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.
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