Wordle, Wordle, Wordle

Hello all!

Well, I feel like it's been awhile since I've posted in here.  It feels kinda nice to be back. :)
I feel like I need to explain what this post and the two below it are all about.  A few weeks back my technology professor assigned a neat little project titled Tech, Tac, Toe - cute name huh?  The point of the project was to pick 3 cool web 2.0 tools that have been presented in class and figure out how to incorporate them into classroom lessons.  Since I currently am not a classroom teacher, I took 3 tools and applied them to 3 hypothetical lessons (I want to teach grades 1-3, so I designed one lesson per grade).  The top half of the post describes the lesson, then there is an example of the tool, and below is my reflection.  I do hope that my 3 examples provide a little in sight into whether you would like to use the web tool!  Enjoy!

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Grade level: 3rd
Common Core Standard for Language Arts: Reading Standard for Literature K-5; 3 (Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations, or feelings) and explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events).

Lesson Idea:  Provide student's with a list of words that can be used to describe a  person/character.  Explain to the students that characters as well as people possess certain characteristics/traits and the list provided has words that can be used to tell someone about the characters/people.  Have the students practice this by having them describe you.  Have each student provide a word that would describe you (the teacher) and write it in the wordle text box.  Stress the importance that it does not matter if they see a word up on the screen, words can be used more than once.  Once all students have given a word, generate the wordle.  The words that are the largest are the words that were used the most to describe the teacher.  Continue on with letting the students know they will be using this tool to describe characters in a story that they will be reading.

See below and example of wordle:

 

Reflection:  I really enjoyed using wordle once I found a computer that was capable of generate the word wall.  My computer at home is a little bit older and does not support the java script that is needed in order to generate the wordle.  This was slightly frusterating but once I was able to find a computer that this tool would work on, it could not be easier to use!  Just type in words and/or sections of text in the word box and click generate!  Va-la!  I enjoyed that the colors themes could be changed to predetermined themes or you could create your own color palate.  I also liked the fact that you could change how the words appeared on the page and could just click "randomize" until you found a layout that worked.   It was neat to play around with different fonts and get creative.  I think wordle would be a tool that teachers could use to provide students with visualize but I also think the tool is very kid friendly.  All the students have to do is enter in words and click generate - it doesn't get much easier than that!

Let's Get Creative!

Grade Level: 2nd
Common Core Standard for Mathematics: Geometry K-5; 2G (Recognize and draw shapes having specified attributes, such as a given number of angles or a given number of equal faces.  Identify triangles, quadrilaterals, pentagons, hexagons, and cubes)

Lesson Idea:  Since the common core standard requires that second grade children be able to identify five different geometric shapes, break the class up into five groups.  Once in groups, explain to the children that each group is going to be given a shape and a little detective work is going to need to be done on their shapes.  They are going to be given a list of questions and they need to find out the correct answers based on the shape they were given (i.e., provide the students with the appropriate pages in their math textbooks so they will be able to find the answers).  Once they have the correct answers, have the groups create a glogster for their shape, putting all the important information that they found on it.  Let them know that these pages will be given out to everyone in the class as their review guides for the test they will be taking, so make sure everyone does an excellent job. 

Please see below link for example handout for project made on glogster:
http://boykstac.edu.glogster.com/mathdetectives/
(if you are unable to see the glogster by clicking that link, please check out my website (click link of tech-tac-toe) as there is an example of it on there: http://snboykin.weebly.com)

Comments:  I enjoyed working with glogster.  I used the education version and found that there were a lot of pre-made templates that were great for the school setting.  I found it easy to use, however; I'm not sure if it would be a suitable tool to use with the younger students as it does take some mouse control to adjust pictures, text, etc.  I thought there were great preloaded pictures to use and enjoyed scrolling through them.  Overall, I think it would be a nice tool to use for teachers to make interesting hand-outs and for older students to use once fine and gross motor skills were more refined.

So Many Ways to Organize

Grade Level: 1st
Common Core Standard for Language Arts: Language Standards K-5; 5a (Sort words into categories (e.g., colors, clothing) to gain a sense of concepts the categories represent)

Lesson Idea:  Categorize various animals (i.e., farm animals, house animals, wild animals).  Provide children with a list of animals and as a class, using bubbl.us, put into distinctive categories.  Students and teacher could further discuss that these are broad categories and could anyone provide examples of instances where certain animals could cross over into other categories. 

Please see below for an example of how this concept map could look.

Reflection:  I LOVED bubbl.us!!!  I found it extremely easy to use and very user friendly.  I just typed in the URL and was good to go.  I had no trouble figuring out how to use the site; it was very basic and everything that was needed was on one page.  I also enjoyed that the concept bubbles could change colors as well as their text color.  I liked that if a "parent bubble" had offspring, the offspring were colors that were very similiar/in the same hue to parent.  I thought this would allow for a good visual to show the relationship. 
I did do a little more playing around and liked that you could connect various offpring bubbles using the "link" button that pops up when you scroll over the bubbles.  I also liked the fact that the lines connecting each of the bubbles could be labeled, if that was something you wished to do.  Overall, I found it easy to use and would highly recommend if someone is interested in creating concept maps.