Learning+Focused+and+Technology+Integration

[|Pete & C - Partners: LFS & Technology] Another wiki site with more ideas to integrate technology into LFS units! A big part of Learning Focused Schools is the teaching of vocabulary. The activities featured in this section can easily be used to help students beome more successful with thier vocabulary skills. [|Visuwords] - This site allows you to look up words and see their meaning and association with other words and concepts -- all in a graphic format. You can make your own diagrams with your class too. [|Nota] - Nota is a service that allows you to create a blog that is more like an online scrapbook. How does this fit as a vocab activity? Well, some teachers have used it to create an online word wall for their units - giving students access to the word wall from anywhere. [|Knowtes] - Here you can create digital flash cards for your students. You can then add these flashcards to a Schoolwires page, or just provide the link to your students. The site does require an 'invitation' to create an account, but they typically have several 'invitations' to hand out. [|Wordle] - Remember word splashes from LFS training? Well, this is the technology version of a word splash. You can make a graphic with words in different color schemes, different sizes, different directions, etc. The finished word splash is easy to share online or print. [|Visual Dictionary]- Merriam-Webster has created an online visual dictionary that is free to use. This could be a helpful tool for introducing vocab words to your students, so they have a visual representation of the word. It is growing almost daily, so if it doesn't have the word you are looking for, check back. [|Quizlet] - This is another tool you can use to make flashcards... well, sort of. You can make simple quizzes that act much like flashcards. Their sample quizlet quizzes you on US capitals, but you can easily make this an interactive review of vocab words for you classroom.
 * Vocabulary Activities**

Learning Focused Schools stresses that we need to get kids "hooked' at the beginning of lessons, and that we should use this "hook" to lead into our lessons. Below are some examples of how technology can be used to achieve this. [|Wordle] - Just like in training, you can use a world splash to help activate thinking and prior knowledge before a lesson. [|Webbing Tool]- This tool allows your students to create their own graphic organizer, from home or school. Have them map out a word they know, or make a web of information they already know about the topic you are about to start studying. [|Inspiration]- Want more detailed, interactive graphic organizers? Want to be able to turn those graphic organizers into outlines (or visa versa)? Use Inspiration (or Kidspiration with elementary students) with your students - (Not sure how to use Inspiration? Go to cdsd.tech4ed.com, and you can view the tutorial that people taking the Inspiration online session use) [|United Streaming]- Show students a video clip, and have them discuss it, or give them a writing prompt to respond to. Many of the videos on United Streaming provide Teacher's Guides and other resources to help you come up with activities. (Not sure how to use United Streaming? Go back to cdsd.tech4ed.com, and you can view the tutorial that people taking the United Streaming online session use) [|Senteo] - Using the Senteo Student Response System (also called SMART Response), you can create some simple questions to use as an activating strategy at the beginning of a lesson. For example, you could ask some true/false questions about what you are going to be learning, then have your lesson, and then at the end come back to the questions and have students rewrite the questions so they are all true. [|Google Earth]- Take your students on a tour of places you are going to study! Whether it be places mentioned in the Shakespeare play you are about to read, or a trip up the Nile through Egypt, your students will get to see where they will be studying before they study it! You can extend this activity by adding a discussion or writing prompt (example: looking a the geography of Egypt during our Google Earth tour of the Nile, why do you think the ancient Egyptians settled there? or What conclusion could you draw about the theme of the story we are about to read from looking at the sites you just saw on our Google Earth tour?)
 * Activating Strategies**

Although summarizing and extending & refining are two separate pieces of the Learning Focused model, they are grouped together for this page, because each of the items below can be used for either. Some may be better activities to help students summarize what they have just learned, while others may be a great fit for an extending & refining activity. Where it fits best will depend on your lesson and how you plan to teach the content. Additionally, some of these activities would be great collaborative learning exercises. Any that would be good collaborative learning activities have been marked with a C [|Persuasion Tool]- Want your students to write a persuasive essay on a topic you just covered? Have them use this tool to help them plan out their arguments before they start writing. [|Mystery Cube]- The Mystery Cube is a useful tool that helps students identify and summarize story elements in this popular genre. It can be used as a postreading activity for mysteries students have read or as a prewriting activity for students writing their own mysteries. [|Literary Elements Map]- Students can map out the key literary elements of character, setting, conflict, and resolution as prewriting for their own fiction or as analysis of a text by another author in this secondary-level interactive. [|Wordle] - That's right, Wordle is back. Instead of creating a word splash of vocab words, try copy and pasting someone's essay, or even a famous speech, into Wordle. The resulting diagram will show you what words are used most by making those words larger than others. Your students can see what words they might be over using, or you could have them analyze why a particular person may have used certain words often in their speeches. [|Character Trading Cards]- The interactive Character Trading Cards tool is a fun and useful way for students to explore a character in a book that they are reading or as a prewriting exercise when creating characters for original stories. [|3D Bio Cube]- Bio-Cube is a useful summarizing tool that helps students identify and list key elements about a person whose biography or autobiography they have just read. It can also be used as a prewriting activity for student autobiographies. [|Writeboard] - Here your students can have their own digital whiteboard on their screen. When they setup their whiteboard, it gives them an address and password they can share with another student, and then both students (or more) can edit the same board, allowing them to share ideas and information easily, even if they aren't at the same computer, in the same class, or in the same school! C [|Compare & Contrast Map]- The Compare & Contrast Map is an interactive graphic organizer that enables students to organize and outline their ideas for different kinds of comparison essays. Wiki - You've heard of Wikipedia, right? Well, you can make your own classroom wiki, for free! Once created, you can assign students different topics, and let them update your classroom wiki with information they learn throughout a unit. Then once you are finished, you have your very own wiki-encyclopedia about the topic you just covered in class, but made completely by your own students. C [|Blog]- Creating a classroom blog is simple, and free, with Wordpress. Once created, you can have students post to the blog and you can have a discussion between students, even if they are in different periods or different schools! You can have book discussions, mini-debates, and more! C [|Photostory] - Have your students create a digital project showing what they've learned. They can piece together pictures, video, audio, and text to tell a story or give a summary of a topic. [|Animoto] - Much like Photostory, Animoto allows students to create a project from photos and audio. One big advantage here is that Animoto is completely online, which means students will have access to their projects even from home.
 * Summarizing and Extending & Refining**