Ways to Use Thinglink in Education

Visual literacy is an emphasis in ESOL. The visual aspect helps language learners develop vocabulary and much, much more.  It is also beneficial for many learners.  As an online instructor who wishes to bring more meaningful visuals into the classroom, I’ve gained a deeper appreciation for visuals for adult learners as well.  There are many online options available to us.

When Tech:  Thinglink Education is one option with a lot of potential.  The ThingLink Education site describes it as an “Easy-to-use editor, teachers can create immersive and engaging experiences by adding tags to any image in a few minutes: Create authentic, valuable, and rich interactive stories around historical events using media (video, sound, photos, written words, etc.) found online. Annotate graphs and timelines. Record an instructional message to students inside an image. Embed interactive images into student blogs. Enable students to curate content inside an image to demonstrate understanding of a topic."  

At ISTE, I received a free upgrade to the educator’s account of Thinglink Education, which took me from 50 pictures to 500.  

Met Ed: It may be no surprise that Pinterest is a great starting place to see the potential in education.  Explore the pictures at Thinglink Education on Pinterest. It will take you a few clicks to be able to interact with the picture in its intended way.  (Wave your cursor over the Thinglink and click on the circles.) I found this interesting one there by Mr. Loret’s World History class that demonstrates how students are using it!  Here's another Thinglink jumping place to gather ideas and examples.
 

 

Above is my first try with Thinglink. (Wave your cursor over the words, and click on the circles.) It’s very basic, but it shows me the potential firsthand.  I made this in Tagul and uploaded it to Thinglink.  I’ll use it to introduce a few options of online timelines my students can explore for an upcoming course.  It only took a few minutes to make.  I can imagine linking to videos I upload to You Tube or audio instructions I make on SoundCloud.  There are many possibilities.  With an assignment on theories of SLA, students could link to credible articles, videos, etc. that discuss and describe the theories.  Students could even have a “debate” starting place with the words “yes” and reasons on one picture and “no” and reasons on another.  They could then debate away, either by recording their voices and linking to Vacaroo or SoundCloud or simply by writing reasons on the picture and debating in person.  Thinglink has an option to invite others to work on a picture collaboratively.  There are a ton more possibilities, ways librarians, musicians, and others are using it too.  This Wired article gives an overview of a few.

Happy Thinglinking! 

Fun with Typografit, Flickr Poet, Vizlingo, and More for Jan 31st EFL/ESL/ELL Blog Carnival

This is my “fun” contribution to the Jan. 31st EFL/ESL/ELL Blog Carnival hosted by David Deubelbeiss at EFL Classroom 2.0.  In deciding what to contribute, I came to the realization that so much is fun to me, particularly when it includes technology that spurs critical thinking and discussions that my students connect with.   Have fun with a few of the sites and ideas I enjoy, and consider taking my “challenge” at the end!

A.      9 Simple free web 2.0 sites

TYPOGRAFIT and STORIES IN FLIGHT: FLICKR POET

When Tech:  Type text into Typografit or Stories in Flight: Flickr Poet and create something like the image above.  It's fun!  Give Typografit a whirl here and Flickr Poet a try here. Create a word picture and share it.  

Met Ed:  In ESOL or language, students can type in sentences in Typografit and then discuss punctuation and spelling. One of my classes typed in short paragraphs that used our vocabulary.  They then discussed the pictures and how closely they reflected their writing.  Sometimes the pictures were quite different than they expected, and this led to some interesting discussion.

Flickr Poet suggests typing in poems or music to visualize them. I couldn’t resist and typed in a poem from one of my favorite poets, Since Feeling Is First by E.E. Cummings. I then captured it using Jing; it’s viewable here.

Wouldn’t it be fun to have students write poems, use Flickr Poet, and then use a screencast such as Jing to record music that captured the spirit of their poems or their voices reading their creations? Of course, they could just simply read or discuss the results if a low tech route is preferable.  Any of these are bound to be fun and lead to language acquisition. How can Typografit or Flickr Poet be used in your class?

