"iF Poems is new poetry app for the iPad, described as 'a poetry app for school-age children and for adults of any age'. It's the first great poetry app I've seen for the iPad - apologies for the spoiler but I needed to mention that right off the bat.
The app includes 270 classic poems which have been carefully selected as works that the publishers feel are 'a joy to pass down the generations, to share, to educate and enjoy'.
Many of the included poems have audio clips. These are read by the actors Helena Bonham Carter, Bill Nighy, Harry Enfield and Tom Hiddleston.
Here are some of its other key features:
You can record yourself reading a poem.
You can email a poem and email your recording of a poem.
You can tap on any word for a dictionary definition.
You can save poems to a Favourites page.
You can search by title, author, first line or by any word.
You can get a dictionary definition of any word."
Martin Burrett 31 Jan 12 06:17:50
This is a superb random word generator split into nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Great for infusing a little magic into creative writing sessions. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/English
"Vocabulary and SpellingCity has added a list of recommended books for students of all ages that can be used for reading. Corresponding text vocabulary word lists have been included for each book as well. "
The Visual Thesaurus is an interactive dictionary and thesaurus which creates word maps that blossom with meanings and branch to related words. Its innovative display encourages exploration and learning. You'll understand language in a powerful new way.
asks you to type a phrase and the site will pull in words from Flickr to match each word and then animates them in sequence. You can save them, and link to old ones via the archive. Here's an example.
"Take your books’ covers from drab to fab by challenging students to make “Book Ads” using “Wordle”—a free, user-friendly, Web 2.0 tool that transforms simple text into eye-popping word clouds. Modify the directions and templates provided below to use with students."
"Take your books' covers from drab to fab by challenging students to make "Book Ads" using "Wordle"-a free, user-friendly, Web 2.0 tool that transforms simple text into eye-popping word clouds. Modify the directions and templates provided below to use with students."
This is a map of the wheel-ruts of modern English. Etymologies are not definitions; they're explanations of what our words meant and how they sounded 600 or 2,000 years ago.
"WELCOME to myvocabulary.com and DAILY WORD PUZZLES - a free resource used in over 24,000 schools to enhance vocabulary mastery & written/verbal skills with Latin & Greek roots"
Martin Burrett 16 Jan 13 06:27:37
This is a great site for creating all sorts of online cloze text of missing words and sentence ordering activities. It's great for sentence and grammar work, as well as using text about topics from across the curriculum. Register for free to create text activities to share and embed. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Cross+Curricular
Conducting Literature Circle with mobile devices such as the iPad, not only provides immediate access to a diverse selection of books, but also to reference materials, research tools, interactive maps, and a slew of creation and dynamic notebook apps. Within this single device, students can quickly check the meaning of a word, run a quick background check on a historic event, or articulate their understanding of text with a range of multimedia apps. Teachers can now easily differentiate the processes students can use to demonstrate understanding.
Google Docs is one of those things that we tend to use daily but don't get the full experience. I know that I personally don't use all of its capabilities, especially when it comes to collaboration. I end up using it like a flat Word document.
Google has pushed out a pretty cool demo, which invites you to collaborate with some of the greatest writers of all time. Kind of.
A "famous writer" will start typing and then it's your turn. Once you've typed in the next line, the writer takes over. It's kind of fun.
Europeana enables people to explore the digital resources of Europe's museums, libraries, archives and audio-visual collections. It promotes discovery and networking opportunities in a multilingual space where users can engage, share in and be inspired by the rich diversity of Europe's cultural and scientific heritage.
Ideas and inspiration can be found within the more than 15 million items on Europeana. These objects include:
* Images - paintings, drawings, maps, photos and pictures of museum objects
* Texts - books, newspapers, letters, diaries and archival papers
* Sounds - music and spoken word from cylinders, tapes, discs and radio broadcasts
* Videos - films, newsreels and TV broadcasts"