What is a Reverse Dictionary?

How many of us use online dictionary tools? We all have our favorites, I am sure. I love the ideas behind Visual Thesaurus. I came across this great tool when it was still in beta, but now you only get to use the trial for free. Darn! But definitely worth the look!

I know you probably use Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com to assist in that perfect word search! I have been working recently with helping teachers design vocabulary activities for students. It seems that teachers need a quick tool to find multiple vocabulary words that have a similar meaning to a target word.

I just found this site that I think will help teachers generate the word lists they are looking for when designing those activities when students "work with words". Take a look at the reverse dictionary from One Look.

Friends Abroad? How about virtually!

It is not often that I get to work with those who teach foreign languages. I remember my second language learning experience during high school where German was the choice for my bi-lingual quest. Yeah, that didn't work out, only a few words and hopeless phrases remain from that experience!

As I traveled abroad this past year, I realized that we in the US are so behind many other citizens of countries who value being mult-lingual. Well, I have been trying to learn Italian and Spanish---ON MY OWN. I came across this site called FriendsAbroad that uses the power of the Internet and email and chatting to put you in touch with learners just like you. How might this open up foreign language learning opportunities!

Handhelds Can Do!

A conference is a time to network with others who share a common interest. Sometimes networking is the most valuable part of a conference day! I look forward to discussing handheld implementation in schools with educators around the country this week in Michigan.

One question that follows much of my discussion with administrators beginning or sustaining a handheld initiative seems to always center on "what is different" in classrooms using handhelds. If we are to get beyond the "techno loving" teacher and broaden implementation to every classroom, let's put the lens on the teacher. Are all teachers capable of handheld classroom learning? How can handheld classrooms foster teaching change?

Thanks for posting your comments to this question:

How has teaching changed in classrooms using handhelds?

Michigan Handheld Computers in Education Conference

This week is the Michigan Handheld Computers in Education Conference taking place at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. I will be conducting two pre-sessions, Vocabulary Activities for Any Content Area and Classroom Assessment Using Handhelds.

In addition to the pre-sessions, I am presenting seven other one-hour breakout and post-conference sessions to give educators ideas for using handhelds in student learning activities.
Here is a list of the sessions and links to some of the session information for everyone.

Free Must Have Palm OS Apps for Active Learning
Handhelds Can Do!
Supporting Reading in the Content Areas with Handhelds
Strategies that Work: Preparing Students for High Stakes Testing
Classroom Instruction That Works with Handhelds
How Can I Blend Handhelds with My Teaching?

See you there...ask me lots of questions! Learn about my involvement with handhelds in learning! Maybe you would like me to speak at your event, too!!

I KitZu Do You?

While working with teachers today in a training session we were talking about using visuals for learning. A teacher was looking for images to match vocabulary words for an upcoming story. While a United Streaming subscription is used the conversation steered to tools like Flickr and Google Image Search. Three teachers shared with me that Google Images and Flickr are "blocked" sites and cannot be accessed at their school. While I can't unblock those sites (I get the issues, of course) I have found a site that has free kits for educational use created by the Orange County Department of Education. These kits are designed around common theme or curricular topic. Kits include still images, videos, background audio files and text. I hope this helps, your free image search!