VIZLINGO

When Tech:  Type text into Vizlingo and create something like the video I made below.  You have some choices of videos to include in your final product.  You can even upload your own videos.  Create and share a video here. It’s almost too much fun!

Met Ed:  This can help students visualize vocabulary as well.  It can lead to some interesting discussions about idioms and multiple meanings of words.  Here’s a great post by Nik Peachy that explains it.  Don’t miss Nik’s suggested activities for using it. How can Vizlingo be used in your class?

*A word of caution is that not all the pictures generated on these sites may be appropriate for younger learners.

See more suggested sites on a recent post called, Six Fun Educational Sites.  It highlights Wonderopolis, Shel Silverstein, One World, Many Stories, Geo Greetings, Draw a Stickman, and Balloons of Bhutan.  Explore more fun educational sites on our Ed Sites page.

B.       A few past fun posts that I have done with students’ help.  The potential of fun is unlimited when tech and creativity are at play and the products are shared. 

• Who thinks SLA theories are fun?  I know I do and didn’t think they could get much more interesting until teachers in my College of Ed course helped me create this post using fakebook, Prezi ,and online comic strips.
• How can vocabulary class be spiced up?  My adult ESOL class showed me when they pulled together a Glogster mashup highlighted in this post. 
• Again, although browsing dictionaries is a delight, my adult ESOL students show in their reviews in this post how online dictionaries can make one fall in love with words and definitions in a new manner.

A thank you to David Deubelbeiss at EFL Classroom 2.0 for hosting this carnival.  I highly recommend checking out his site and its many resources!   Oh, and writing this post was a blast!  

Challenge for both of us:  Either A: Use one of the sites in this post and blog about it.  Or  B.  Use one of these sites for educational purposes, drop me a link to one of your creations, and I will compile them together some fun way that I share on this blog.

Happy creating!

Illuminated Text and Kinetic Typography Bring Reading Alive

CLICK HERE ON THIS LINK. (Click here to watch the PowerPoint version.)  You won’t regret it! What you just watched (or should watch) is an illuminated text depiction by Jenny Lee of Ernest Hemingway’s short story, A Cat in the Rain.  Illuminated text is also sometimes referred to as kinetic typography.

There’s more where this came from. Watch THIS illuminated text using one of my favorite poets, e.e. cummins. Now, for the kicker.  Middle and high school students are making illuminated texts such as these.  Think of all the learning involved!  What a great alternative to demonstrate comprehension of a text.

Want to learn more?  The site AwaytoTeach is where to start.  It has examples, lesson plans, forums, and more.  Digital IS NWP National Writing Project has more examples and discussion as well.  Plus, it's a wonderful site to explore.

Every now and then, I find myself taken back to my roots as an English major, drawn to the classics.  The sites AwaytoTeach and Digital IS NWP National Writing Project  took me back, and I’m glad they did in a way that adds a simple twist to the greats!  Illuminated text such as these also connect to the quick and effective word clouds in my previous post.  I can see using this concept in many different content areas.  How could you use it?

Here is one called Language I show in one of my university classes when discussing standard English. Take a look at Typolution; the idea of raining punctuation captivates me-- who wouldn't want to catch an exclamation mark or splash in a comma? Partners could watch and describe it as part of a language development activity.  Below is a a typography based on a classic, Who's on First.  It made me think it would be fun for ELLs to create one of these based on a Jazz Chant.

“This is crazy awesome,” she said. “Go explore more!”

Word Clouds: Tagxedo, Wordle, Tagul, and Wordlings

Online word clouds and Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs fit perfectly into my beginning ESOL unit on food. (Mmm, hmmm… not only does that bring back memories of one of my favorite classes, but it also makes me hungry.)  My students took unit vocabulary and created word cloud word wall art with it.  That was the first time I used word clouds, and I haven't looked back since then.

Word clouds are simple to do, but effective.  In the most basic sense, they involve taking text or a URL  address, running it through a word cloud site, and magically beholding beautiful word art that makes the most frequently used words pop.  They can typically be linked to, embedded in a blog or site, and displayed in a gallery. The apple on the upper right hand corner of this site is an example of a word cloud made on Tagxedo.  Wave your cursor over the words to watch them enlarge.  Go ahead.  It’s fun.

