http://community.guinnessworldrecords.com Recently, I received a teacher supply catalog in the mail, and one of the items that caught my eye was a collection of photographs to be used as writing prompts. The pictures were pretty interesting, and I love using pictures to inspire writing, but I felt that anyone who paid for this collection of pictures was being duped. Why? Because they were pictures from Ripley's Believe It or Not, and most of these pictures are available for free online. I realize some people would still pay to save the time and hassle of tracking down some of these pictures on their own, so today I'm helping by sharing my favorite links to interesting pictures that can be used as writing prompts. That way, my busy colleagues can use their time for something else, perhaps a game of underwater checkers?
**A Google search for "Guinness Records" or "Ripley's" supplies more results than either website. For more information on how teachers are using photography in conjunction with writing, read the National Writing Project's article Teachers Use Photo Prompts to Spark Writing. Photo Writing Prompts View more presentations from jesspilgreen.
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OK, so usually I take this time to update everyone on all of the neat free tools that I've found online. However, I've been very busy lately working on a couple of things. First and foremost, I'm sixteen days from graduation, so I've been immensely busy finishing all of my last-minute thesis revisions, paperwork completions, etc. etc. etc... (You get it--it's a lot of stuff!) Aside from graduate school, I've also been extremely busy getting my new freshman English classroom website up and running. Now, I don't think most of you would be interested in what I have to say about gender and power in medieval and Renaissance literature, but you might be interested in looking at my new website. So, here it is: www.pilgreenenglish1.weebly.com I'm also working on a new website for my English IV class (a new class for me this year). You can view that website here: www.pilgreenenglishiv.weebly.com Both websites are definitely works in progress, and will be changing throughout the year, but I'm pretty pleased in terms of where they are now. Feel free to look at them, compliment them, belittle them, borrow from them, offer suggestions, criticism, insults, *warm fuzzies*... whatever makes you happy.
Enjoy! For Internet safety reasons, I do not want my students using actual photos of themselves online. Instead, I've been compiling a list of websites that I can direct my students to where they can create fun avatars. Click on an image below for the web address where the avatar was created, or click on the hyperlinks below the images. All of the avatars below were created by me after "playing" with the websites, so I have tested each of them personally. All of the avatar creators are completely free, and none of them require any downloading. In addition to creating avatars for Internet safety when participating in web publishing, discussion boards, and social networking, avatar can also be animated for presentations. Voki allows user to add audio files to avatars. Picture files can also be manipulated with a website such as Blabberize, or a paid program like CrazyTalk. Note: Some website may contain unsuitable items (for example, the South Park avatar creator allows users to add alcoholic beverages to their avatar). Preview the website that you plan to use in order to make sure that it is appropriate for your students. Top Row (L-R): South Park Avatar, Simpsons Avatar, Mii Avatar Middle Row (L-R): Scott Pilgrim Avatar, Diary of a Wimpy Kid Avatar, Anime Avatar Third Row (L-R): Voki Avatar (talking avatar), Stick Person Avatar, Mad Men Avatar Bottom Row (L-R): WeeMee Avatar, Doppel Me Avatar, FaceYourManga Avatar I found out about Literature Map thanks to a blog feed that I subscribe to: iLearnTechnology. Literature Map helps you choose your next novel based on the authors that you already like. Simply type in the name of your favorite author, and this website will generate a word cloud of similar authors. The originally searched author's name will appear in the middle of the word cloud and, the closer another author's name is to the center, the more likely you are to enjoy that author as well. Click on any of the new authors that pop up and a new word cloud will be generated based on the writing of that author. A great tool for students who just don't know what to read next. Click below to watch a screencast of Literature Map at work. (By the way, I completely agree with the website's recommendation to read Libba Bray if you like Stephenie Meyer. I find her Great and Terrible Beauty series to be a wonderful next read for students who have already read the Twilight series.) PodBean offers free audio and video podcast hosting, so that when you are finished making your amazing podcasts, you have somewhere to put them. PodBean will also generate code for you so that you can embed one of those handy-dandy bars on your website. PodBean also gives you access to tons of free educational (and entertaining) podcasts. Some that might interest educators include: TED Talks, NOVA, Grammar Girl, CNN Student News, and Kidspeak. (Kidspeak podcasts feature student-created tutorials for other students on topics such as Microsoft Word tips and long division). Podcasts can be streamed from your computer or downloaded for later viewing. You can also subscribe to different "shows" to get updates when