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Word Hippo - Wordhippo.com

Grades
2 to 12
9 Favorites 0  Comments
Word Hippo is a word study tool for synonyms, antonyms, and more. Look for rhyming words, opposites, translations to a variety of languages, plurals, definitions and uses for the word,...more
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Word Hippo is a word study tool for synonyms, antonyms, and more. Look for rhyming words, opposites, translations to a variety of languages, plurals, definitions and uses for the word, etc. The site also makes suggestions for other words in case you might have made a typo or do not know the spelling. As with any other reference, students should be cautioned to be sure these are accurate definitions needed for the context in which they are studying the words. You will want to spell out consequences and/or supervise to be sure students are not searching for inappropriate words, but the most egregious words of bad taste do not appear to be available for search at this site.
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tag(s): antonyms (14), dictionaries (48), spelling (95), synonyms (17), vocabulary (235), vocabulary development (90), word study (58)

In the Classroom

Use this site for vocabulary development and word study assignments, such as writing sentences, paragraphs, or essays using new words. Since the site permits translation, this would be a valuable tool in world language classes, ENL/ELL classes, and more. Introduce this site on an interactive whiteboard and elicit examples to show the class how quickly it works. Have students create their own word walls with synonyms, antonyms, sentences, and more for their latest vocabulary words. Try a tool such as Padlet, reviewed here, for each student to create an online "wall" with words aligned to color coded stickies for synonyms. antonyms, etc. Alternatively, have students create class challenges for their peers with color coded matching activities for the interactive whiteboard matching words to synonyms, antonyms, and an appropriate fill in the blank sentence. Share this as a favorite on your teacher public page for handy reference any time students encounter an unknown word. Even subject area teachers such as science and social studies will find this tool handy for students with weaker vocabulary levels.

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Thanks for Teaching Us - T.B.D.

Grades
3 to 12
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Whether you have a favorite professor or elementary teacher, here is a way to thank them publicly. It's very simple. There is no registration. Click on "Submit a Story" ...more
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Whether you have a favorite professor or elementary teacher, here is a way to thank them publicly. It's very simple. There is no registration. Click on "Submit a Story" to fill in the teacher name, what you are thanking him/her for, and other details. You can include your Twitter picture. You can even email the letter to the teacher. Read the letters posted by others. This site could be used for thanking a favorite past teacher, or anyone affiliated with a school. There is a multitude of people who work in schools and are kind to children.

tag(s): letter writing (18)

In the Classroom

What a nice way to teach letter writing! Teach your students how to write a friendly letter for an authentic audience. Have them put their final copy on Thanks for Teaching Us. In lower grades, work together to write letters to "community helpers" in your school. What about that favorite coach? The custodian who got the ball off the roof? The lunch lady who gave your student a lunch even though his/her account had no funds? The principal? Counselors? Avoid having students identify themselves on the Internet. Use first names only with parent permission.

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TPR Exercises - Henny Jellema

Grades
3 to 12
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This site is a collection of listening and/or listening/reading exercises that use the technique of total physical response. The student must listen to a phrase and select the correct...more
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This site is a collection of listening and/or listening/reading exercises that use the technique of total physical response. The student must listen to a phrase and select the correct picture that corresponds to it. The author of the site suggests trying the activity before clicking to see that the right answer has been selected. The collection of 30 plus exercises uses stick figurines and a loosely connected theme for each separate page. These exercises and directions were created in the Netherlands, and clearly the directions were not written by a strong English language speaker, but the exercises themselves are quite useful.

tag(s): listening (68)

In the Classroom

Assign this exercise to students who are reluctant to answer in class but who can, in fact, answer basic questions in English. Demonstrate the site using your interactive whiteboard or projector before having groups of students try it together or in pairs.

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Wridea - Octeth Ltd.

