Activity 6: Study Tools

These tools were fun to experiment with! I could see myself using any of these in the classroom.

QUIZLET: I have assigned Quizlets made by other teachers before, but I have never created my own. I decided to create a set of vocabulary cards for the first 5 chapters of the book Fever 1793, which I read with my 5th graders. It was amazingly simple to use - just enter in the terms and definitions (or use their auto-definitions and pick which definition you prefer). I wrote my own definitions as they were used within the context of the novel. I like that sharing it requires only a link - nothing to embed, no special steps. Because of the ease of sharing, I could definitely see assigning my students to make their own Quizlets as a review activity for others to use. I could use this in math as well to review vocabulary terms - even in the geometry unit, because you can upload images to go with the definitions (great feature). The downside to Quizlet is that its simplicity is not visually appealing and may look boring to the kids.

 or for all study activities associated with these words, go here:
Ch. 1-5 Vocabulary Practice for FEVER 1793

TAGXEDO: The second study tool I tried was Tagxedo. I have used Word Clouds in my classroom a couple times before, mostly in Language Arts - but I always used Wordle. I found Tagxedo much more fun to use because of the ability to customize and change the shape. I decided to summarize the book Maniac Magee that I read with my students and put my summary into a Tagxedo. I like this because I can have the students write summaries (not so fun) but then put their summaries into Tagxedo - this will allow them to see visually how complete their summaries are, which words are "standing out" and get them to ask themselves "Should THOSE be the words that stand out and why?" I put my Tagxedo into the shape of a footprint because Maniac likes to run and gets everywhere on foot. I like the idea of the kids choosing a shape that is significant to the story and justifying why. In math or science, I could have kids brainstorm all of the vocabulary that goes with a particular unit and put those into Tagxedos. I WILL use this for character building with my homeroom class in September - students creating Tagxedos of themselves (or of a classmate) and then printing them and hanging in the classroom.