11.5 More Things - Thing 2

I have used the Wordle tool many times with students. Last year in the library we had the students create a Wordle about their favorite Bluebonnet Nominee. They had to include the title, author, setting, characters, and at least 10 words that described the book and how it made them feel. We were going to post them on my blog, but the district blocked Blogspot, so none of the pictures would appear. Instead we printed them and posted them on the wall outside the library. One of the Wordles is on this blog.


Since I had experience with Wordle, I chose to create a Word Sift. I used the information included in a Technology inservice Blog that I am conducting this summer for my district.





I love this tool. I think it has so many uses in the classroom. I included it as a tool for my participants as well. I plan on sharing it especially with the 4th grade teachers who teach writing. I love the word web that is included with each Word Sift that is created. It is a visual way for students to choose a better word in their writing. The idea that you can put in text and then highlight the interdisciplinary words would help students to see that words are not only for spelling.

I had a great time making my Glog. I plan on using it with my 4th graders for their Bluebonnet projects. I want them to choose one of the books on the 2010 list and create a Glog about that book. I linked each of the pictures to the Mackin Book Talk site.



I have used Animoto before and like using it to make book trailers. I chose to create a Voki for this class. I even put one of our school mascot - a horse- to put on our intranet site welcoming the kids to the computer lab.

I was not that impressed with Bookr. I could not find any way to crop the pictures or edit the font or text. The pictures that you could get from Flickr were not easy to find and seemed rather random. I could not find a tutorial to use or any kind of help.