Grades
4 to 12
6 Favorites 1  Comments
 
Wridea is an idea management, brainstorming, and collaboration tool. It's a place to organize and categorize your ideas, share them with others for input, and store them. To collaborate...more
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Wridea is an idea management, brainstorming, and collaboration tool. It's a place to organize and categorize your ideas, share them with others for input, and store them. To collaborate using this tool, you must have individual memberships (email required). Note that maps that are shared can be seen by the public, but not altered. You specify the members who may collaborate and make alterations. At this time, this site does not work properly in Internet Explorer. However, it is a great tool to use in Firefox, Safari, Chrome, or other browsers.

tag(s): brainstorming (15), concept mapping (17), graphic organizers (48), mind map (25), organizational skills (90)

In the Classroom

Demonstrate the activity on an interactive whiteboard or projector, and then allow students to create their own Wridea tool. Use this site for literature activities, research projects, social studies, or science topics. Have students collaborate together (online) to create group study guides or review charts before a test. Have students use Wridea as a study guide by brainstorming all the important concepts they remember about the unit being studied in history or science, and then have them share their Wridea with another student who will add concepts that were left out. Build student creative fluency by having them use Wridea to create categories of wonder, question, and answers for research; map out a story or plot line, or map out a step-by-step process (life cycle); map a real historical event as a choose-your-own-adventure with alternate endings based on pivotal points.

Comments

This resources looks like it has a wide variety of applications suitable to upper elementary and secondary classrooms. Sign up was quick and easy, but I received a message upon completing those steps that Wridea doesn't support Internet Explorer. It "suggested" using Mozilla Firefox instead. I'm a strong advocate for being comfortable with using several browsers, so, this doesn't throw up any huge roadblocks to me, but if you do not have or use Firefox, you will need to take that extra step as well before actually making use of this tool.

Editor's Note: the review has been updated to reflect this new information.
Rita, WA, Grades: 6 - 12

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ESL Base - ESL Base

Grades
3 to 12
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This is a marvelous collective resource for any teachers of ELL/ESL students and even for teachers of other languages. The range of offerings goes from lesson plans and activities to...more
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This is a marvelous collective resource for any teachers of ELL/ESL students and even for teachers of other languages. The range of offerings goes from lesson plans and activities to games to grammar explanations and more. There are also teaching tips and informative articles. The overall ESL Base website also has job-finding and other important information for ESL/ELL teachers worldwide. The GRAMMAR section of this site would be useful to any class learning proper grammar (articles, reflexive pronouns, passive voice, and more). (This website does not use American English, so you may notice some slightly different spellings if using this is American schools. For example, practice is practise.
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tag(s): grammar (133), grammar review (31), professional development (388), resources (87), verbs (27)

In the Classroom

Check here if you need a new way to teach a specific grammar skill or if you want to find support from the TEFL community. This is a great professional resource, so don't miss out on the many helpful articles. Provide the direct link to interactives/practice games on your class website.

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Lilian's Tool Box - Lilian Marchesoni

Grades
1 to 12
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This site is a wiki that allows ENL/ELL teachers to share helpful websites, games, presentations, and songs with other ENL/ELL instructors. There are PowerPoint presentations, games,...more
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This site is a wiki that allows ENL/ELL teachers to share helpful websites, games, presentations, and songs with other ENL/ELL instructors. There are PowerPoint presentations, games, templates, tutorials, songs, and more... all ready to go! You don't need to join the wiki to enjoy the games, PowerPoints, etc., but , by joining the workspace, you can comment on materials and methods, and add your own activities. Another benefit of joining is that all members receive notification of changes and new activities added to the wiki, in their email.

tag(s): directions (12), grammar (133), songs (44), vocabulary (235), writing (315)

In the Classroom

Scan this site for both activities and presentation methods for your target lesson. Take advantage of the ready to go ENL/ELL activities at this site.

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Word Talk - CALL Scotland

Grades
K to 12
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Enter the world of assisted learning with Word Talk, a free plugin for use with Microsoft Word. This software downloads onto unlimited computers for educational use. A talking dictionary...more
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Enter the world of assisted learning with Word Talk, a free plugin for use with Microsoft Word. This software downloads onto unlimited computers for educational use. A talking dictionary assists with definition and spelling. The ability to turn the words into MP3 format is available. This plugin has won the Microsoft Innovative Teacher Award.

tag(s): dictionaries (48), Microsoft (84), text to speech (18)

In the Classroom

Include Word Talk as your classroom helper for FREE! Offer assisted learning for struggling readers or writers to provide success. Provide study guides or notes in an MP3 file to include on your website. Offer as a way to encourage independence and confidence in all learners. Incorporate into writer's workshop to help with editing and proofreading. Help your ESL/ELL and special needs students find more success. This helps you achieve the technology goal of assisted learning in IEP students. Offer all directions with the text to speech option.

