writing – Page 7 – iLearn Technology

FontStruct

January 30, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment1954 views

What it is: FontStruct is a free website that lets students build, share, and download fonts that they create in a simple font editor. First students name their font, then they use the font editor to draw each character of the alphabet using font bricks and a grid system. After each character has been created, the font can be downloaded and added to the fonts folder to be used in any word processing program or desktop presentation program.

How to integrate FontStruct into the classroom: It would be fun to come up with a class font where each student is responsible for a letter in the font. The font could be used for typing practice, or as a header for newsletters that go home each week. FontStruct is a motivating environment for students to practice forming their letters. They love knowing that they created a font of their very own. The fonts can be used for anything, I have found that my students love creating a font and using it for typing practice or as titles for projects or slide shows. If you are creating a class font, this can be done on an interactive whiteboard or on a classroom computer. If each student will be creating their own font, individual computers are needed.

Tips: FontStruct does require registration with an email address. In my class, I created a school username and password so that each student didn’t have to register for an account individually.

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

Myths and Legends

January 16, 2009Kelly Tenkely1 Comment4220 views

What it is: Myths and Legends is an awesome, free, online digital story telling website. I heard about the website through @kjarrett. The story creator lets students combine pictures that they compose with clip art or images that they upload, sound, and words to create a digital story. The stories can be saved, printed, and shared. Students can record themselves reading the story aloud and even add video! The website is pretty comprehensive as far as online digital storytelling tools go, I am impressed!

How to integrate Myths and Legends into the classroom: Myths and Legends is a great way to get your students interested and eager to write. The digital story telling format gives students a unique opportunity to express themselves creatively. Many of your reluctant writers will jump at the chance to create a story in this manner because it doesn’t “feel” like writing. They don’t get stuck looking at that blank piece of paper and feeling overwhelmed by the task ahead of them. I have found that students write more, and the quality of work is better when they create digital stories that are shared later with the whole class. In the one or two computer classroom you can set up a digital storytelling writing center that students can work at, in the lab setting whole classes can create at the same time, and as a whole class with an interactive whiteboard or projector, the entire class can create a story together.

Tips: Each student should sign up and register for a free account so that they can save their work. As a teacher you can also sign up for a school account where you can login and review all of your students work online.

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

Pic Lits

January 14, 2009Kelly Tenkely6 Comments6439 views

What it is: Pic Lits is a really neat creative writing site that provides pictures and a word bank for students to create a enriched sentence or sentences about the picture. “The object is to put the right words in the right place and the right order to capture the essence, story, and meaning of the picture.” Students can choose to only drag words from the word bank to create their sentence or compose a sentence freestyle.

How to integrate Pic Lits into the classroom: Pic Lits is a great way to get students to think creatively and critically about writing. Students can choose any picture and then use the word list to create a sentence. Pic Lits is complete with punctuation and any word can be capatalized. Students can use Pic Lits individually on computers, as a whole class with a projector, or as a creative writing center in the one or two computer classroom. When using Pic Lits as a class, choose a picture for the day and have students write their sentences on paper using words from the word bank. Take turns sharing to hear the combination of words and the different meanings that students gathered from the picture. This is a great writing exercise to use in your classroom every day! Here in Colorado, we often have indoor recesses for bad weather. Use Pic Lits with an interactive whiteboard and invite your cooped up students to choose pictures and create sentences.

Tips: Students can sign up for a free account and save each Pic Lit they create. At the end of the year, each student can create a book of their Pic Lits to take home for creative inspiration.

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

Secret Builders

December 15, 2008Kelly Tenkely6 Comments3371 views

What it is: You have undoubtedly heard of virtual world Second Life and its growing popularity in the education realm. Second life has some amazing educational opportunities for older students (students must be 13 years or older to have an account) but nothing for the elementary age student. Enter Secret Builders, an enchanting virtual world designed specifically for elementary age children. Virtual worlds like this are highly engaging for all ages and allow students to interact with each other in new ways. Secret Builders can be used to supplement different topics including literature, arts, science, and humanities. One of my favorite features, is the ability for students to interact with historical figures like Albert Einstein, William Shakespeare, Alice in Wonderland, Galileo, and more! Students can visit these historical figures homes and ask them questions. There is a magazine in Secret Builders called The Crooked Pencil where students can submit writing to be published. There are learning games to play that, like Free Rice, donate to a charitable cause for correct answers. Students build up points by completing quests and can use the points to purchase things in Secret Builders.

How to integrate Secret Builders into the classroom: Secret Builders is a really neat site, students will love the online world and ability to connect with other students online. Secret Builders is more than just a ‘game’ sort of site though, there is a lot of learning to be done here! Students can build netiquette skills, computer skills, and learn about humanities, arts and literature all in Secret Builders. Students can write stories in Writers Block, go on a quest which requires logic skills and weaves in arts and humanities, perform a play in the Theater, solve puzzles, and interact with others. This is a really neat alternative to worksheets and traditional story writing. I think that the opportunity for students to interact with historical figures and tour their virtual home is fantastic! I hope that they continue to add historical figures, I would have loved this sort of history environment! The ability for students to play games and earn real money for charities is a wonderful motivator for students and great for building character education.

