Karen C. Seddon’s DEN Blog

The power of words is astounding. Just the right word at the right time can bring incredible results. Spewing the wrong word at the wrong time can cause results that are equally damaging. As teachers, choosing our words wisely is critical. No matter what subject we teach, vocabulary is an essential part of establishing understanding. Why not investigate the power of words using Web 2.0 tools? There are a plethora of new tools that I can only begin to examine with you in this issue of “tuesdays” but I hope that you will send in some of your findings so we can share.

A creative website
We are mapping just about everything these days. We have curriculum maps, learning focus maps, and strategic planning maps, why not word maps? Visuwords is a creative, online graphical dictionary. Unlike other dictionaries, this one is totally interactive. I typed in the word collaborative and by double-clicking one of the nodes, I learned a whole new word relative to collaborating – quisling. Did you know that a quisling is one who collaborates with an enemy occupying force? It came from WWII when Major Vidkum Quisling was a Norwegian traitor working for Nazi Germany. Today we think of collaborating in such positive light that is didn’t occur to me that it had a negative side to it also. This makes the study of words all the more fascinating. Give it a try with words that are relative to your classroom and see where they lead you. Visuwords is built on Princeton University’s open source database by university students and language researchers and is a free resource to all patrons of the web.

An image to share
This is a Visuword map made with the word collaboration. Some of the images that words create are quite attractive.

A proverb
“Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” Psalm 119:105 – King David

An encouragement
I would like to encourage you to create a love of words in your students. They normally see vocabulary as a chore, but with the rich tools available to us online, we may just peak their interest. These are a small collection of dictionaries and thesauri that I have also placed in my del.icio.us account to share. Click the tags for dictionary or words and you will easily get to this list.

What are some of your favorite and little known words? Where do you think I came up with Ubiquitously Yours? Let us know your favorite words by posting a comment below.

How do you do that?
How do you study words in the classroom? There are so many ways. Today, I see Word Walls everywhere I go. One teacher was doing her Word Wall in PowerPoint with her kindergarten students as they sounded out the names of their classmates. One of my favorite activities when I taught 5th grade was to bury overused words and use the thesaurus to find better descriptions. How I wish I had these online tools! We literally buried words like: nice, good, pretty, wonderful on tombstones. Although it sounds morbid, the tombstones were RIP (Rest in Peace) plaques decorated with our overused word and planted besides them were beautiful substitutes for these worn-out adjectives. How do you get your students interested in the vocabulary of your classroom? We would love to hear how you study words creatively on our “tuesdays” Professional Learning Community.

What are teachers saying?

Tales from the Teachers in the Trenches

“Every morning we start the day off using our projector to introduce the letter of the day. We’ve introduced the students to Audacity so they can record themselves. We have Leap Frogs and other Leap Frog items that they use on their own. This year has been awesome with our kids and we hoping that they will grow and continue using technology in 1st grade and help their teachers out! ” Christine Alfonso, Sunrise Elementary, Kindergarten

As always, I am
Ubiquitously yours,
K

Imagination. Can you use your imagination during the high stakes testing season? You bet. The best antidote for test anxiety is imagination. Let’s encourage the students to use their imaginations because will stretch their thinking abilities. Let’s add a little fun and creativity to their routine. All children naturally love to draw. It’s only as they get older that they think they can’t draw. Sir Kenneth Robinson, one of my favorite speakers from TED Talks, says we are educating children out of their creativity. Could it be true? Let’s give them time to use their creative imaginations.

A creative website
We have had so many unique Web 2.0 tools come into education in the last few years that you can barely keep up with them. I am so tickled by this cool site called Imagination Cubed. This exciting new way to brainstorm was created by “…the same nice people who brought us that dishwasher churning away in the next room – General Electric!” What makes this interactive whiteboard so much fun is that there are no accounts so you never have to register or have your students give any personal information. You can even invite 2 other people to simultaneously use your white board! Can you imagine what teachers and students will come up with when they get their imaginations going? When you have finished your creation, you can even email it, save it or print it (if you must). Imagination Cubed is pretty drawn creative.

An image to share

This image is my dabbling attempt with Imagination Cubed.com. I was just fascinated with the beauty, ease and fun. Give it a try!

A proverb
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create.” Albert Einstein

An encouragement
I think we need to remember that no matter how old, or how big our students may be, they are just children and children still need to play. These electronic crayons in their hands may just be the tool to release the creative juices that fuel their desire to learn. I love the sayings on the opening of the Imagination Cubed site. “GE – imagination at work”, “share ideas”, “share creativity”, “drawing builds creativity”, “imagination draws us together.” So many of our large corporations understand that investing in creativity brings them a great return on investment (ROI). Look at Google. Each employee is given 20% of their work time to create. As a result, we have Google Earth, Google Docs, Gmail and more. Investing in creative projects in school will be our greatest ROI. Let us know how you feel by posting a comment below.

How do you do that?
The strength of Imagination Cubed is that you DO NOT need to create an account! Simply go to
www.imaginationcubed.com and watch the little demo. Find the on-screen menu buttons to select a tool. There is even a little palette to choose colors and sizes and patterns. (That’s where I found the clouds.) Create your masterpiece. You do have a limited amount of ink so you need to be sure to watch the ink level gauge in the upper-right corner of the screen. You can even click the replay button and it will reenact what you have done. So what do you do with this masterpiece? You have the option to email it to someone, save it as a file or even to print it. Once you leave the site, it’s gone! I have not tried more than one pen, but it has the capability for 2 more to collaborate with you on the same drawing. How can a tool like this be an educational tool? We would love to hear from you on our “tuesdays” Professional Learning Community.

What are teachers saying?

Tales from the Teachers in the Trenches

“We instituted a year-long training series for our teachers trying to get them involved, excited and more knowledgeable about technology. We’ve done Picasa, we’ve done Movie Maker, and it’s so exciting to hear them when they tell what they’ve done in their classrooms and how their kids are reacting to it. Our students are such digital natives. We see them on a daily basis with their cell phones, iPods and mp3 players and we really want to be able to engage those students. We think our teachers are making great strides to learn how to do that this year.” Linda Sanders, Lake Gibson High School, Media Specialist

As always, I am
Ubiquitously yours,
K