Engaging+Tools



Tuning In and Discovering What They Already Know Tools Voice Thread is a great tool for students of all ages to share their thinking or learning with others. A teacher can set up a Voice Thread account and then students can add their ideas easily using written, voice or video comments. Voice Threads are easy to embed into a wiki or blog and can be commented on through wikis and blogs. (The commenter has to sign in - free account) This means you can embed it to your class blog and the children access it and use it from there.

Voice Thread has many uses: it can be used as a portfolio tool, to share ideas, a presentation tool or a way to get children collaborating with others. Children can post their writing into Voice Thread and then assess their writing against success criteria. The teacher can also comment this way along with parents and peers.



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Talking about features of writing
=[|voicethread.com/share/1357270/]=

**Voice Thread Notes**


www.slideshare.net/mberner/voicethread-handout



//__**Some examples of how it can be used:**__//
Character Description @http://tinwaldtotara.weebly.com/literacy.html Gathering information

Procedural Text How to make hokey pokey - children were given jumbled instructions and had to watch the video and sort the instructions into the correct structure. media type="youtube" key="UXYKOv0TFyE?fs=1" height="445" width="576"

"how to moonwalk" Yr2 children watch then follow the instructions (funny to watch!!). Then we identified what they did that made the instructions good - set the criteria for our own instructional writing.

Speeches Delivery of speeches media type="youtube" key="26intm7aNaI?fs=1" height="342" width="576"

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A free site for downloading youtube video (great if embedding has been disabled) []

**Brainstorming ideas**

Wordle Is an online app for generating "word clouds" from any text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text (in other words, they make them bigger). The resulting images can be tweaked with varying colors, fonts, and layouts, and then used as you like.



Possible uses
 * creating title slides and program covers
 * brainstorming ideas
 * designing poems
 * summarizing thoughts
 * turning random ideas into art
 * students to insert a chunk of their own writing. The resulting word cloud will reveal overused words in a stark, visual way

__**Reflection using Wordle**__





To save, you must print as a PDF, or easier, click on Ctrl and PrtScrn. This saves the whole screen as a screen shot which can be pasted and cropped to be used elsewhere. (Click Ctrl, then Prt Scrn. Nothing will appear to have happened, but when you right click in a Word doc or Power Point slide, you'll be able to paste the entire screen shot there. Then use the Crop feature from your Picture tools to trim to size). Trying to find your wordle in the gallery quickly becomes a long exercise as people all around the world make new wordles and your wordle gets further and further back in the gallery.

Here is a link for more ideas on using wordle in the classroom []

==[|Tagxedo] - Cool tool like wordle but you can choose what image / shape you want to use ... (some examples on my class wikis @ www.weareroom1.wikispaces.com ==


 * Writing Fun - Useful to find out about different text types **




 * Other websites and Tools to Engage Your Writers **

The Brainstormer is a fun, interactive spinner that provides a random combination of conflicts, characters, and settings. More suitable to senior classes.

Bubbl.us is an online mind mapping tool that allows students to either brainstorm or organize thoughts.

Writing Fun is an online tool for teachers and students. It is an interactive writing site that included downloads for off-line use. Writing Fun explains the types of texts commonly written in schools and gives examples showing text structures, grammatical features and ideas for publishing. Writing genres include: reports, explanations, procedures, narratives, recounts, poetry and letters.

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 * [[image:Screen_shot_2010-09-29_at_8.18.02_PM.png width="447" height="326" link="@http://www.buildyourwildself.com/"]] || [[image:Screen_shot_2010-09-29_at_8.22.40_PM.png width="447" height="331" link="@http://www.buildyourwildself.com/"]] ||

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==Although these tools are not online, don't forget about good old PowerPoint or Keynote to get your children interested in what they are writing about. These tools can be used in a huge number of ways, and all they need is a little bit of teacher creativity! Don't make learning hard for children, use pictures as much as possible as the power of visual aids is often forgotten. Pictures/images play an important role in gettting children ready, prepared, motivated and excited in writing.==


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Scholastic Story Starter
Use this machine to create random story starters - ideal for rapid writing skills. The children can change certain aspects of the story and also create their writing online.



Spelling Resources
This easy to use website is great for motivating children to practice their words. Lists of words can be typed in or children can use preset lists.

__**Spelling with Flickr**__ media type="custom" key="7043225"

Just for fun, children can make their words on this site - could be good for juniors?

Other ideas using different learning styles