Tips: Secret Builders encourages student and teacher suggestions, if you have an idea, let them know…you may just add the next cool feature to the Secret Builders world! Take a look at the Teacher page for some great classroom tie-ins and features.

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

Speakaboos

December 12, 2008Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment4183 views

What it is: Some websites are so impressive that I immediately spam all teachers in my address book with them. Speakaboos is one of these sites for me. I learned about the site from the Free Technology for Teachers blog (I highly recommend it for middle and high school teachers). Speakaboos is a collection of online children stories read by celebrities (although this is not what impresses me). Each story is read aloud with flash illustrations and the words on each page for read-along. The stories are captivating and include popular titles like Arthur and Curious George. This highly engaging website has some other features that make this one of my favorite website finds of the year. When you sign up for a free membership, Speakaboos offers a free story download. The download is a swf (flash) file but can be converted with a site like Zamzar to make it iPod ready (aka mobile learning!). They plan to add more free downloads throughout the year. Parents can also purchase individual stories iTunes style for $0.99. Speakaboos has a feature coming for parents, students, grandparents, teachers, etc. to record their own stories! Speakaboos offers several activities for students including a diary to write in, a place to create their own story, games, ecards, and printable coloring pages from their favorite stories. Speakaboos is in beta version right now so some of the above features are not yet active.

How to integrate Speakaboos into the classroom: Speakaboos stories and activities are a fun and engaging way to develop students reading, writing, and speaking abilities while learning basic computer skills. The Record your own Story feature is a wonderful way for students to practice fluency, it is also a great feature for struggling readers who can listen for mistakes that they make during reading. Older students could make recordings for their younger reading buddies to enjoy. The ability to download select stories for free is amazing for an iPod reading lab. Speakaboos is a great reading or writing center for students to visit in the one or two computer classroom. It would also make a nice whole class read along using a projector. Speakaboos offers free story guides for teachers to help lead discussions on each story. The guides come complete with themes to help reinforce the story message and offer questions to check general comprehension, discussion, and personal extension. There are also printables that you can use with your class in conjunction with the Speakaboos site.

Tips: Membership on Speakaboos is free and provides access to the free downloads.

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

Northpole.com

December 9, 2008Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2558 views

What it is: Northpole.com is a fun Christmas themed website for kids pre-k through 3rd grade. Students can work on fine motor skills with activities like connect the dots, connect the dashes, and mazes. You will also find great Christmas time activities to help build letter recognition, sound recognition, vocabulary, numbers, ordinal numbers, right and left, and size. Students can practice writing skills with a letter to Santa or a holiday postcard. Northpole.com has printable awards and diplomas for students who complete the activities. Northpole.com also has a number of online Christmas stories that students can read on their own or have read to them. My favorite feature are the personalized stories. Students fill in their name and some other information and Northpole.com creates a story with the student as the main character that they can immediately read online!

How to integrate Northpole.com into the classroom: Use the outstanding activities on Northpole.com during the holiday season to teach and reinforce fine motor skills, alphabet, numbers, reading, and writing. Set up your classroom computer as a personalized story generator. Throughout the week, allow students to read a story about themselves during silent reading time.

Tips: The teacher page at Northpole.com gives a great break down of the site so you can find exactly what you are looking for.

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

Pocket Manila

December 1, 2008Kelly Tenkely1 Comment2788 views

What it is: Pocket Manila is a site that provides online notebooks that can be used as a journal, blog, idea bank, photo album, portfolio, group blog, ezine, story book, and more. Pocket Manila is unique because it feels like a canvas-bound, manila paper journal. Pocket Manila makes it feel like you are writing in a real notebook. The pages turn, writing and pictures automatically flow to the next page and are sized correctly for the page. Students can easily change the look of their notebooks with colors and themes. The control panel is simple, streamlined and easy to use.

How to integrate Pocket Manila into the classroom: Use Pocket Manila in a creative writing classroom as a creative writing journal. Students can work on their writing wherever they have an Internet connection without having to remember to tote their journals everywhere they go. Pocket Manila’s sharing ability makes it wonderful for collaboration in writing classes. Students can read and comment on each others writing, leaving constructive criticism right in their journals. Pocket Manila is also great used in the science classroom as a place to take lab notes, record observations and the scientific method. Teachers can use Pocket Manila as a place to collect and organize lesson plans, class notes, etc. Younger students can use Pocket Manila to record thoughts about books they are reading, practice their writing. Teachers can comment right in the student notebook.

Tips: I love Pocket Manila because there is something special about having a notebook or writing journal of your own to record thoughts. Those of us who didn’t grow up with the Internet appreciate simple pleasures like notebooks that feel like notebooks and day runners full of sticky notes and scribbled reminders! Pocket Manila provides the nostalgia of a notebook and the convenience and cool factor of digital.

