Learning About New Tools

In Tuesdays tech class we learned about three new tools to use in our classrooms. They are all great tools that I feel can really add to teacher's lesson plans and classrooms.

The first one is www.wordle.net.  This tool allows you to create your own word clouds from information that you submit.  The more the word is used in your text the bigger it will appear in the word cloud.  This allows your audience to see the main points or ideas of the word cloud.  This would be a great way to have your students introduce themselves on their first days of class.  You could also use this tool by submitting a passage from a story you are beginning to read to show your students a preview of what the story will be like.  This is a great tool to use in your classroom, the only bad part is that it is hard to save your word clouds once completed.

The second tool was www.storyjumper.com.  This tool allows you to create your very own picture book online.  You can either view the story right online or buy a hardcover copy for a certain price. This tool allows students to type their text right on to the pages and either create their own pictures through the images that are provided or by uploading their own pictures that they drew by hand. This is a fun, creative new way for students to share their stories. The only bad thing about this tool is that your stories are limited to 16 pages.  Here are some ideas I have come up with to use story jumper:

• Science Lab Notebooks
• Students can reflect on the labs that they do and create pictures to create what happened in the lab.
• Picture Books
• Instead of having your students make a generic story on paper this a new fun way to have your students make a book
• "End of the Year" Book
• Teachers can create a book of all their students and what they enjoyed most about each student to give to the student's parents at the end of the year

The last tool we learned about was www.popplet.com.  At first I was really confused about this tool and didn't understand how it would benefit the classroom.  Then i realized that it is a way to make one big web that links all of your thoughts and ideas together.  This would be a great way to have students brainstorm their thoughts and ideas of an essay or story they are writing online.  Also teachers can post a topic they want their students to discuss and then students can log into to link their ideas to the "main idea".  It is a great tool to get students thinking about a topic and get them involved with each others thinking.  The only bad thing about this tool is that you can only create up to 6 popplets.  But other than that it's a fun new way to put your thoughts down.