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Socrative - Socrative.com

Grades
4 to 12
4 Favorites 0  Comments
  
Socrative is a smart student response system -- the answer to not having expensive "educational clickers" in your classroom. Socrative works on tablets, smartphones, iPod Touch, laptops,...more
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Socrative is a smart student response system -- the answer to not having expensive "educational clickers" in your classroom. Socrative works on tablets, smartphones, iPod Touch, laptops, and others. There is an introductory video demonstrating teacher and student logins and how your class will interact in real-time. You can create your own multiple choice, true/false, and short answer questions. You may also choose to use one of their ready-made activities as exit tickets, thoughtful questions, or games. See your students' responses in an Excel file or view online as a Google spreadsheet. Multiple choice questions are automatically corrected.

tag(s): chat (42), DAT device agnostic tool (143), game based learning (171), gamification (74), polls and surveys (46), questioning (32), social networking (68)

In the Classroom

If you've ever wanted greater student engagement, increased student interest, and heightened discussion and interactivity in your classroom, Socrative is the answer. Students can give their input and express their views anonymously, if you wish.

In any curriculum area, ask open-ended questions and display student responses with your projector or interactive whiteboard. Alternatively, students could respond on a tool like Padlet, reviewed here, and also vote on the options.

Use this tool easily in your Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) classroom since all students will be able to access it for free, no matter what device they have.

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Busy Teacher - busyteacher.org

Grades
2 to 12
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This site offers ESL/ELL worksheets for a wide range of subjects, including pronunciation, grammar, reading, listening, writing, and speaking. With a free registration, you can search...more
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This site offers ESL/ELL worksheets for a wide range of subjects, including pronunciation, grammar, reading, listening, writing, and speaking. With a free registration, you can search for the type of worksheet you desire, including review, crosswords, games, etc. You can also submit your own worksheets for inclusion on the site. In the creative writing section of the site, there are also "ready to go" writing prompts (in addition to worksheets).
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tag(s): creative writing (122), descriptive writing (38), grammar review (31), listening (68), pronunciation (33), reading comprehension (142), speaking (22)

In the Classroom

This site offers multiple levels and themes, so it is easy to differentiate for ability levels and interests within your class. Peruse the many printable pages available and determine which are useful for your students. Provide this URL on your class website for students to access (for practice) at home.
 This resource requires PDF reader software like Adobe Acrobat.

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English Language World - Janet Castrejon

Grades
2 to 12
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This site offers well-organized lessons of English to limited English speakers. There are three levels. After selecting a level, students can choose the theme of each lesson they wish...more
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This site offers well-organized lessons of English to limited English speakers. There are three levels. After selecting a level, students can choose the theme of each lesson they wish to study. Offerings include vocabulary, grammar, listening comprehension, pronunciation, reading, and other types of practice. Besides complete English lessons, the site offers a word of the day and also lesson plans for teachers that correspond to the lesson themes. At the time of this review, these were only available at the beginning level. The site promises that those at the intermediate and advanced levels will be coming soon.
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tag(s): listening (68), reading comprehension (142), reading strategies (96), speaking (22)

In the Classroom

Mark this site on your classroom computer for ELL/ESL students who wish to work on their English during their free time. Share this link on your class website for students to access (and practice) at home.

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The Readability Test Tool - David Simpson

Grades
1 to 12
5 Favorites 0  Comments
Test any website's readability using The Readability Test Tool. Test readability by URL or direct text input from any source (such as copy/paste of student writing). Simply enter...more
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Test any website's readability using The Readability Test Tool. Test readability by URL or direct text input from any source (such as copy/paste of student writing). Simply enter the web address (URL) and get the readability of the site on several scales. You can also check your own webpages by using the "referer" section. You will get a score for the most used readability indicators: Flesch Kincaid Reading Ease and Grade Level, Gunning Fog Score, Coleman Liau Index, and Automated Readability Index (ARI). These tell much more than a simple "grade level." View sentence info such as total characters, number of words, average word length, percentage of short and long sentences, and more. View word usage of types of verbs, conjunctions, and other parts of speech as well as type of words used to begin sentences. Click the link provided to view an explanation of each type of score.
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tag(s): independent reading (85), readability (5), writing (315)

In the Classroom

Use this tool to offer differentiated resources for the different reading levels in your class. At the beginning of the year, as you learn your students' capabilities, use this tool to find reading at the appropriate level to eliminate frustration. This is perfect for finding the "just right" level for your highly advanced/gifted students and those needing extra remediation. If you do discover that a website you want to use is over your students' independent reading level, you can still use it, just use Read Ahead, reviewed here as a guided reading activity for younger students. Read Ahead is perfect for introducing any reading passage to struggling readers, special education students, and ENL/ESL learners. View readability levels of websites before sharing with students to find appropriate reading levels for differentiation. On an interactive whiteboard or with a projector, test passages of public domain texts from sites like Project Gutenberg, reviewed here, by famous authors to see how their writing ranks when discussing their writing style.

