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Detailed description (and video) of a vocabulary game using wordle word clouds. The blogger had created a wordle and covered up the words with with rectangles. Students came to the SMARTBoard one at a time to touch the rectangle and reveal a word. Then they used a spinner to tell them to use the word in a sentence, tell how many syllables, or give a synonym or antonym. The rectangles were colour coded by degree of difficulty so the teacher could differentiate instruction. You can download the Notebook file, and the blogger promises a tutorial for this idea.

Look up words in the Visuwords online graphical dictionary and thesaurus to find their meanings and associations with other words and concepts. Produce diagrams reminiscent of a neural net. Learn how words associate.

This is a toy for generating word clouds from text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, colours, and layouts. Take a screen shot to save your creation as there isn't a way to export as a jpeg. Wordles would make great title pages or slides and could be a fun class brainstorming activity or a way for kids to practice writing their spelling words.

Amazing spelling site recommended by James Hollis (Teachers Love SMARTBoards). Input a list of spelling words and click test me, teach me, or play a game. The test me section gives the word orally , uses it in a sentence, and the student spells it and gets feedback. The teach me section spells the word orally and uses it in a sentence. The play a game section instantly generates games such as word search, crosswords, hangman using the spelling words. The games work great on a smartboard.

This is a great reading app. It can import text in many formats ( great with Dropbox) and even read PPT and Keynote presentations. You can change the size of text. Hold on a word to see its definition (doesn't read the definition). Hold on a word then select text to create highlights, bookmarks, and notes. These appear in a separate list which, when accessed, takes you back to the original spot in the text and begins reading from that point. Great voices. This is one of the better reading apps I've found...just wish the definitions would read and the highlighted text would actually highlight instead of ending up in a different location. $9.99

One very quick way to look up words on Google is simply to type define:anyword in the Google search field. However, their actual dictionary is far and away my favourite of all the dictionaries I've reviewed, mainly because of its clean, ad-free format. When you click on a sound icon to hear a word pronounced, it doesn't open in another annoying window. The definitions are not too complicated for use by school kids and there are examples used in context and links to other definitions found on the web. At any time, at the top of the page, you can also access web-links, images, videos, etc. that are part of a regular Google search. The site also works with NaturalReader.

This is a super-fun word-search game on the tags associated with Flikr photos. Just type in a word (you don't need a Flikr name unless you only want to use your own photos) and the puzzle is created instantly. For more info see Paul Hamilton's review at

Drag and drop (or type) words from a word bank onto an image. Would be outstanding for writing Haiku. Reviewed by Kelly Tenkley at iLearn Technology Jan 14, 2009.

Type in a word and you get a list of words that rhyme. Would be great for writing poetry.

Great free typing tutor and games. You can create custom word lists, so this could also be used to practice spelling words.

Nice description and photos of how one teacher is using the Picture Word Induction Method in her primary classroom. PWIM posters have long been used in my district and a few teachers are beginning to use them on a SMARTBoard but I haven't seen anything written up.

How to create a timeline in MS Word that includes dates, pictures, and url links.

Text to speech site that accepts typed text, uploaded Word and .pdf files and creates an audio with a talking avatar. You can then download as mp3, podcast, email. Free account is limited to 30 second recordings but special teacher package is available.

Online thesaurus that displays word associations in a colorful web. The thesaurus gives you an option to change the display, viewing all or just the synonyms, antonyms, fuzznyms, adverbs, adjectives, verbs, nouns. In that respect, it's a lot less visually confusing than Visuwords.

The details about the following nine word cloud generators will give you a fair idea how, as an educator, you can get the best out of them. The generator at ABCYA is safe for kids.

How to convert word, pdf and text file to epub (standard etext) format so they can be used with ibooks and ipad

Visual dictionary combines definitions with photos from flickr and Wiktionary.

Similar to Wordle except you can save to a file instead of having to take a screenshot...also lets you create shapes such as whales with your word cloud.

Detailed description of a vocabulary game using wordle word clouds.

Enter a word to look up or just explore by theme. The definitions are constructed as pages with a small amount of text and labeled drawings on which the labels are also clickable links. This would be a great "multiple means of representation" resource.