Wordle

Next on my blog list of classroom technologies is Wordle. Wordle is not, by any means, the most useful or educational among my other blog entries, but it certainly is pretty cool. Wordle is something that, especially as an english teacher, could be a neat "ending" to an essay assignment or story-writing assignment. It is a web-based tool that generates word "clouds" based on text you enter. Wordle picks frequently-used words from your text (which can easily be cut-and-pasted into a box on the website), and arranges them randomly in a user-chosen theme of colors and fonts. Bigger fonts represent more-frequently-used words. Examples:

This is probably never something I would use in my high school biology classroom, but it is certainly worth thinking about for language arts. I think a neat assignment might be for students to write an autobiography, Wordle it when it is complete, and have the teacher print and display the Wordles around the room. Maybe student could leave their name out of the their essay/Wordle and students could guess which Wordle belongs to which classmate (come to think of it, this would be a cool ice-breaker idea for the first day of school)... My mind is buzzzzzzing tonight :)

Just for the heck of it, I make a Wordle of my blog:

And isn't it funny that the most common word used in my blog is "students". That IS the reason we are all teachers, isn't it? :)

SMARTResponse

At the risk of sounding like I work for SMART Technology (which no, I do not), I would like to take the time to talk about one of the greatest (and coolest) technologies I have been using in my classroom for about a year now: the SMART Response System.

The SMART Response System is made by the same company as SMART Board. However, you do not need a SMART Board to have a SMART Response System (SRS). The SRS is made up of an easy-to-use software set (called Teacher Tools) and anywhere from 5-40 SRS Clickers. They look like remote controls! The clickers, (shown left) are used to directly interacting with your students - before, during, or after a lesson. No more waiting until the test to see what they know... no more depending on oral discussion and the handful of students who respond to you.

The clickers work with a plug-n-play (easy-to-use) hub that connect via USB to the teacher computer. The clickers work by radio waves up to 100 feet.

The students get to sign in with personal login codes (which allows the software to record their numerical scores on quizzes). After the assessment is complete the teacher can spend time reviewing questions that students did poorly on, due to an instant pie chart of results that is generated (not to mention, skip reviewing the questions they did well on). There are so many potential uses for this in the classroom - I love my set so much, in fact, that I teach professional development workshops in the ETTC in my school for How-To get started with a SMART Response system.

I just thought it would be nice to throw this out here because it is almost time for all of us to build our classroom budgets for next year - could this be the next thing on your wish list? :)

Online Labs

As a science teacher, I have to incorporate interactive/hands-on lessons to not only engage my students - but to show, instead of tell, them how life works.

One of the ways science teacher accomplish this is by incorporating labs into the class, something most of us are very familiar with. However, sometimes I come across topics in which restrictions keep me from doing relevant lab activities with my student (too expensive, too dangerous, do not have proper equipment, uncontrolled environment creates too many errors, etc.). This is something I ran into my first year teaching - I do not thin I will ever forget how much time and effort I put into a Photosynthesis Lab: creating the document, driving all over creation in the dead of winter to find the right aquatic plant, etc. Needless to say, it was a cool lab - the kids really enjoyed reading it and setting it up. However, when I got to school the next day, result-collecting-day, i was heart broken to see the reaction had not worked as it was supposed to. The results,(the few I had, anyway) would not have been meaningful to the students. This is when I discovered an online lab website called explorelearning.com.

This website is loaded with "gizmos" - their cute whip for an interactive lab simulation. The first lab I found here was one I needed - on photosynthesis. It not only let student manipulate the one variable I was aking them to (carbon dioxide concentration), but temperature, sunlight, etc. It had built in features to allow students to graph their results and screen captures tools and everything! I fell in love. Here is a screenshot from that gizmo:


















Each "gizmo" also has a downloadable teacher guide, student handout and mini-quiz to check for understanding. Once you register, and your class is setup, your students scores even record on line. The gizmos are for both math and science. Of course, real labs are fantastic and nothing can replace a true experience, but sometimes we can't also give them the real thing.

I have also found this useful for assigning over breaks, and for students who were absent for a lab activity and cannot make it up.

Anyways, if you are a math or science teacher, this is definitely a site wroth checking out :).

Google Apps

One of the topics that has popped up on the discussion board this week is Google's many applications and their application potential in education. As a high school teacher at a VoTech school, I get students from sending districts in every corner of Morris County. This creates a huge diversity in my school - something to celebrate. However, my students face a challenge when it comes to collaborating their work and "meeting up" after school to work on group projects or study together. This is where Google Docs comes in - and has been a savior! It is so easy to use, plus most of my high school level students know it already. It is a living document, can be public of private to only "shared" contacts, and has most basic features that Microsoft Word does.

Google Docs also has huge application in peer tutoring or teacher help at home.

In fact, if you happen to be Google app clueless, I created a how-to screencast for an earlier NJCU class. It covers both the basics of Google Docs and Google Sites. I thought I would share it.

Google Docs and Sites

Google Sites is also great because it ,too, is free and easy to use. I use Google Sites for both my homework webpage and for my biology class website (all class materials/supplements).

My school adopted a school-wide gmail account and every teacher and student have an @mcvts.org email account under the Google umbrella. It is wonderful to be able to open my gmail and quickly email one student or a whole class. Everything is saved right there! Also, gmail users can log in to "chat". I make myself available on Google chat for a set time the night before a test. Students know they can log in and have a virtual help session with me and ask questions.