Thinking Tools, Lesson Plans, Teaching Ideas Graphic organizers, Planners and resources for teachers and students
We probably often fail to assist students on how to become more effective at how to improve time management and study skills. Fortunately though there are a number of great resources that I cam across from the University of Texas that I thought applied to students around the globe. You can download the PDF's below and spend some time on them with your own students.
A teacher in New York was teaching her class about bullying and gave them the following exercise to perform. She had the children take a piece of paper and told them to crumple it up, stomp on it and really mess it up but do not rip it. Then she had them unfold the paper, smooth it out and look at how scarred and dirty is was. She then told them to tell it they’re sorry. Now even though they said …they were sorry and tried to fix the paper, she pointed out all the scars they left behind. And that those scars will never go away no matter how hard they tried to fix it. That is what happens when a child bullies another child, they may say they’re sorry but the scars are there forever. The looks on the faces of the children in the classroom told her the message hit home.
This collection of ready-to-use graphic organizers will help children classify ideas and communicate more effectively. All of our printable graphic organizers are designed to facilitate understanding of key concepts by allowing students to visually identify key points and ideas. By using graphic organizers across all subject areas, you will be empowering your students to master subject-matter faster and more efficiently. We have graphic organizers for reading, science, writing, math, and for general use. You'll also find blank printable templates like graph paper, dot arrays, and other useful tools. Access them here.
Graphic.org is a free resource for teachers and students that will give you some insights on which graphic organizers to use for specific activities and how you can use them in the classroom. The site is a little heavy on advertising but there is some valuable content tucked away for you to use. Take a look at it here.
Fresh from the oven and piping hot, SpicyNodes is limited only by your imagination. Entice visitors to explore and savor the experience of visiting your web site, add visualizations to your blog, create a mindmap or organizational chart, or encourage students to delve deeper.
Spicynodes makes it easy for students to create simple yet effective concept maps in minutes that look great and have a variety of content within them.
If you haven't tried spicynodes yet take a look it won't disappoint. Here is a link to what Spicy nodes can do.
DropMind is an excellent mind mapping program that is available both as a desktop installation and as a web-based application. The interface is well designed and offers teachers and students the ability to create simple or complex graphic maps with lots of customisable options. Access Dropmind here
For the uninitiated Wordle is essentially a word cloud generator that creates word clouds from text you either manually enter or draw from websites, news feeds or utilise tags from a del.icio.us account to create a visually appealing word cloud which you can customise and stylize to suit your needs. The beauty of Wordle is that there is no signup or login and the whole process can be completed in as little as a minute depending on how complex you wish to get. Here is a Wordle I generated from my website at www.edgalaxy.com Wordle is incredibly popular with teachers and students because of its simplicity and capacity to offer multiple open-ended opportunities across all curriculum areas. So today I am going to share some of my knowledge of using Wordle and some Lesson ideas that will hopefully make Wordle your preferred option next time you do a class brainstorming session or you are looking for a tool to inspire some creativity in your lessons. First off here are a few things you need to know about Wordle: Wordle graphically emphasises words that have been repeated. So if you are doing a class survey on your favourite sports teams always remember to enter terms that have been included, These emphasised terms appear larger and bolder on your finished word cloud depending upon the number of times entered. Wordle does not understand multiple words such as Harry Potter. This can be very annoying at times as Harry Potter will be recorded as two single words. You can get around this by joining words. Ie: Harry-Potter, Harry~Potter, Harry_Potter or HarryPotter. Managing Your Wordle Your finished Wordle can be output in either three ways. Printout, link to webpage to be viewed in a public Gallery or you have to manually screen capture it and create a digital image. It is almost criminal that such a great program does not have a button to generate a Jpeg Image or something similar then and there but... You don’t have to stop with your customiisation just there as there are a few little tricks you can do to spice up your Wordle beyond randomizing colour schemes and fonts. Such as.. Overlaying Wordle on a background Image. This can add some real impact to your Wordle. Simply select an image to put in the background and then follow the instructions below. The finished product looks like this. This is Barack Obama's inaguration speech put over a soft White House Logo. To do this : screen capture the Wordle and then open it in Paint Shop Pro (you can use any program) Import your background image as a new layer and moved it to layer 1. Use the magic wand (the selection tool to erase all the excess white space on the Wordle. And lay it over the top of your Background Image. Bingo!! You can also add effects such as drop shadows to your Wordle at this stage to further enhance. Importing and Cropping your Wordle. There are numerous ways to do this depending upon the Platform and Software you are using but this video explains in detail how to do it in Microsoft Word. It is a simple task in any language. Some Lesson Ideas: The web is literally crawling with hundreds of brilliant ideas on how to use Wordle so consider the lesson ideas listed below as suggestions. Take these ideas and alter them to suit your own needs. As stated earlier Wordle's capacity in the classroom is only limited by your imagination. I hope this guide has helped you get your head around some fresh or different ideas for using Wordle and I would love to hear some of the great ideas you may done with it also. 
Turn your Wordle into a Coffee Mug or T-Shirt: Why??? I am not really sure but it can actually look pretty cool and might be a great personalised gift. Here are a couple of companies that will do it all for you online. You just supply the image and the cash.
You might have weekly spelling words, daily items to remember, times tables charts or a picture of the solar system or something relevant to what you are studying. These can easily be created in PowerPoint and then converted into a screensaver to be displayed on your interactive white-board or classroom computers. It is as simple as following these steps below.
