Last week, I attended a conference where I was able to gather a number of ideas for incorporating technology in the curriculum. Unfortunately, the conference distracted me from my usual "routine," and I didn't manage to get out a Tech Tips email. So this week, I'm combining two suggestions in one email rather than littering your mail box with two separate tips in one week. The first suggestion is aimed more at elementary classroom, whereas the second will suit itself more to middle years and high school curricula.
Tech Tip 1: spellingcity.com
Whereas many reading sites aimed at elementary students bombard them with a series of words which the site's programmers deem to be appropriate, spellingcity.com takes a different tack. It allows teachers to register/create an account, which they can then use to create their own word lists, based on the activity going on in their classrooms at the time.
This capacity to customize what the students experience elevates this site above many of the rest and makes it worthwhile for me to recommend it and risk Trudy's wrath. ;-)
Once the teacher has created a list, he/she can direct the students - or parents - to that list in a number of ways. When the student has chosen the appropriate list, he/she has the choice to "learn" the words, choose from an assortment of 11 different word games, and even take a spelling test. Throughout many of the activities, the student hears the words read to him/her and/or hears them read in a sentence context. The voices used to read the words and sentences are exceptionally human and avoid the problem of students learning to pronounce words from some nasal, digital Martian. I would have preferred if the teacher could also create the context sentences, but I did not find an option to do this in my brief exploration.
Here is a link to a short list that I created for those interested in trying out the site without registering.
I think the site has a great deal of potential for sharing with parents and providing them with an alternative for working with reading/vocabulary/spelling lists. In fact, parents can register and create their own lists, if they are so inclined.
While it may seem that the site is best suited to support reading, it could be employed for reinforcing vocabulary and terminology within any subject. And the process for creating lists is simple enough that it is not outside the realm of possibility to create lists for groups within your class or even for individuals.
The site is ad-supported, but the ads are limited to the right hand of the screen and a small ad bar which resides below the menu (clearly labeled "ads by Google"). While I'm sure we would all prefer no ads at all, the site has to support itself in some fashion, and I appreciate that the ads on this site are aimed at teachers and parents and not the students. Spellingcity.com also offers a premium edition, a paid subscription service which adds student tracking and a number of other features, but I'm not recommending this to schools or teachers.
Overall, spellingcity.com offers teachers and parents a way to direct their students toward customized activities which reinforce the specific work of the classroom. For that, I think it's worth a look.
Tech Tip 2: World Bank Statistics with Google Search
Google recently announced that it has tied into an interface (API) provided by the World Bank which allows it to return direct stats on seventeen different socio-economic indicators within the World Bank's database. This provides an even more accessible - albeit less complete - source for student research than the CIA World Factbook, which I recommending in an earlier Tech Tip. So, for example, if a student were to search for:
from within Google, he/she would find that the first hit is a link to a World Bank graph which tracks these stats from 1981 (in the first instance) or 1960 (for the second) to 2008. By moving his/her cursor over the graph, he/she can see the specific value of each data point. And, at the same time, Google provides an alphabetical list of countries along the left-hand side which the student can check to perform an instant comparative analysis.
So, in a matter of seconds the student can see that the life expectancy in Bangladesh was a full 31 years lower than that of Canada in 1960, but by 2008, that difference had shrunk to 15 years, even though the average Canadian is now living 10 years longer than his counterpart in 1960. All the student has to do to make that comparison is to check the box beside "Canada."
Many of our Social Studies curricula - grades 6 and 7, for example - ask students to make this type of comparison when studying our neighbours to the west and east. These new search results provide them with easy access to accurate, timely and meaningful information on which to base their comparisons.
And finally,
At the risk of perpetuating a habit I need to break, I must apologize once again. After going on a small rant about site blocking in schools in my last Tech Tips, I followed that with an email suggesting that if you couldn't see the images in my first email you could read the post on the Tech Tips Archive Blog instead. Silly me. That suggestion would only work if you are in a school or location that doesn't block social networking sites. If your school does block social networking, since blogs are a form of social networking, you would not be able to visit the blog either. Thank heaven the kiddies are being protected from that drivel, eh?
Some days the ironies are so thick and delicious you just want to grab two slices of bread and make a sandwich.
Until next week ...
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
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