Thinglink is a presentation program that allows the user to upload a picture or video and then add links to web pages or icons with text to make the image more interactive. Thinglink is free and educator accounts are available. Below is an example I made for the library that now resides on our library web page for a visual tour. (See Library Tour on Thinglink column on the left-hand side of the page for more examples). Thinglink has uses in all curricular areas.
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Voki
Voki is a presentation tool and a fun way to engage students. Teachers and students create characters and have the characters vocalize what you want them to say. Here’s a quick Voki a put together using the word of the week belittle:
Storyboard That
This week several students were working on autobiographical narrative writing assignments that required them to use dialog. Students often struggle with writing dialog. During the Digital Kids Saturday seminar, my co-presenter shared StoryboardThat, a free program that allows students to create storyboards. Storyboards can be beneficial to students who are struggling with forming dialog. By adding their characters into frames and having each character speak through his or her bubble, students can visually comprehend who is speaking when. This visual dialog may then be transferred to dialog frames with quotations and appropriate punctuation. StoryboardThat would be a great, too, for our students that are learning English. It can assist students with understanding sequence, and would make an excellent prewriting/brainstorming tool. StoryboardThat has historical backdrops that would apply to history. It would be applicable for use in World Language classes as well.
StoryboardThat offers a free version and provides a version for teachers that is priced by a monthly fee. If you find that this is something you would use regularly in your classroom, you would want to look into setting up an educator’s account. I haven’t had the opportunity to use StoryboardThat, but I have colleagues who know all about it, so if you have any questions I’d be happy to assist you with implementation.
Example for Spanish
Giddy Up Returns!
I haven’t posted on this blog in over three years. I was in survival mode. When hard times hit the library due to budget cuts, our district was able to keep teacher librarians and keep secondary libraries open, but we lost all our support staff. Teacher Librarians were essentially working two jobs to maintain the level of library services we offer our students and staff. Sadly, there wasn’t time to blog about technology to support student learning. Last year, our library technicians returned and life in the MTHS/EHMS library is returning to normal. It’s time to get back to sharing with staff great digital tools. Since I last posted, I’ve become a site level coordinator of Digital Citizenship. So I will also share items of interest I find on the web that may be of interest to our teachers to use with their students or to further their own knowledge about Digital Citizenship.
I am a beginner blogger and the purpose of Giddy Up! is to maintain a record of digital tools and teaching ideas which I share with the staff of my school.
More Web 2.0 Tools for Applying
Last week, I posted information on Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy tools for Applying. Here are three more Web 2.0 Tools that fall into this category.
Gliffy is a free web-based digram appliciation. Gliffy may be used to create flow charts, diagrams and floor plans. Gliffy allows you to share your work.
Wolfram Alpha is a computational search engine and it is fun. Wolfram Alpha will make conversions, give quick facts on states and countries, and even rank your given name. Here’s a few Sally facts from Wolfram Alpha:
- There are an expected 154,829 Sallys in the world today.
- 1 person in 1553 will be named Sally
- Sally is ranked 330th in female names in the United States
- The most common age of a person named Sally is 57.
Wolfram Alpha is a great place to explore. I see many applications for Math and Science teachers on this computational search engine.
GO2WEB2.0 is an on-line application site where the searcher can find information and ratings about applications and sites. Applications are tagged so the searcher can sort applications of interest. Say, for instance, you are interested in photography applications. Select the photography tab from the right hand menu and photography application icons appear in the center of the screen. From there you may click on an icon to learn more particulars on that specific application. This is a valuable resource for finding applications you or your students may need.
Web 2.0 Tools Applying
Level 3 of Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy is Applying. Anderson and Krathwohl define applying as follows: “carrying out or using a procedure through executing or implementing. Applying is related and refers to situations where learned material is used through products like models, presentations, interviews and simulations.” Andrew Churches’s edorigami lists applying key verbs as implementing, carrying out, using, executing, running, loading, playing, operating, hacking, uploading, sharing and editing. Some possible activities for applying using digital tools are illustration using Paint, Comic creation tools such as Comic Life, Inkscape, or GIMP; simulation using Google Sketchup and other graphic tools; scuplture or demonstration using presentation tools, graphics, screen capture and audio and video conferencing; presentation using PowerPoint, Pezi, Google presentations, Skype, interactive whiteboard collaboration using e-tools and audio and video conferencing; interview using word processing, mind mapping tools, podcasting, vodcasting, Audacity, Sound Recorder, collaboration using e-tools and Skype; performance using podcating, vodcasting film, audio and video conferencing, audio recording, speech, PowerPoint show and collaboration using e-tools; editing using, video and sound tools, Wiki editing, and developing a shared document in Google Drive or other similar programs; and playing using online games and simulations.
Kathy Schrock suggests the following applications on her Bloom’ Apps website. For Google Apps Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy for applying she recommends Google Presentations, Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Sites, Google Drawing, Google Reader, Google Talk, Google Sketchup, Google Spreadsheets and Google Voice. For Web 2.0 Tools that support the level of applying in Bloom’s Taxonomy, Schrock recommends Yahoo Pipes, PodOmatic, Scribble Maps, and Soundation.
All information in this posting comes from Andrew Churches’ edorigami and Kathy Schrock’s Bloomin’ Apps. Follow the links to their valuable sites!
A Little More Understanding
Here are links to some more Web 2.o tools that you may find useful in helping students study and understand.
Jeopardy Labs is a free site where you can make your own Jeopardy game or you can use one made by others.
Technorati is a blog search. Student may use this to search topics for reports or interest. They would need to use their evaluation skills to figure out if the blog’s author is an authority on the subject or at least verify information presented through other reliable sources.
