely4 Comments2365 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.

Crick Web Literacy Resources

October 3, 2008Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2137 views

What it is: Crick Web Literacy Resource is an excellent collection of interactive games for language development and practice in students. The resources are excellent for individual student play, literacy group student play, or whole classroom play with an interactive white board. Games include hangman, alphabetical order, collective nouns, compound words, sticky letters, matching pairs, street scene labels, seaside postcard, spelling checker, story sequencer, instruction sequencer, verb links, word dice, spelling word tester and word selector. Yes, it is a treasure trove of literacy activities!

How to integrate Crick Web Literacy Resources into the classroom: The Crick Web Resources can be easily integrated into your current literacy curriculum as an enrichment. The activities fit right along side lessons you are already teaching but make them interactive for students. I really like the Word Dice activity because students (or teacher) can add their own words to the dice to roll them. The dice would be great for teaching nouns and adjectives (or any part of speech) on an interactive whiteboard or with a projector. The dice are also outstanding for playing games unique to your classroom (maybe one that you created!) The Sticky letters lets students create their own word wall or can be used with a projector for a class word wall. I was also very impressed with the Spelling Rule Tester which helps students learn the rule for making singular nouns plural. Students can input their own singular nouns and type what they think the plural is and then click on the tester to see if they are correct. Take a look at the activities and see how they fit into your curriculum… my guess is that you will find at least one keeper in the group!

Tips: If the Crick Web Literacy Resources look too difficult for your students, click on the Key Stage 1 tab at the top of the site for additional resources for younger students.

Leave a comment and share how you are using Crick Web Literacy Resources in your classroom.

Bubblr!

January 16, 2008Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment3426 views

What it is: Bubblr! is a tool to create comic strips using photos from flickr.com. You can use others public images or images from your own flickr.com account.

How to integrate Bubblr! into the classroom: Bubblr! would be a wonderful site to use after a class field trip. Have a parent (or yourself) take pictures during the field trip. Create a flickr (www.flickr.com) account for your class. Upload the photos to the flickr account for use in the Bubblr! project. Students can create comic strips with the field trip pictures documenting the learning experience in a fun way. Bubblr! would also be fun to use for character education. Take picture of different scenarios (for example, a student taking a toy away from another student). Upload these pictures to Flickr and have students use Bubblr! to show what the different characters might be thinking and possible solutions to the problem. Bubblr! could also be used to help create a word wall…find pictures that represent words and add the word to the comic. Print out and create a Bubblr! word wall. Pictures can be found by keyword (tags) or by user. When students are finished with their comic strips they have the option of sending them via email, printing, or posting on a blog.

Tips: Since Flickr and Bubblr! are online applications, be sure that you have permission to post student pictures on either site.

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