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!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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!
No comments:
Post a Comment