So, how can word clouds fit into the classroom? Student use. Teacher use.  Brainstorming.  Previewing vocabulary.   Analyzing your own writing, blog or website.  A comparison of the “K” and the “L” in a KWL (Know, Want to Know, Learned).   The list goes on and on.  Check out some ideas and contribute your own to the LinoIt online sticky embedded below.  (It is easiest to view and add to it HERE. Create a new sticky note.  Use the hand to drag your sticky to a new place.)

Here are a few sites that generate word clouds: Tagxedo, Wordle, Tagul, and Wordlings.  I listed Tagxedo and Wordle first because they are the two I use the most frequently.  I particularly like Tagxedo because of all of the shape options it offers.

This Teacher Challenge blog post gives an overview of Wordle and some good example of how to use it. Here is a Google docs that gives 50 interesting ways to use Wordle in the classroom.   This slideshare gives 101 suggestions for using Tagxedo.  Here is a slideshare that shows how to use Tagul and describes some of its uses.


On the left is a Tagul word cloud I made using this blog. On the right is a Wordlings word cloud I made with this blog. 

 Go creative-crazy.  Happy creating!

Online Dictionaries and Vocabulary Games Part 2: Lexipedia, Lingro, Shahi, Wordia

Online dictionaries have stepped dictionaries up a notch.  They are interactive and visual, contain audio, etc.   Here is a list of online dictionaries that I refer my students to and use during class.

Watch this Jing screencast where I give an overview of some of the features of online dictionaries by looking up the word education in each of these sites:  Lexipedia, Lingro, Shahi, and Wordia.

I find it useful to take a step back and see how my students are naturally using the technology and what their thoughts of it are. Here are some reviews from my Advanced level ESOL students.  

Lexipedia (There is also a Spanish Lexipedia site):  Type the word you want to know and it will give you the definition, the part of speech and related words. It gives colors that show the parts of speech and relationships to fuzzynyms, synonyms, and antonyms.  This site has six languages, but no Arabic or Chinese.  (reviewed by Mo  and  Karl)  

Shahi: This site has very easy definitions with simple examples.  Just type the word, and you can get the meaning of words with visual photos.  The best quality of this site is that I can understand new vocabulary even if I cannot catch their meanings by the text definition because of the useful pictures.  I think there is one small problem. Sometimes the wrong pictures appear.  I strongly recommend this site.   (reviewed by Ryan)  

Wordia:  On this site you can put the word and see the videos that complement the meaning of the words. The best quality is that you can understand the meaning of the words and improve your skills because you can listen to the word in context. A first drawback is it´s incomplete. I put the word “drawback” and they don´t have video for this word. The second is that the process to get to know the word is long.  (reviewed by Felipe)   

Lingro: (See review in this previous post.)

 
Other applications:  I’d like to experiment and have my students make videos such those on Wordia to share with future students.  What are some ways you or your students use these types of online dictionaries?

*This is the second in a series that outlines a few online dictionaries and vocabulary games to give a flavor of what is available out there.  Feel free to pass on additional quality vocabulary sites that are not included in our Students tab and tell us how they are useful.  Stay tuned for some upcoming posts including a guest post about Wordsift and some online vocabulary games.   Here is a link to part 1 in this series.  Thanks to all of my students for their reviews and good discussions this term! 

  photo by  practicalowl

Online Dictionaries and Vocabulary Games Part 1: Lingro

Lingro.  It claims to be “The coolest dictionary known to hombre.”  What do you think?

When I started teaching ESOL, my students toted around bilingual dictionaries.  Over the years, I watched the book dictionaries disappear as students appeared with their own pocket translators.  Lately, it appears these translators are being replaced by smartphone apps, ipad apps, and online dictionaries.  I see students automatically turning to these devices to look up words for meaning, pronunciation, parts of speech, practice and more.

Although it still is in its beginning stages, I created a list of online dictionaries that I refer my students to and use during class.  When I say online dictionaries, I really mean dictionaries on steroids compared to the paper ones toted around not all that long ago.  Even Merriam-Webster has received a makeover.  These dictionaries are interactive and often contain visuals, videos and vocabulary games.