Why not have students put in the URL for their blog or wiki (or simply paste in a writing sample) to see the level at which they are writing? This is one way to encourage writing as a craft and challenge students to include more varied vocabulary and sentence structure in their writing.

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Presidents' Day - Myvocabulary.com

Grades
4 to 12
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As part of their extensive site for vocabulary, roots, and more, MyVocabulary.com has added a themed area for President's Day. Find interactive vocabulary activities using President's...more
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As part of their extensive site for vocabulary, roots, and more, MyVocabulary.com has added a themed area for President's Day. Find interactive vocabulary activities using President's Day related vocabulary words. You will also find printable crosswords, fill in the blanks and more, all using the same theme words. This and other "themes" available on the site will make vocabulary development fun.

tag(s): vocabulary (235), vocabulary development (90)

In the Classroom

Have students work in cooperative learning groups, divide up the vocabulary words, and have each group find the definitions for their assigned vocabulary words. Have them create word games for interactive whiteboard, if you have one, such as matching or ranking activities that use these words. Have the groups share their words and definitions in an online book, using a tool such as Bookemon reviewed here. Have the groups share the online books on your interactive whiteboard or projector. If you don't have the time to complete online books, have students share the definitions using a class wiki. Be sure to also check out the interactive word puzzles!

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Pearltrees - pearltrees

Grades
6 to 12
1 Favorites 0  Comments
 
Pearltrees.com is a great place to organize, share, and store websites for current, future, or collaborative use. More than a standard social bookmarking website, Pearltrees allows...more
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Pearltrees.com is a great place to organize, share, and store websites for current, future, or collaborative use. More than a standard social bookmarking website, Pearltrees allows you to create trees of sites to show relationships or even the order in which to browse websites. It is extremely simple to sign up, free, and easy to use once you have joined. To use it, you can download to your browser extension or bookmarklet, use a bookmarklet, or just use your home spot to paste in websites that you want to add to your own pearl tree. There are "big pearls" that function as folders for multiple strands of Internet pearls. This is a device-agnostic tool, available on the web but also available for free as both an Android and iOS app. Use it from any device or move between several devices and still access your work. App and web versions vary slightly.
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tag(s): bookmarks (47), curation (35), DAT device agnostic tool (143), webquests (21)

In the Classroom

In the simplest form, Pearltrees could be used to store links for classes that you are teaching or taking. More creatively, however, you could use this site to create a guided online field trip from one site to another. Even try pairing Pearltrees with the use of a highlighting style website such as Twiddla reviewed here, to direct students to the information on the site that you, as their teacher, want them to see. Try turning the tables on your students, and have them create a Pearltree for short research projects or as a working bibliography for their research papers. Use this tool easily in your Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) classroom since all students will be able to access it for free, no matter what device they have.

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Science (and more) to Music - Dr. Lodge McCammon

Grades
4 to 12
3 Favorites 0  Comments
   
This site offers many songs related to math, social studies, and science concepts. Science concepts include water & pollution, scientific inquiry, changes in matter, and much more....more
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This site offers many songs related to math, social studies, and science concepts. Science concepts include water & pollution, scientific inquiry, changes in matter, and much more. Math concepts range from order of operations to quadratic and exponential functions. After choosing a topic, you can listen to the song online, download the mp3, view lyrics, and possibly view an accompanying video. (Not all topics include the video.) Some topics also include a teacher guide with lesson suggestions. This site does mention that you can create your own videos. However, at the time of this review, that feature was not working.

tag(s): africa (137), area (52), atoms (42), bill of rights (28), branches of government (62), cells (80), civil war (133), constitution (86), elements (32), equations (119), exponents (35), factoring (25), factors (29), functions (52), inquiry (24), integers (22), matter (47), nutrition (134), oceans (146), order of operations (28), quadratics (26), rainforests (17), ratios (47), songs (44), sound (74), volume (34), water (101), world war 2 (149)

In the Classroom

Play songs related to math, social studies, or science concepts in class to supplement current lessons. Download and play the tunes on iPods or mp3 players in a listening corner. Have younger students sing along with the songs (reading the lyrics). ESL/ELL students will benefit from such an alternate presentation of concepts, as will any who have strong musical/rhythmic intelligence. Give students copies of song lyrics, and have them create their own songs. After listening to a song, have students create their own song relating to current classroom topics. Suggest some familiar tunes so students do not have to start from scratch. Create a video of the songs and share using a site such as SchoolTube reviewed here.

