Group items tagged

"This site lets you use a Bookworm database to read Obama's State of the Union in the context of all the other State of the Union messages given by American presidents. For any word in the message, just click on the text: the word will turn red. If you want to search a two-word phrase, just highlight both words. (You can't search for phrases longer than two words)."

"Merriam-Webster's website has a neat feature called Trend Watch that highlights words that are trending in news and popular culture. Trend Watch includes an explanation of why each word is trending, a definition for the word, and a picture that is representative of either the word or the cause of the trend." Plenty of interesting applications for teaching new vocabulary.

"I was seeking a replacement for "unfathomable." I thought of "depthless," but, feeling a bit iffy about it, I consulted my old Webster's Second. Yes, it was a synonym for "unfathomable" ("Of measureless depth … unsoundable") but also for "fathomable" ("Having no depth; shallow"). The word was what I think of as an auto-antonym (a term that doesn't appear in Webster's Second): it's its own opposite. Which is to say, it's a mostly unusable word. "

"While killing time in the airport last weekend, I watched a series of Jimmy Fallon Tonight Show clips. While watching Jimmy Fallon and Bryan Cranston playing "Word Sneak," I was inspired! I decided to use this game format for a vocabulary review in my class." This sounds like an interesting method to learn/review vocabulary. As an addition to the game, you could give students a specific discussion prompt to focus their talk, and then they could "sneak" the words into this particular conversation.

I actually did this with a class, a variation anyway. Remind me to share the videos with you the next time we are all together.

Do you teach struggling readers? No matter the content area that you teach, student success is often defined by literacy. Reading comprehension and vocabulary frequently act as roadblocks that prevent students from grasping difficult concepts. Rewordify is a tool that will help you ignore this roadblock, and even teach reading comprehension and vocabulary when used appropriately. I initially read about the tool from this blog post (http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2013/08/rewordify-helps-students-read-complex.html#.UhuJ79KsiSp). If you don't have time to check out that entire post, here is a brief summary of the tool and a few possible uses for it: Tool Description: This online tool allows the user to input a chunk of text and replaces all the "hard words" with synonyms. This seems like a spectacular tool to promote reading comprehension across the content areas. Here a just a couple ways you could use this tool. * Have you found a website with incredible information, but the reading level is way too high for your students? Have the students use Rewordify and make the reading level more appropriate for your students. * This could be a great tool to teach new vocabulary and reading comprehension. Here's one idea on how to do this: o Have students read a passage and highlight/underline/annotate the passage, including making notes of the words that they don't understand. Then, have the students summarize what they have read. Input the same text into rewordify and have the students read and summarize what they have read a second time. Compare the two summaries and discuss any similarities/differences. Now, have the students create definitions for the words that were highlighted (Students cannot use the provided synonym when completing this portion of the activity). William Berry Dept. of Organizational Development, Quality and Innovation Moody Middle School ITRT - (804) 261-5015 http://blogs.henrico.k12.va.us/techtips/ http://blogs.henrico.k12.v

"Too often kids have trouble with word problems. Too often they don't know what to do with two numbers let alone a bunch of numbers. They guess at division when one number is big and one is small. They add when they see two fractions. They multiply because that was how they solved the last word problem. I will also do this with my 8th graders because I suspect they will have trouble too. And this is exactly the kind of trouble we need to get into. Now rather than later. This task gets them thinking about ratios - which is like the most important math thing in all of the math things." This is a short description of how to get your students developing questions for mathematical scenarios. This would be a great activity to work on if you feel like your students are having difficulty deciphering word problems or are stumped when presented with unfamiliar mathematical scenarios.

"Textual analysis has its limitations, of course, but word counting can illuminate the tendencies of writers in a way that word reading may not." Textual analysis leads to a discussion on author's style. You could do this type of activity with various Word Cloud Generators.

"The following digital tools show promise to support word learning, review, and play with language. I've grouped them into four categories: Reference Tools, Word Clouds, Games and Review, Word Walls and Virtual Field Trips. "

Video describing word game similar to kick me. Students have analogies. One word is removed from the analogy and placed on student's back with tape. Students have to find the missing word in teh analogy.

"Welcome to the Documentation site for Voyant Tools, a web-based text analysis and reading environment. Here you will find some help for getting started, more complete documentation for tools (including a collection of screencasts), useful resources (tutorials, workshops, examples), and general information about Voyant Tools." Amazing textual analysis tool. View word frequency, word relationships and more. H/T Tom

"Basically Rewordify takes a block of text or website and replaces difficult words and phrases with text that is easier to understand. The site claims that this helps students read more, understand difficult English faster, and learn words in new ways. I'd throw in that the site can help you and your students break down difficult primary documents." Rewordify tool as primary document decoder

Wonder how you might use this to alter teaching? "In Lupyan's study, participants sometimes heard the name of the static object - like the word 'kangaroo' or 'pumpkin' - played into their ears. And on these trials, the previously invisible object would pop into their conscious visual perception. If they heard a different word, though, they would not see the hidden object. "So it's not that they are hallucinating or imagining a dog being there," Lupyan says. "If they hear the label, they become more sensitive to inputs that match that label." "

We can create interactive web pages that allow students to play different games with words.

A place where I was playing around with aggregating interesting word usage, writing prompts, poetry etc. It might be a model for larger groups or for students which is where it'd get interesting.

"This could be an interesting tool for creative writing prompts and/or vocabulary work. Here are a couple thoughts on how you could use Endless Interestingness in the classroom: Challenge the students to find a "string" of 5-10 photos in a row and connect those images by writing a creative story that incorporates the subjects, themes, moods, etc. of those photos. Provide the students with a vocabulary word. Have the students go to the website and choose one photo that best represents that word. Students could explain and justify their choice to the rest of the class. A Padlet wall would be a great tool for this assignment, so that all students could quickly share their work and view their classmates' ideas."

Nice visual thesaurus instead of giving me the words. Visual matters

Super quick rough example of a word map which lets you associate lots of different media content. I like the possibilities of this type of tool especially if it is organic and made by multiple students.

A dictionary, thesaurus, and valuable tool for matching thoughts to words like never before.

An interesting model for novel reflection in general and vocabulary specifically. "Favorite passage: "The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition!" Words looked up: Mole (As in "downtown is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves ..."): A massive, usually stone wall constructed in the sea, used as a breakwater and built to enclose or protect an anchorage or a harbor. Decoction: An extract obtained from a body by boiling it down. Orchard thieves (Melville refers to having to pay for things as "the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us."): I have no idea what this alludes to. Update: D'oh! I am dumb. I (repeatedly) misread this as "orchid thieves," no doubt because I recently read the book of the same name. Yes, the meaning of "orchard thieves" is clear."

"Dontopedalogy: An aptitude for putting one's foot in one's mouth." There are very specific words for just about everything.