Tools and Templates

Tools and Templates - The templates can be downloaded from the site, saved to your hard drive, edited as necessary, and then printed. Or they can be downloaded, printed, and used as is.
Lots of great tools to use for organizing the beginning of the year!

Glypho

Glypho-A fun new way to read and write novels. A cool collaborative way to write a story! Create an account, jot some story ideas down. Users around the world will give character and plot ideas. Next, more than one person will create the first chapter, once finished others will vote on the best chapter.

Soungle

Soungle - A search engine for sounds! Could be useful as a stimulus for writing.

1. Create a story, mood, setting etc through sounds from soungle etc

2. Put the sounds into a medium such as PPT.

3. Add writing or 'talk' story

4. Perform out loud!

Go to the site and start searching for sounds now!

Poll Your Students Online

Do you have a wiki or blog and want to spice it up? Use Polldaddy.com
Sign up for a free account and create polls and surverys in a few simple steps. Copy the code and paste into your blog or wiki. Students or parents can vote and immediately see the results. Tip: If you are going to have students vote from the same computer make sure you click on "Don't block repeat voters" in the right column on the page.

Try it out below.

RoohIt- Highlighting Web Pages

RoohIt [RooH-it!] verb:
A / n.f. identifying the soul / essence of a document
e.g. the act of getting to the soul of any document, identifying what is uniquely relevant to each individual user by highlighting it.
RoohIt allows users to create a free account and highlight webpages. Once pages are highlighted, users can get a direct link to the highlighted page to save and share with students.

http://rooh.it/abe35

E-Learning for Kids- EXCELLENT RESOURCE!

e-Learning for Kids, a global, nonprofit foundation, provides free courses for children ages 5 – 12. The text of most of the courses is available in both print and audio, and in some courses, critical vocabulary is defined by clicking on the highlighted word. These quality activities are a great addition to your teaching toolbox!

Wordsift- Make Vocabulary Words Visual

WordSift is a tool that was created primarily for teachers. Mainly, think of it playfully - as a toy in a linguistic playground that is available to instantly capture and display the vocabulary structure of texts, and to help create an opportunity to talk and play with language.

A great tool for all ages to visualize vocabulary- check out the example.
Other similar sites:
http://www.visuwords.com/
http://www.wordnik.com/

Create Stories Online with Your Students

My StoryMaker lets you control characters and objects - and creates sentences for you! Once you are done with your story, save it online or print it out in the Library.


Myths and Legends Story Creator Make your own stories using sound, text, characters, creatures and scenery.

Mixbook Looking for a way to get your students more engaged? Mixbook is proud to present Mixbook for Educators, a program that allows educators even easier access to the most powerful suite of digital storytelling tools on the web.