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Alan Cooper's Homonym List - Alan Cooper

Grades
1 to 12
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Here you will find the most extensive list of homonyms ever seen! Download this PDF list of over 460 homonyms (words that sound alike but have a different spelling and ...more
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Here you will find the most extensive list of homonyms ever seen! Download this PDF list of over 460 homonyms (words that sound alike but have a different spelling and meaning) organized for us by Alan Cooper. If you've exhausted your list of homonyms to use with your students, check this site out. If you're still confused by which witch is which, use this site to cite the correct word!

tag(s): editing (93), homonyms (8), spelling (95), word choice (14), word study (58)

In the Classroom

Challenge your students to use both homonyms in a meaningful sentence. Each word's meaning should be obvious in the context of the sentence. Then give the students a fill in the blank test on the words where they have to choose the correct spelling of the word. Challenge students to put some of the more difficult words/homonyms on a poster using Automotivator, reviewed here. For a creative challenge, have students create simple animations distinguishing the homonyms using one of the animation tools from the TeachersFirst Edge. Award Homonym Oscars for the best animations.
 This resource requires PDF reader software like Adobe Acrobat.

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Natural Reader - Natural Soft Limited

Grades
1 to 12
2 Favorites 0  Comments
  
Bring additional help to your classroom with Natural Reader, a downloadable program. You can test it on this web page by pasting text into the text box. Natural Reader takes ...more
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Bring additional help to your classroom with Natural Reader, a downloadable program. You can test it on this web page by pasting text into the text box. Natural Reader takes written text from MS Word, emails, Internet Explorer, scanned books, or even images from a camera phone and turns it into spoken text. This is an incredible tool for special needs students, there is even a dyslexic font you can turn off and on. Just highlight the section you want read aloud, and your choice of voice will read it aloud. The voice choice and speed are adjustable. Turning written text into MP3 or WAV files is another option. Typing/pasting in the text box allows any text to be read aloud. A floating tool bar allows the downloadable software to be available all the time with an easy click. A free trial version is available for both Mac and Windows, with more deluxe versions available. Educational discounts and volume discounts do apply. This is the teacher's aid that needs to be in all classrooms. You must be able to install software to put this Reader on your computer.
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tag(s): dyslexia (11), learning disability (22), learning styles (18), Special Needs (53), text to speech (18), writers workshop (31)

In the Classroom

Bring Natural Reader into your language arts classroom to help all students edit written work. Bring an extra helper into your class to pronounce difficult words. This program allows students with decoding difficulties to focus on comprehension on all texts. Natural Reader offers repeated readings to improve fluency, comprehension, and confidence. Add an extra learning dimension to any textbook or written notes. Honor the auditory learners with their natural style. Learning support, ESL/ELL, dyslexic, or ADHD learners have shown marked improvement. Writing classes can benefit by having individuals, copy and paste into the text box to help edit and proofread. Add extra reinforcement with directions by recording and being available for playing multiple times. Be sure to include this link on your class website for students (and parents) to access at home.

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Lyrics Gaps - lyricsgaps.com

Grades
5 to 12
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Learn a new language through music and lyrics! Choose English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Portugese, Japanese, Russian, Greek, Dutch, Danish, or Romanian. Register for FREE and...more
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Learn a new language through music and lyrics! Choose English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Portugese, Japanese, Russian, Greek, Dutch, Danish, or Romanian. Register for FREE and learn the new language. Each language has different activities: karaoke, interactive cloze activities, videos, and more. You can choose among three different difficulty levels. Some activities even have the option to "double click" to read a definition of a word. You also have the ability to submit your own songs and language activities to the site. Note that this site is fairly new and only ha a few hundred songs at the time of this review. Help contribute to the offerings!
This site includes advertising.

tag(s): cross cultural understanding (156), cultures (132), french (73), german (48), greek (33), italian (28), japanese (47), portuguese (22), russian (24), songs (44), spanish (104)

In the Classroom

This is a wonderful find for ENL/ESL and world language teachers. Teachers may prefer to do a class registration and use the offerings of the site with the entire class. Challenge your students to create (and submit) their own songs/activities in a new language. If school policy does not allow students to share songs on a site, have students create their own in-class presentations of songs and similar exercises using one selection from this site as a model.

