Word Ahead Vocabulary Videos

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on Word Ahead Vocabulary Videos2620 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.

Discover the Forest

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Discover the Forest2911 views

Discover the Forest

What it is: Last week I wrote about an amazing interactive forest called UPM Forest Life.  I found a website today that would be a great site to couple with a UPM Forest Life virtual field trip.  Discover the Forest is a site that has fun games and activities for students to complete online and a great booklet to print out full of activities to complete outside.  After travelling through the UPM Virtual Forest, students can head over to the Discover the Forest website and  listen to animal sounds, create leaf rubbings, learn how to use a compass, and match animal tracks.

How to integrate Discover the Forest into the classroom: Discover the Forest would be an excellent follow-up activity for a virtual field trip (or actual field trip) to a forest.  Students can complete the short online activities as part of a science learning center, or on individual student computers.  Encourage students to use the “Find a Forest or Park Near You” feature to find the nearest forest.  Students can plan a trip to the closest forest complete with a supply checklist, a map, and a checklist of wildlife to look for.  If you are fortunate enough to have a forest nearby, you can print out the “Book of Stuff to do Outside” for students to complete.

Tips: This site has an excellent interactive to teach students how to use a compass, be sure to check it out!  Thank you to @larryferazzo for Tweeting about this fun site!

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Discover the Forest in your classroom.

Image Chef

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Image Chef

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.

Moon in Google Earth

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What it is: Today is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Mission.  I have been following the moon landing on We Choose the Moon.  This is an incredible site that has allowed me to re-live (for the first time) the Apollo 11 mission as if it were happening today.  In honor of this historic day, Google released Google Earth 5.0 complete with Moon view.  With Moon in Google Earth you and your students can take tours of landing sites narrated by Apollo astronauts, view 3-D models of landed spacecraft, zoom into 360* photos of astronauts footprints, and watch rare TV footage of the Apollo missions.

How to integrate Moon in Google Earth into the classroom: Now that the moon has made an appearance in Google Earth, your students can experience the moon and Apollo missions up close and personal.  Space, astronauts, Apollo missions, and the moon were the stuff of legends before the space race took off.  Moon in Google Earth brings back the excitement of the space race allowing students to explore and discover.  This is an excellent virtual field trip to take your students on during any space or moon unit.  Use an interactive whiteboard to discover as a class.  Students can take turns being moon tour guides.  Students could also explore independently keeping their discoveries in a space journal and reporting back to others what they discovered on their journey to the moon.

Tips: Google Earth is a download.  If you need IT to perform downloads for you, be sure that Google Earth makes it on your list of must haves for the school year.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Moon in Google Earth in your classroom.Moon in Google Earth

The Secret in the Cellar

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What it is: A few days ago I wrote about the awesome interactive Smithsonian Museum, today I found another great activity on the Smithsonian website called The Secret in the Cellar.  The Secret in the Cellar is an interactive web comic that is based on an actual forensic case of a 17th century body that was recently discovered.  Through graphics, photos, and activities, students begin to unravel a mystery of historical and scientific importance.  Students can analyze artifacts, and examine the skeleton for clues to determine a cause of death.  Because of the subject matter of this web comic, this activity is best suited for middle school or high school students.

How to integrate The Secret in the Cellar into the classroom: The Secret in the Cellar activities and web comic are a fantastic way to excite students about the history of Colonial life in America and the science behind archeology.  This site takes students on a journey of discovery and critical thinking.  Throughout the web comic, students will find links to additional articles about the actual forensic case and the display at the Smithsonian Museum.  This activity would be best in a computer lab setting where each student can explore at their own pace.  Along the way, encourage students to keep a record of their inferences about how the boy died.  Before students complete the web-comic, discuss what conclusions students have come to based on the evidence.

Tips: Students can dig deeper into this site learning about bones, the lives of colonists, forensic anthropology, and learn more about the related exhibit at the Smithsonian.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using The Secret in the Cellar in your classroom.

Top 100 Language Technology blogs

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I received an email today notifying me that iLearn Technology has been nominated as one of the top 100 language blogs for 2009! iLearn Technology has been nominated in the “Language Technology” category. When I visited the list of nominees I was flattered to be considered along with the other amazing “Language Technology” blogs. I am in great company! 50% of the final score will be based on user voting. If you would like to vote for iLearn Technology you can click on the link below.

