Friday, August 29, 2008

PicLits

PicLit from PicLits.com
See the full PicLit at PicLits.com
Now this is lots of fun! PicLits is a wonderful visual literacy site.
First of all sign in as a new user. Then choose a picture from the scrolling pictures. Now you have two choices of how you will add text. The drag-n-drop method is a little limiting but I think it would be great for students to choose from different parts of speech to form a complete sentence. The other method is freestyle. By clicking on freestyle you'll be able to type your own message.
Wouldn't this be great with a poetry unit? Have students choose three photos and write a haiku on each one. Then choose another style of poem and add it to photos.
You could also add your own quotes. What about quotes, thoughts, or ideas that center around any one of the six pillars of CHARACTER COUNTSsm?
Make sure you click on Learn It and you'll find lesson plans to use with PicLits.
Have fun with this one!

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Research Recipe


There are so many phenomenal tools available on the web for use with research. This wiki, called Research Recipe, was created to showcase some of those tools.

Google Tools have led the way in creating an environment of collaboration among students and teachers. Bibme is a collaborative citation creator so when students are working as a group on a project they can each access their group's bibliography and add to it as they go. Lexipedia and Visual Thesaurus help students select more accurate, descriptive words. Many more tools like these are found in the Research Recipe wiki. Enjoy!