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

Book Punch

September 5, 2008Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2211 views

What it is: Book Punch is a new site dedicated to helping students in grades 3-9 become stronger readers. The site takes the most popular books read by schools in grades 3 through 9 and provides guided reading prompts about the reading improving overall reading comprehension. Book Punch encourages critical thinking skills and teaches students how to be in control of their own learning (this to me is the purpose of education). Students are led through the writing and thinking process as they read books with Book Punch. Interactive prompts help students to focus their thinking about a particular book. There are hundreds of built in tips and support that help students to gather ideas, organize thoughts, revise, edit, etc. in response to the literature they are reading. The site walks them in a very concise manner through the reading/thinking process. Students each get a login to the Book Punch site and can work at their own pace, making it easy for you to differentiate instruction in your classroom. As a teacher, you can assign a book to your whole class or to individual students making it easy to meet every student at their current reading level. The site offers teachers lesson plans, activities, classroom management ideas, tips and strategies, and classroom aids. Book Punch is not a free service, but they offer a free demo writing activity for every book as well as a free pilot program to use with students for 30 days (any two books of your choice.) Even if you can’t fit it into the budget for this year, Book Punch is definitely worth the visit if you teaching reading and writing for 3rd-9th grade. The free demos are wonderful and will give you a great jumping off point for your reading curriculum.

How to integrate Book Punch into the classroom: I LOVE sites that teach students how to think critically. For me, that is what education is all about. If I know how to gather information, how to follow directions, how to write, and how to think critically about what I find…I am going to do just fine in the real world! Book Punch leads students through the reading/thinking process. It meets students where they are at and the helps meet individual needs. The site gives you the opportunity to find out where gaps are occurring in student reading and comprehension so that you can work with students more effectively. Book Punch is intended to be an individual student program that would be best in a computer lab or mobile lab setting. However, depending on how your time is set up, I think that Book Punch could be used effectively in the one or two computer classroom as a center that students visit during reading time. The demo questions would be perfect for use with a projector and whole class discussion or writing. Book Punch works right into your current curriculum and literature, making it simple to implement. The ability for students to login to Book Punch at school or from home makes it an even sweeter deal!

Tips: Try out Book Punch for free and be sure to get it on the budget for next year if you can’t fit it in this year, it is very reasonably priced and well worth it!

Leave a comment and share how you are using Book Punch in your classroom.

Thinkfinity

August 18, 2008August 18, 2008Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment3901 views

What it is: This is a one stop shop for the beginning of your school year but will keep you coming back all year long. Thinkfinity is “the cornerstone of Verizon Foundation’s literacy, education, and technology initiatives.” The site is completely free to use and has outstanding content for educators, students, and parents. Find amazing lesson plans, interactive activities, and other quality online resources. Thinkfinity has over 55,000 standards-based k-12 lesson plans, student materials, interactive tools, and reference materials that are reviewed by the nation’s leading education organizations to ensure the highest quality content. You will find great primary source material, interactive student resources, and even grade specific research lists to tailor materials and searches to meet your needs. Thinkfinity also provides free training and professional development. Some professional development options are online, you can search for Thinkfinity professional development opportunities near you.

How to integrate Thinkfinity into the classroom: Thinkfinity is a one stop shop for standards based lesson plans, interactive games and resources for students, maps, activities, book lists, and much more. Use Thinkfinity to support any of your lessons, themes, or current curriculum. Search for materials by subject (arts, social studies, literacy, mathematics, reading and language arts, science, and geography), by theme, by grade, or resource type. There is also a wonderful keyword search. Start out your year with lessons based on the Olympics in Beijing. Students can learn about the history of the games, sports, athletes, and even the history of Asia. This is a great site for students to complete research on. The sources are accurate and reliable and it is organized well for searching.

Tips: Content partners for Thinkfinity inlcude other top educational sites including Arts Edge, Econ Edlink, Edsitement, Illuminations, Literacy Network, Read Write Think, Science Net Links, Simithsonian National Museum of American History, and National Geographic Xpeditions.

Leave a comment and share how you are using Thinkfinity in your classroom.

Simply the Best Free Fonts

March 26, 2008Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2551 views

What it is: Sometimes all you need is a fresh new font to brighten your day. When they are fabulous and free the day gets even sunnier! Simply the Best Free Fonts is exactly what you would guess, free fonts on the web that are the best. There are fonts for every mood, season, flavor, grade, theme, etc., etc., etc. They are easily categorized and an easy download. I ask you, does it get any better than this?

How to integrate Simply the Best Free Fonts into your curriculum: Aside from making your newsletters, worksheets, and instructions more fun, Simply the Best Free Fonts can be a great motivator for students. Do you have a student who hates to write? Publishing their writing with a fun font may be just the motivation you need. Come on, admit it…don’t we all enjoy writing more when there are great fonts to pep up our words? Kids feel the same! Download a font a week for your kiddos and have them looking forward to typing everything from spelling words to reports.

Tips: Set up some time to explore…if you are like me you lose hours looking at new fonts without realizing that time is passing!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Simply the Best Free Fonts in your classroom.