Just another online tool for learning!

One of my favorite things to do is to search for online tools teachers and students can use in the learning environment. It seem I always find little gems when I develop training for teachers. I share the ideas in my sessions and then...well, nothing...those efriendlylearning ideas are lost to educators and students in other schools and districts:(

So...starting this school year I vow to create a blog about each little gem that I find!!!
So...starting this school year I vow to create a blog about each little gem that I find!!!
So...starting this school year I vow to create a blog about each little gem that I find!!!


Ok....so here is a tool called WordWiggle. I found it as I was searching for free applications for my Palm OS handheld. I found both a handheld version and an online version of this software.

The object of the game is to find as many words as you can in the given block of letters within the time limit. The letters of the word must be connected (either vertically, horizontally, or diagonally) and each letter can only be used once in any given word. Only valid words shall count towards your score and the software uses a dictionary based on the ENABLE (Enhanced North American Benchmark LExicon) word list. This word list contains over 173,000 entries.


This software was developed by Michael Sinz. WiggleWord website has information about playing and scoring.
An example by the developer of the game..



In the example to the left, there are a number of words that can be found. For example, along the left edge, there is the word pet. A bit more complex is the word cat. A longer word that scores rather nicely is secret. You can do both the singular and plural forms such as crate and crates; you will get credit for both words if you enter both of them. In this 3x3 board, the computer found 427 points in 179 different words that are 3 or more letters long.

Scroll to the end of the webpage to see all of the possible words created from this Word Wiggle!

New Web-based Visual Mapping Tool

It sure has been a while since my last post....I have been so busy implementing great ideas with teachers during the month of June!!! With all that work, I haven't had much time to explore new efriendlylearning solutions for teachers. But, as I was catching up on my blog reading I caught an entry from a friend, Jim Wenzloff (hey Jim!) about a new web-based browser called Gliffy. Any one who knows me recognizes the phrase "when I go back into the classroom there are certain tools that I must have.." and one of those "must haves" is a visual mapping tool!! Well, I work with many solutions for visual mapping for computers (Inspiration) and handhelds (Inspiration for handhelds, IdeaPad) but now, thanks to Jim, I have a web-based tool called Gliffy!

Gliffy is so easy to use that it makes my recommendation for an efriendlysolution for educators!! Take a look at my first visual map. Using Gliffy you can create visual maps right in your browser, there is no software to download! The best is that you can collaborate on a gliffy document. Here is a demo to show you how to use Gliffy.