new podcasts are uploaded. Note: Below, I am embedding a sample podcast. It's an audio recording of one of my students reciting an original poem. I plan on making more of these recording to post on our literary club's website. This will give you an idea of what PodBean podcasts will look like on your own website or When you open Tone Matrix, it looks similar to the beginning of a game of Minesweeper, a field of shaded boxes. However, as you click or drag across the squares, they light up and create different synthesizer tones. You end up with your own light, random (or carefully calculated, depending on your approach) music. Don't underestimate this game's addictiveness. This is great for music lessons, but also for looking at mathematical patterns. Watch it in action below. ClustrMaps is a fun and informative widget that you can embed on your website, or the websites of your students. Simply visit the ClustrMaps websites, enter the URL of the site you want to create a map for, and an HTML code will be generated for you. ClustrMaps appears as a world map with red dots, varying in size based on the amount of visitors from a particular region. Of course, since discovering ClustrMaps my blog has had an all-time low number of visitors (an extremely modest 14) but what's really interesting is that I had no idea people were visiting my website from their homes in Ireland, Australia and Singapore. The idea of someone across the globe stumbling into my humble little blog is so neat! As a student, I would be so excited to see how many people were viewing my writing portfolio, and where those readers might be located. With that said, (shameless begging) please forward the URL for my blog to as many foreign countries as possible! I want more dots! UPDATE (7-8-11): I was noticing some major inconsistencies between my clustr map and the statistics that I was receiving from Weebly (my website host). For instance, as of today, my clustr map reports 130 visitors to my website; however, according to Weebly, I had 248 visitors yesterday alone. With the question "what's up with that?" spinning in my head, I discovered that Clustrmap only counts visits to the page where the map itself is displayed, so if anyone visits another blog or post (anything other than the page where I embedded the clustr map) it won't be counted. Weebly, on the other hand, counts visits to any blog or post on my website. This makes sense, really. Not sure how to "fix" this solution so that Clustrmaps counts all of my page views without embedding the map on every since page, though. I'll play around with it and, in the meantime, you may see some clustrmaps randomly appearing. :) UPDATE 12-16-11 A HUGE thank you to the ClustrMaps team for explaining why Weebly's tallies are inconsistent with ClustrMap's stats. And another thank you to ClustrMaps for providing such accurate information without counting duplicate visitors or IP addresses. Comparing ClustrMaps' visitor count to Weebly's visitor count will provide me with a whole new layer of data! (Please the comment posted below by the ClustrMaps team.) Classtools.net offers two fun random word/name pickers for free: the fruit machine and the typewriter. These are great when you need a fair way to select students for reading, answering questions, assigning new seating charts, or delivering presentations. You could also enter vocabulary words and randomly select a word for students to define, or put in English words and then have students give the corresponding Spanish word, etc. As names/words are selected, you have the option to remove them from the list. My students like the typewriter option, because they try to guess whose name is slowly being spelled as letters are revealed. Six Word Memoirs challenges writers to write their life story in an intensely concise format: using exactly six words. The project is part of SMITH magazine which, consequently, is loaded with great writing ideas (stumbled into the Freeze Frame project while I was there and it made me giggle at its humor and innovation). With all these great ideas for writing, I'm seriously going to have to start holding "creative day" in my classroom once a month or so just to find time for all of these fun, imaginative writing projects that will really get the creative juice flowing in my students. The website even has a section of Six-Word memoirs written exclusively by teens. Wouldn't it be exciting to have your students posting their writing to the Internet and experiencing a genuine authentic audience for their writing? Note: A special thanks to Stephanie Krajicek for sharing this resource during her BER seminar. Note: The above image came from the When I Grow Up Blog. I have seen this video before, but recently was reminded of it at a seminar led by Stephanie Krajicek, a wonderful educational technology expert who runs a very informative and well-organized blog called Education Ad Infinitum. After attending her seminar, I have been inspired to do more blogging with my students next year. I'm going to start with a small group of seniors, and see how smoothly everything runs. If it goes well, I'll have the rest of my classes blogging the following year (or maybe even after Christmas break). Here's to high hopes! I highly recommend watching this video, and then visiting her website for a ton of useful information. Click on the "Seminar Handbook" link to access a PDF file of her resources. |
AuthorDr. Jessica Pilgreen, Ed.D. Archives
December 2020
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