If I were to use a word to describe VISUWORDS, I would use “bombdigity.” In addition to being dug by me, it is also the bomb. I learned a few new words myself while playing with it.

This site makes connections and contrasts the word you enter; it tells you what it entails; it even creates a web of how this word interacts with other classifications of the word.

What levels would benefit from it?

This would be great for all levels. I would HIGHLY recommend using this site for ESL students. I am going to use it with my literature classes next year because we often volley certain words around the room because they are philosophical in nature; therefore, everyone has a different definition. (Warning: do not look up “LOVE.”)

Lessons

• Word studies (unless you want to study “LOVE”)
• Vocabulary work
• Literature studies in which you have students find the most important words form an assigned passage
• Expanding vocabulary

If you have any other ideas of how it could be used, please leave a comment.

Kevin (a.k.a. dogtrax) recently amazed me with his students’ poetry anthology, which he making available here at lulu. Here is the story:

This year, as we ended our unit on poetry, I decided that I wanted to try something a little different with my students’ poems. In the past, I have collected voluntary submissions of some poems, gathered them into a Microsoft Publisher document to make it look pretty, hit the photocopy machine and cranked out a bunch of stapled booklets. It worked just fine for what it was.

But I want my students to see themselves as published writers as much as possible. So, this year, I decided to be bold and use Lulu, the self-publishing site, to create a real book of student poems. I had tinkered in the year with using Lulu for some of my own work, and I was inspired once again when I saw that the collaborative @manyvoices project that had students using Twitter to write a story across the world published a final version through Lulu (I bought myself a copy). My students were excited about it, too.

And, so, after all of us doing proofreading and choosing some basic designs from Lulu, our book of poetry, entitled Exploration, is now for sale via Lulu. The cost is about $5 per book, which isn’t too bad, but shipping costs another $5. If I had another month in the school year, I would just use order forms for parents and buy a bunch in bulk. But time is running out (two weeks left) and so I have been directing

students and families to the Lulu site, in hopes they will order a copy. (I have also set it up so the download of a PDF version is free, although one student asked why you would want that when you can have a book that you can hold in your hands — nice insight in the digital age).

This is what the cover of the book looks like:

I think I will do more with publishing next year, knowing how easy it really is with web-based platforms. My hope had also been to do a fundraiser in which we publish short stories and sell the book collection for a little bit more, and use the proceeds to benefit an organization in Darfur, which my students learned about and became advocates for earlier this year. But, again, time ran out on us.

Peace (in publishing),
Kevin

This article has been cross posted from Self-Publishing Student Poetry at Dogtrax.edublogs.org

Powerpoint Games: Everything from Jeopardy to Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader can be recreated with ease via PowerPoint [sic].

Word(s) you need to know: Hyperlink- this is a link that is created for the purpose of connecting content to another collection of data THIS CAN BE ON ANOTHER WEB PAGE OR WITHIN THE SAME DOCUMENT.

Links that can be helpful: You can find a variety of games at these sites. http://jc-schools.net/tutorials/PPT-games/ http://teach.fcps.net/trt10/PowerPoint.htm http://homepages.ius.edu/dschwei2/handouts/powerpt/gamelinks.htm

Things you need to master: Right clicking- if you open a powerpoint, you will find that when you right click, hyperlink appears on that menu. When you click hyperlink, a form will appear. All you have to do is tell it where to direct the person when they click the link. You can tell it which page (or question) to go to by typing in the number of the slide (ex: Slide 485).

How to do it: Jeopardy

This is a run down of how to make it so that when you click on a point value (Scarlet Letter for 100), you will have the question pop up.

1. Highlight the desired point value.

2. Right click the point value and select HYPERLINK from the menu.

3. On the new menu select the option to make the hyperlink WITHIN THE DOCUMENT.

4. Type “#2″ for the second slide or “#27″ for slide number 27 and so-forth.

IMPORTANT:Also make a link on each question so that when you click it you will return to the point values slide. Just highlight each question and follow the steps above. When you put in the slide number, put in whatever slide number matches your point value slide.

For years now teachers have hailed the use of picture books at all levels. I too have seen the benefits of doing so. If you want to check out the books online, check out the new website called LookyBook.

Here you can read, rate, share and even place on your virtual shelf.

Pedagogical uses:

Lit circles come to mind as a way to use this site in the classroom.

You could also do book shares as well as keep up with your students’ reading (in the early elementary years)

Before you make that purchase online you could use this site to check out if a book is applicable for your junior high or high school level curriculum.

If you have a flickr.com account, here is a very simple way to make a slideshow for your website. I used flickrslidr.Here is how you do it:
1. Create a set of pictures on Flickr.com.
2. Copy the url (website address) for that set.
3. Go to flickrslidr.
4. Paste that url into the blank asking for the url.
5. You may need to change the demensions a bit (maybe to 420 by 420)
6. Click “create slideshow)
7. Scroll down and copy and paste the code you see to your blog.I took these pictures in Bergen, Norway. 
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.