Lingro is my most recent discovery.  My initial reaction to exploring it was, “This is a gold mine!”  You can take any website in a fairly wide range of languages and run it through this site.  It basically turns any site into a clickable dictionary.  Click on a word and it gives you its definition.  You can save it in a personal word list, see it used in the context on the site, and then create a flashcard game with it and other words on your word list.

These videos by Russell Stannard demonstrate Lingro and its uses.  They can be accessed here.  Russell says, “This is without a doubt the best website I’ve found in 2011.” (As a side note, Russell  Stannard’s site, Teacher Training Videos, has an extensive and impressive number of useful teacher videos such as these.) Watch, explore, and see what you think about Lingro!  

*This is the first in a series that will outline a few online dictionaries and vocabulary games to give a flavor of what is available out there.  Feel free to pass on additional quality vocabulary sites that are not included in our Students tab and tell us how they are useful.  Stay tuned for some upcoming posts including a guest post about Wordsift and some reviews written by students in one of my ESOL classes.   If you liked this post, you may also be interested in this post.

  photo by  practicalowl 

Vocabulary Class Takes to 21st Century Learning Tools

This is a follow up to my previous post entitled Glogster EDU My Grasshopper Mocha.  In searching for some creative ways to teach and learn vocabulary, I decided to use Glogster EDU for a springboard and platform, add a few other web 2.0 tools and vocabulary sites, and see where it took my adult ESOL class in three weeks.  In the process, we used Pic Lits, Jing, Youblisher, Wall Wisher, and Tagxedo.  Here’s where beginning to advanced level language learners landed in a few class periods when they brought their laptops to class.  Click here for full view. (See below for explanations of how we incorporated each of these tools)

Jing :  Inspired by Daniel Pink’s videos that encourage people to ask the question “What’s my sentence?” when thinking about intrinsic motivators, I created my own video recording of my sentence.  I stated what impact I hope to have in the world and my related vocabulary as an example for my students.    (Here’s a direct link to my video created with Jing, an easy to use screen capturing tool for both images and videos.)

Pic Lits and Jing:  (See previous post here for more on Pic Lits) Assignment 1.  With limited time, Pic Lits’ library of pictures and words served our purposes.  Students were encouraged to use pseudonyms for usernames.  We spent a few class periods finding pictures, working on vocabulary development, and editing.  They emailed me their links and within a matter of minutes, this Student Pic Lits Glogster came to life.  Assignment 2.  After students got the hang of Pic Lits, they created their own sentences demonstrating what impact they hope to leave and their related vocabulary.  They used a variety of online dictionaries such as Lexipedia in a round robin synonym/antonym vocabulary building activity to give each other additional vocabulary suggestions.  Optional assignment 3.  A few students decided to take it a step further.  With 15 minutes in-class time and my laptop, they snapped pictures of their Pic Lit sentences and recorded this video using Jing.  Watch their video here!  It was fun listening to them self correct pronunciation, peer edit, etc. as they recorded.

Youblisher, Jing, and Tagxedo:  I wanted to give Youblisher a try, so I took snapshots of each of the student sentences using Jing.  I compiled them in a PDF file and within a matter of seconds published their sentences in this online book. (Click on the bottom right to flip the pages.)  We also compiled our favorite words into a Tagxedo picture and added it to the Youblisher book.

Wallwisher:  We used wallwisher on a limited basis.  We added our textbook’s vocabulary to a wall, and weekly words that students taught to the class from their vocabulary journals.  Some students took the optional challenge and wrote sentences using the vocabulary words.  There are many possibilities with Wallwisher or another similar tool such as LinoIt. 

Online dictionaries and games:  We rounded off the class with partners exploring and then presenting assigned online dictionary and vocabulary games to the class.  Here’s a link to some online vocabulary student sites for various language levels.