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Compare & Contrast Map - Read, Write, Think - International Reading Association

Grades
3 to 12
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This interactive graphic organizer helps students develop an outline for one of three types of comparison essays: whole-to-whole, similarities-to-differences, or point-to-point. A link...more
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This interactive graphic organizer helps students develop an outline for one of three types of comparison essays: whole-to-whole, similarities-to-differences, or point-to-point. A link in the introduction to the "Comparison and Contrast Guide" gives students the chance to get definitions and look at examples before they begin working. The tool offers multiple ways to navigate information, including a graphic on the right to move around the map without having to work in a linear fashion. The finished map can be saved, e-mailed, or printed. There are many additional interactives and lesson plans (with standards included!).

tag(s): charts and graphs (168), concept mapping (17), graphic organizers (48)

In the Classroom

Use this site to introduce comparisons to your students on your interactive whiteboard or projector. After demonstrating how to use the site, create a link on classroom computers for students to make their own comparisons to be printed and shared. Divide students into 3 groups - one for each type of comparison essay - and have them create comparisons for their type, then share and compare with other students. Change student learning by having them create "annotated pictures" to illustrate the different types of comparisons using Annotely, reviewed here. Use this site with gifted students as a way for them to explore subjects more deeply than discussed in class. Use this site with ENL/ELL students to help organize information easily and as a visual representation of class material.

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Knoword - Trevor Blades

Grades
5 to 12
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This "wordy" site offers word definitions with a challenge! You see the first letter of a word and its definition. You must quickly type in a word you think fits ...more
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This "wordy" site offers word definitions with a challenge! You see the first letter of a word and its definition. You must quickly type in a word you think fits the definition. The site allows you to pass if you do not know the word, but the definition of the word appears anyway (along with the answer). Once the correct word is entered, the definition changes quickly so you can accrue as many points as possible in a limited time. The site also keeps a list of words used at any interaction, so you can see the words correct and missed. Some definitions offer easier hints in their wording.

tag(s): game based learning (171), vocabulary (235), vocabulary development (90), word study (58)

In the Classroom

Try this activity at the start of class on your interactive whiteboard or projector; it's perfect for vocabulary development with a lively twist! Offer this site to your students who are trying to assess and/or improve their vocabulary for standardized tests such as the ACT or SAT. ENL/ELL students may also enjoy the challenges and additions to their vocabulary. Share this site on your class webpage or blog for students to access (and practice) at home.

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Write Comics - Write Comics

Grades
K to 12
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You can make your very own comic right now! At Write Comics, you will be able to create your own comics using the figures, backgrounds, animals, aliens, and dialogue bubbles, ...more
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You can make your very own comic right now! At Write Comics, you will be able to create your own comics using the figures, backgrounds, animals, aliens, and dialogue bubbles, supplied by Write Comics. This site is extremely easy to use. There is no need to sign up or register. Once you click Finish, you will receive a link. Go to your link and print your comic or upload it to your webpage.

tag(s): comics and cartoons (54), communication (136), digital storytelling (142), summarizing (22)

In the Classroom

Create a comic to put on your website. Share this tool and the 10 Tips for Writing Good Comics with your students. You might want to use Write Comics to display the vocabulary word of the day, the math puzzle of the week, a concept your students are learning in social studies or science as an example and to engage students. Have students create comic strips for dialog-writing lessons, summarizing, predicting and retelling stories. Use comic strips for literature responses. For pre-reading students, create a comic of pictures and have students tell the story based on the pictures/scenes. It's a good idea to require students to create a rough draft of their comic using Printable Comic Strip Templates, reviewed here. Make a class book of the comics created throughout the year. That book will become the most read classroom book of all in an elementary classroom. Use comics to show sequencing of events. When studying about characterization, create dialog to show (not tell) about a character. World language and ENL/ESL teachers can assign students to create dialog strips as an alternate to traditional written assessments. Have students share all of their comics on your interactive whiteboard or projector.

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