Wikipedia is a good source for gathering background information. Used as a starting point, Wikipedia can be useful in learning keywords about topics, relative time period, etc. Just as with Technorati, Wikipedia sources should be verified for authority and accuracy in reporting information.
Bubbl.us is a free brain storming and mind-mapping application. A video tutorials for how to us Bubbl.us are available on Teachweb2 on Wikispaces.
Some Digital Tools for Remembering Books
Our schools do a wonderful job building a culture of readers. With activities such as Silent Sustained Reading, visits to the library for book talks, teachers modeling a love of reading and books, Readapalooza (EHMS) and Academic Literacy (MTHS), it’s no wonder our students love our library and enjoy reading. One thing readers may enjoy doing is keeping a list of books they’ve read. There are free book cataloging web applications available which allow the user to keep a list of books, seek similar reads and even discuss favorite reads with others who enjoy the same books. One of my favorites is Library Thing. Library Thing allows the reader to save titles read, select book covers, classify lists by title, author, date published, and date read or listed. The reader may rate books, give comments and add books to collections. Library Thing and Library Thing members also recommend books to readers based on their lists. Good Reads is a social cataloging site where readers may catalog books and keep book lists. We Read is an on-line book community where members can keep track of books and participate in the Never-ending Book quiz. Explore these options for creating book lists yourself and your students.
Web 2.0 Tools Understanding
As we implement strategies in our teaching that gradually release responsibility to our students, consider digital tools and applications that will move them through the various levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. This week I’m sharing the work of Andrew Churches and Kathy Schrock on Bloom’s Level of “Understanding”.
Understanding is defined by Anderson & Krathwohl as constructing meaning from different types of function be they written or graphic. According to Andrew Churches, key verbs used in the Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy are interpreting, summarizing, inferring, paraphrasing, classifying, comparing, explaining, exemplifying, advance searching, Boolean searching , blogging, journaling, sending tweets on Twitter, categorizing and tagging, commenting, annotating and subscribing. On his Edorigami Wikispaces site, Churches describes possible activities in which students can participate for each Understanding verb. For summarizing and explaining, students may participate in word processing, mind mapping, web publishing, simple blogging activities, and simple page construction on collaborative documents and wikis. For showing and telling, students may utilize word processing, presentation applications- on-line and desktop versions, graphics, audio tools such as Audacity sound recorder or podcasting tools, video tools and mind mapping. For Advanced Searching and Boolean searches, student may learn to use advance searching techniques on Google and other search engines and databases. For blogging and journaling activities, students may participate on controlled social networks like our own School Loop or Edumodo or on Facebook or Twitter or other such social networks (where allowed), nings, and blogs. For cateogorizing and tagging activities, students may use applications like Delicious. For activities that involve tagging, comments and annotating, students may use noticeboards, discussion boards, threaded discussions, Adobe Acrobat Reader, and blog readers like Google Reader, Firefox, and Zotero. For subscribing activities, students may use RSS aggregators such as the ones mentioned above.
Kathy Schrock suggests using the following Google tools to promote understanding for Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy: presentation, drawing, groups, news, Advanced Search, documents and translate. For Web 2.0 Apps Kathy Schrock recommends, Diigo, Google Reader and Google Advanced Search. Check out Kathy Schrock’s Bloomin Apps site where she has an abundance of information on applications to use with various technologies such as smart phones, tablets and computers.
(The ideas in this blog belong to Andrew Churches and Kathy Schrock. I am just sharing them with my teaching staff to give them ideas of how to use digital tools in their lessons.)
Web 2.0 Tools for Remembering, Part 2
For those of you who may not know, Bloom’s Taxonomy has gone through a revision. Evaluating has moved down the heirarchy and Creating has replaced Sythesizing. Creating is at the top of the heirarchy. Remembering has replaced Knowledge at the bottom of the pyramid.
Andrew Churches’s wiki Edorigami on Wikispaces updates Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy even further by including skill developed by using digital learning tools such as those associated with Web 2.o technologies. I will share many of Andrew Churches’ ideas on this blog.
Kathy Schrock also has updated visuals of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy. I like her display of “interlocking of cognitive processes”. Schrock’s graphic shows how creating involves all the other levels of the heirarchy.
Remembering, according to Anderson & Krathwohl’s definition is retrieving, recalling or recongizing knowledge from memory. This level of the taxonomy is used to produce definitions, facts or lists. It is used to recite or retrieve material.
Verbs used to describe remembering actions are: recognizing, listing, retrieving, naming and finding. Students using digital learning technologies such as Web 2.0 tools may be utilizing the following skills: recognizing, listing, describing, indetifying, retrieving, naming, locating, finding. bulleting, highlighting, bookmarking, social networking, social bookmarking, choosing favorites, searching and “googling”.
Check out Andrew Churches’s pdf file on Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy Remembering. It offers lots of possible digital activities for students to use at this level. Kathy Schrock’s site Bloomin Apps suggests the following Web 2.0 apps for remembering: Wordle, Diigo, Google and Fotobabble. Schrock recommends the following Google applications for the remembering level of Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy: drawing, documents, basic search, images, Google+, Gmail and Chrome.
So take time to explore and share digital learning tools that will assist our students with remembering. I will be working my way up the taxonomy sharing digital learning tools at each level. But as I discover new applications that fit each of the levels, I will share them with you categorizing them by their Bloom’s Taxonomy so you can share them with your students if you wish.
Information for this post came from Kathy Schrock’s Bloomin’ Apps and Andrew Churches’s Edorigami. I highly recommend you check out these sites. There is an abundance of information to support digital learning.