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UPM Forest Life

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virtual forest

What it is: UPM Forest Life is an excellent interactive site that lets students explore a forest virtually.  This is the next best thing to actually being in a forest, I can almost smell the pine trees!  UPM Forest Life aims to teach about forest sustainability through an outstanding ‘hike’ through the forest.  Along the way, students can click on points that will reveal videos, pictures with information, and sounds.  Students will learn about forest planning, harvesting, regeneration, respacing, thinning, transport, recreation, training, berry picking, bird watching, hunting, fishing, natural forests, valuable habitats, deadwood, forest structure, water, and native tree species.  Students will also learn about the various animals that call a forest home.  This is an outstanding way for students to learn about tree species, habitat, and animals because it is learning through exploration. UPM Forest Life will teach them in a way that no textbook can.

How to integrate UPM Forest Life into the classroom: Although I am sure we would love to take our students on a field trip to a forest to explore and learn first hand, it isn’t always practical or possible.  UPM Forest Life is a fantastic virtual substitute.  It is so realistic and well done that your students will feel as if they have taken a trip into a forest.  This would be an excellent site to use with an interactive whiteboard.  Allow students to take turns being ‘tour guides’ for the journey.  They can click on the various videos, pictures, and information embedded in the forest.  Create an observation journal where students can jot down observations of trees, animals, and sounds that they expereince while in the forest.  This site would also be a great one for students to visit individually in a computer lab setting.  Be sure that students are equipped with headphones so they can enjoy the full experience of the site.  After students explore the forest, discuss what it means to have a sustainable forest and why it is important.  This site is perfect for the science classroom or Earth Day but it would also work well in the language arts classroom.  Students could use the UPM Forest Life as a writing prompt, after exploring the forest they could write a story with the forest as the setting, or use one of the animals in the forest as a character in the story.  The scenery and sounds in the Forest are so peaceful and restorative, this may be a good site to have going in the background while students silent read…almost like reading above the trees in a tree house!

Tips: I have really enjoyed exploring this site and haven’t closed it since I opened it.  I learned about the UPM Forest Life site from @atkauffman on Twitter, I highly recommend a follow!  Andrew often has great resources for teachers and shares them on Twitter.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using UPM Forest Life in your classroom.

Leadership Day 2009

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Leadership Day 20091062 views

2009leadershipday02

Dr. Scott McLeod of the blog Dangerously Irrelevant put out a challenge for all edu bloggers to write a post related to effective school technology leadership.  Below is my contribution to Leadership Day 2009:

I have found that the biggest hinderance to effective school technology is not a lack of funding, resources, or technology.  The biggest hinderance has been teachers who are unwilling to learn something new.  For me, “life long learner” describes the ideal teacher.  There are many reasons teachers find not to learn to use technologies to increase student learning.  They may be overwhelmed with duties and tasks currently being imposed on them by administration.  They may have lesson plans that they created 20 years ago that they have become so attached to they can’t imagine adjusting or scrapping them.   They may have inadequate technology support so even when they do use technology, it never works properly and they throw in the towel.  They may believe that they don’t have time in the curriculum to add “one more thing”.  They may believe that they don’t have time in general to learn something new.  All of these issues need to be addressed, but at the heart of every teacher needs to live one thing.  A desire to learn.  Excellent teachers need to be constantly learning, and modeling that learning process to the students they teach.  They must be willing to adapt their lessons and teaching as the world changes to properly prepare the students they teach.  For effective school technology implimentation, administrators need to change the culture of the school.  They must nurture and encourage teachers as learners.  They must ensure that teachers have the proper support so that when they do learn to use a new piece of technology, it is working consistently.  I believe if administorators truly transformed the school into a rich learning environment for teachers and students, the technology use would naturally begin to fall into place.

Comics in the Classroom 100 Tips, Tools, and Resources for Teachers

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Comics in the Classroom 100 Tips, Tools, and Resources for Teachers2060 views

A reader tipped me off to this great list of ways to use comics in the classroom.  The list is extremelly comprehensive and includes sections on the benefits of using comics in the classroom, great resources for using comics in the classroom, suggested comics for reading in the classroom, tools for creating comics in the techie classroom, creative ways to use comics in the classroom, lessons plans using comics for elementary/middle/high school classrooms, manga and anime, and free comics for educators.  With 100 tips, tools, ideas, and resources, this list should convince you of the why and how of using comics as teaching tools.  Enjoy!  Comics in the Classroom 100 Tips, Tools, and Resources for Teachers