Talking SMARTBoards & Much More!

Sharing an interesting site that has been talked about by several people called- Tar Heel Reader . I think I first learned of this site from the amazing Paul Hamilton over on his blog Free Resources from the NET for Every Learner. Tar Heal Reader offers a collection of free, easy to read and accessible books in several different topics. Each book can be speech enabled- the speech controls are on the left of the screen on the title page.  These books can be downloaded in PowerPoint, Impress or Flash format.  This site also gives you the option to write your own book (you need to register for a free account to access this feature). The books present well on the SMARTBoard and also work well for those students who require switch access. ENJOY!

Want to share another great site from the BBC– KS1 Bitesize Games.  This addresses two areas: Literacy and Numeracy.  Both present with several subcategories including addition, multiplication, money skills under numeracy and spelling, alphabetical order, phonics under literacy.  Each category has three skill level options, presents with some verbal feedback, is animated and fun!  These games work well with the SMARTBoard. So if you’re searching for some fun, motivating games to reinforce literacy and numeracy skills look no more– just click on over to KS1 Bitesize Games. ENJOY!

I am finally reading the Tweets from the NECC this year- there were so many great resources shared.   Five Card Flickr is one site that I found to be quite interesting. It reminds me somewhat of PicLits, which I wrote about in January, since both incorporate pictures to inspire creative writing skills.  You are dealt a set of random images from Flickr and asked to pick five, one from each set.  The next step is to create/write a story depicting the images.  This activity can be a fun, inspiring way to motivate students to write.  For a class project you could use the SMART Board when picking the photos and have students write individual essays and then compare and contrast. ENJOY!

I stumbled across this great site that has intrigued me, called One Word .  The premise is simple– when you click the go button one word will appear on the screen and you have 60 seconds to write about the word.  This would be a very nice, fun, engaging activity to motivate students to practice writing skills.  As the site states “don’t think. just write.”

I also wanted to mention another site that I find to be very interesting and that is Save The Words.  The premise is that you chose a word to “adopt” and ultimately “save”.  You click on one of the words that appears on the screen and anther text box will appear with it’s definition, a sentence using the word and the option for you to adopt the word.  Very clever!!!  I know a Middle School ELA teacher who visits this site once a week with her classes to help increase their vocabulary awareness.  She assigns extra credit if students actually adopt words and incorporate these words into their writing assignments– how cooool!!! ENJOY!

I have been intrigued by the free Loggel.com Lifelog site.  Many view a lifelog as a modern way to write a diary or travel log, but I think it has potential in the classroom for digital storytelling, especially since in addition to text, you can add images, audio files and videos.  I can envision this tool as being a creative alternative for students to present research information, inspire writing, document important events during the school year,  etc. The entries are either positioned on a timeline or on a map.  You can even make entries from your mobile phone.  One feature that I liked is the fact that you can keep your Lifelog private so that students would have the authority to when their work would be shared.  The completed Loggel presents well on the SMART Board. ENJOY!

The Plurals Girls is a fun game on FunBrain.com that reinforces identifying plurals.  “Twin sisters Pearl and Flora lost their friends in the bubble machine. Help them get their friends out by choosing the correct plural form of the given word.”With each correct answer a friend appears from the bubble machine. 8 correct answers ends the game. There are two difficulty levels for each game.  The multiple choice options work well with the SMARTBoard since the game gives you two answers and you simply touch your answer.  With the fill in the blank options you need to type/spell your answers.  You could utilize the SMART On-Screen Keyboard to type the answers, as long as the cursor is in the answer box.

So if you need a game to reinforce/practice plurals head on over and introduce yourself to The Plural Girls, Pearl and Flora, they’re sure to make you smile- ENJOY!

I have been wanting to write about Wallwisher since learning about it during a workshop this past spring.  Wallwisher is basically an online message board maker– kind of reminds me of the message boards we all had hanging on our dorm doors at college, except this is virtual and no special markers needed! One of the nice features of Wallwisher is that there is no registration needed and once you create a board all that is needed is for members to click, write and post- very simple, very intuitive, very fun!  Once you create your message board you are given the URL for that board to share with people who you want to invite to comment on your board.  I have used this as a way to have students make comments/respond to specific articles/topics. I also hope to use this as one of our wiki assignments this year.  To initiate class discussion it is very effective to present the message board using the SMART Board.  I should also mention that in addition to writing a response participants can also add videos, pictures and music to a post. Below is an example of a Wallwisher. ENJOY!

I learned of this very powerful, thought provoking video on Twitter from Naomi Harm called The Miniature Earth. Click on the language you would like to view it in– English, French, Spanish, etc.– and watch.  The premise of the movie is to demonstrate what the world would look like if the population was reduced to only 1oo people.  The statistics are very eye opening.  This would be a wonderful video to share with middle and highs school studentsvto elicit conversation about world hunger and poverty and the need to accept differences in our cultures and beliefs. Also a great video to share with staff. The video is very powerful.  It would present well on the SMARTBoard and could easily be incorporated into a variety of lessons. ENJOY!

I learned of an interesting word visualization site that I wanted to share called Wordsift. In some ways it reminds me a little of Wordle in that it allows you to copy and paste text to create a word cloud of the 50 most used words in the text, ordered alphabetically.   Wordsift also offers additional features, however, such as Google image results of the two most used words in the text, a word web (visual thesaurus) for the most frequently used word and it also displays the sentences in the text with the most frequently used word.  You can click on any of those sentences to see where it appears within the entire text. Here is a link to a great demo video explaining all of the features along with giving some classroom applications. There is no registration required and it is free to access, however there is no way to save your work. ENJOY!

I was searching for some online poetry sites and came across a great post from the Making Teachers Nerdy site that I wanted to share. Mrs. Smoke shared a very comprehensive list of sites to use when teaching poetry lessons.  Many of these site would work well with the SMARTBoard.  So if you’re planning any poetry units you might want to pop over and check out Mrs. Smoke’s Ode To Poetry- ENJOY!