Jing, PicLits, Youblisher, Wallwisher, Tagxedo:  Any of these can serve as standalone tools within the classroom.  However, publishing them on a platform such as Glogster EDU creates a buzz of excitement and a place to collaborate and share work.  A big thank you is in order to my students who put in the effort and worked on this project in a short amount of time and granted me permission to share it!  Here’s one last look at the final project’s home page.

Drop us a line if you want to share an experience with any of these tools in the classroom.  Happy Glogging! 

Glogster EDU. My Grasshopper Mocha.

(Please stay with me; this short digression does relate to tech/ed.)  I’m a big, no HUGE, peppermint mocha fan.  I eyed a special called grasshopper mocha at a local coffee shop I frequent but thought, “Why change a good thing and possibly waste $3.50 on something that probably won’t live up to my expectations?”  One day, I was in a crazy, risk-taking mood and blurted out, “Grasshopper mocha, please.”  To my pleasant surprise, I discovered this drink is a delight!  I now order grasshopper mochas more often than peppermint mochas and recommend them to others. 

About a week ago, I had a “grasshopper mocha” tech moment.  I’ve been pleased for several terms now with Weebly for Educators and Posterous in my classes.  On the spur of the moment, I gave the Glogster EDU account a whirl.  Wow, am I glad I did!  Below is a Glog that I’ve been working on in collaboration with my Vocabulary class students. (Click here or on the pink Glogster box below to view full size.)  It’s a work in progress—shortened because it is only a month long class and we began in week two.

Glogster EDU has a lot to offer.  For starters, it’s a free.  The teacher can create student accounts and manage them.  Accounts can be made private or public. Edu Premium accounts are also available.  Many educators are already on board.  There are glogs to explore in a multitude of categories ranging from language arts to science.  Here is a link to one I like called What Do 21^st Century Students Need? and another entitled Best of TED for Teachers. (A downside I sometimes encounter is that glogs may take a few minutes to load, but hopefully wait time is worth it.)

Stay tuned for more posts on my uses of Glogster EDU combined with Pic Lits, Wall Wisher, and some of Daniel Pink’s thinking.  Drop us a line to share your Glogster EDU.

Happy Glogging!

ESOL and Multilingual Sites Mingle with Content Areas

My College of Ed. classes are exploring ways of making language comprehensible to English language learners and bilingual learners in the content areas.  They have looked at many ways of embedding meaningful language opportunities and of reducing the linguistic load in all of the content areas.  Using technology and sites such as the following are a few of the ways to do this.

Multilingual Sites

Larry Ferlazzo has some suggestions on his list of The Best Multilingual and Bilingual Sites for Math, Social Studies, and Science.  The Multilingual Science Glossaries by Glenco for middle school and high school look promising.

Little Kiddos

For young learners and beginners, Kindersay is a site worth exploring.  Thanks to Richard Byrne of Free Technology for Teachers and his post which highlights additional sites for language learners.
  
 Digital Storytelling all ages

With a bit of creativity and careful planning, digital storytelling has amazing potential in integrating language and the content areas.  Proof resides in some of the ideas and lesson plans my students have created.  Little Birds Tales seems to be young learner friendly.  I recently signed up for an educator’s account at GoAnimate and am exploring it.  I have watched my own kiddo extend her classroom language learning in some exciting ways at home on this site. (A thank you to her teacher!)  

Quiki Online Talking Encyclopedia

I have been following Quiki since it was in beta and am not sure how to categorize it.  It’s interesting to say the least.  Take a look.  What do you think in terms of language development and content integration?  Here’s a link to Quiki on a topic of interest to me.

Vocabulary

I am teaching an adult ESOL vocabulary class for beginner to advanced levels.  Here are some vocabulary sites that I recommend to them on our class glogster. (More to come soon about glogs.)

Other sites we are exploring are found on our ed sites tab, which we continually add to.  I laughed at my memory the other day when I thanked one of my students for giving me a site I recommended on this blog.  This is a conscientious attempt to highlight and apply these sites in posts like this one and Kacey’s Storyline Online post.

 

If you have any recommendations for additional sites or want to share ways they are working in your class, leave a comment or drop us an email.  Happy exploring!

top photo by  joomlatools