The Shakespeare Insult Generator is a fun way to play with archaic language. During my Romeo and Juliet unit, I let students come up to the Smart Board and click "next insult" to get verbally wounded by the Bard himself! There are multiple Shakespearean insult generators out there, but this is my favorite due to its visual appeal. (I like the cute little animated Shakespeare.) I also recommend the Shakespeare Insult Kit, which allows students to combines words from three columns in order to craft their own insults. This website is printer-friendly, if you decide to distribute the kit and allow students to insult one another in class.
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Dictionary.com is a wonderful resource for any teacher to use. One of the features that I particularly appreciate is the audio pronunciation files of words. My students also enjoy looking up the Word of the Day and posting it on the board. In addition to the dictionary feature, this website also offers a thesaurus, flashcard sets, translator, quotes, and Spanish dictionary. Students or teachers can even create their own sets of flash cards, and "master word with customizable study and quiz tools." Down time? Try a crossword puzzle or one of the other word games. Dictionary.com does offer your basic dictionary tool, but it also offers so much more! Online Magnetic Poetry: http://play.magpogames.com/ Everyone has seen--and maybe even played with--the tin can of magnetic words that you can arrange to make poetry. Recently, my sister gave me her Office Magnetic Poetry and, after removing any words that could be put into compromising situations, I threw the words on my dry-erase board and waited. Now, my magnetic poetry seems to have a group of devoted followers who enjoy coming in at the beginning of the hour to arrange the magnets and have their words represented throughout the day. On a hunch, I searched for an online version and found that the makers of Magnetic Poetry will let you try before you buy on their website. You can also view submitted poems created by others. What a fun end-of-the-hour activity! Or an interactive writing prompt! Or a fun National Poetry Month activity! This would work really well with a Smart Board. PrintWhatYouLike.com allows you to save on paper and ink by printing only what you want from a website. I know that when I take my students to the computer lab, they often end up printing several wasted pages of ads in order to get the information that they need. Now, with Print What You Like, we can "go green" by only printing the information that we need. Watch the embedded video below to see it in action! No Fear Shakespeare is put together by the fine people over at Sparknotes (essentially, digital Cliff Notes for those of us who still remember those eyeball-assaulting little flip books). No Fear Shakespeare offers numerous works of the bard, including 19 of his plays as well as his sonnets. Each play contains the original text on one side of the page, and a modern translation that your students will easily understand on the right. (Caution: All the dirty jokes are translated, too, so be advised!) This is a great adaptation for RtI students, or for groups getting their feet wet for the first time with Shakespeare's language. If you like the texts, they are also available in print. (I bought both Romeo & Juliet and Macbeth at Barnes & Noble for around $10 a pop, although you could probably find them used at a cheaper rate.) Note: Also available are a few non-Shakespearian texts, including Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Heart of Darkness, The Scarlet Letter and A Tale of Two Cities. The Academy of American Poets has a fantastic database of poetry-inspired photography called the Free Verse Project. You can access the photos on the academy's website, or check out the "Free Verse" group on Flickr. This would be a wonderful way for students to find poems that they may enjoy. This year, I'm thinking about having students participate in the project by bringing in their own poetry-inspired photography and posting it in a highly-visible location at school in celebration of National Poetry Month (April). Of course, students' photos would also make a wonderful addition to a classroom webpage. Note: While visiting the Academy of American Poet's homepage, check out their available lesson plans, searchable database of poetry and poets, and their audio recordings. Teachers can also request a free copy of the National Poetry Month poster, and find NPM activities for their classroom and community. Update: As of March 2011, my students are currently working on their own Free Verse Project. Photos will continue to filter in until the April 8, 2011 deadline. http://pilgreenenglish.weebly.com/free-verse-project.html Below, I'm embedding the handout that I distributed to my students. If you would like a copy as a Publisher file that you can edit and customize, please send me an e-mail. Awesome Screenshot works with your Google Chrome browser and enables you to capture and annotate images on your computer with shapes and text. The screenshot is similar to the camera function in Smart Notebook software (you can capture the entire page or just a portion of it) but it lets you annotate too, and save the annotations as part of the file. Another valuable feature is that Awesome Screenshot also allows you to blur When you are finished with your annotations, you can save it as an image or generate a sharable link to be posted on a website or sent via e-mail. I wish I would have known about Awesome Screenshot sooner; in the past, I've always created my presentation handouts by pasting screen captures into Publisher and creating text boxes and shapes. This is a huge time-saver for me! This would also be wonderful for creating student "cheat sheets" for them to use during their first project with an unfamiliar website. Note: Thank you to Richard Byrne's Free Tech 4 Teachers blog for posting information on this wonderful resource! To the left is a very simple Awesome Screenshot file that I created in about 3 minutes. I annotated the homepage of WatchKnow with red shapes and text. The standard size of the images created by Awesome Screenshot is not actually this small; I made the image intentionally small to save space on this website. If I were posting this file on a classroom website or a professional development site, I would make the image much larger. The direct link is available here: http://awesomescreenshot.com/0857uz9a7 According to their website, "Voki is a free service that allows you to create personalized speaking avatars and use them on your blog, profile, and in email messages." This is a great option for student-created videos without compromising students' privacy. It can also be handy way to capture your students' attention while simultaneously introducing the day's agenda or directions for an activity. Voki could also be used to create a virtual substitute teacher for days when you know you will be absent. Simply embed your Voki on the classroom website and the sub can play the audio file to the class. Below is a sample Voki I created in about five minutes. Voki for Education FAQ http://www.voki.com/voki_faq.php#4 Voki Lesson Plans http://www.voki.com/lesson_plans.php Juxio is a website that allows you to create custom posters. several templates are available, including a set aimed at educators. Juxio allows you to combine photos and text to make organized, eye-appealing collages. Create and share your "jux" with others for free, or buy printed versions of your creations. Big Huge Labs has an endless supply of fun creation tools for photos. My personal favorite option is the mosaic maker (pictured left). I created a mural of famous African American writers to display on a classroom homepage. You can also create motivational posters, puzzles, magazine covers, movie posters, trading cards, slideshows, and tons of other goodies. This a great website for anyone who wants to create some visual appeal for their handouts or websites. You could also have students use the website to create interesting visual aids for projects and presentations, or for posting on e-portfolios. |
AuthorDr. Jessica Pilgreen, Ed.D. Archives
December 2020
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