Eclectic Technology
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Tech tools that assist all students to be independent learners & teachers to become better teachers
Curated by Beth Dichter
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Ten Great Tools for Telling Stories With Pictures - A PDF Handout

Ten Great Tools for Telling Stories With Pictures - A PDF Handout | Eclectic Technology | Scoop.it
From www.freetech4teachers.com - June 2, 2015 6:23 AM

"Composing a story from scratch comes naturally to some people. For the rest of us creating a story from scratch can be a struggle. Over the years I’ve found that using pictures helps a lot of students get started on crafting stories."

Beth Dichter's insight:

If you are looking for some great tools that will provide inspiration for learners to write stories check out this post by Richard Byrne. He provides ten tools that you may find useful.

The first section has two tools that help learners create collages, Canva,  PicCollage (Android and iPad app), and  PicMonkey (browser based). He also suggests using ThingLink as a tool for learners to enhance their collage (and links to a tutorial).

The second section looks at "threading images into stories." Thematic allows you to upload images and display up to twenty in a story with one line of text for each image. Storehouse is a free iPad app that allows you to use images and video and arrange them with a line of text above or below the image or video clip. Adobe Slate is a free iPad app that also allows you to create stories and has more features than Storehouse.

The final section looks at creating picture books and suggest My Storybook (web based), Picture Book Maker (web based) and Little Story Creator (free iPad app).

Each of these tools is described in more detail in the post. As this school year draws to a close your class might enjoy using one of these tools to create a story about what they have learned this year.

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Monica Lamelas's curator insight, March 16, 2016 5:09 AM

If you are looking for some great tools that will provide inspiration for learners to write stories check out this post by Richard Byrne. He provides ten tools that you may find useful.

The first section has two tools that help learners create collages, Canva,  PicCollage (Android and iPad app), and  PicMonkey (browser based). He also suggests using ThingLink as a tool for learners to enhance their collage (and links to a tutorial).

The second section looks at "threading images into stories." Thematic allows you to upload images and display up to twenty in a story with one line of text for each image. Storehouse is a free iPad app that allows you to use images and video and arrange them with a line of text above or below the image or video clip. Adobe Slate is a free iPad app that also allows you to create stories and has more features than Storehouse.

The final section looks at creating picture books and suggest My Storybook (web based), Picture Book Maker (web based) and Little Story Creator (free iPad app).

Each of these tools is described in more detail in the post. As this school year draws to a close your class might enjoy using one of these tools to create a story about what they have learned this year.
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Word Sense - See the Connections Between Words

Word Sense - See the Connections Between Words | Eclectic Technology | Scoop.it
From www.freetech4teachers.com - September 28, 2013 8:58 PM

"Word Sense is a neat little service that is one part dictionary and one part thesaurus. When you enter a word into Word Sense it will show you the definition(s) for the word as well as the connections to associated and similar words. You can see any of the definitions of the connected words by simply clicking on them to pop-up a definition."

Beth Dichter's insight:

Check out this new tool (to me) that Richard Byrne posted on his blog. Word Sense provides students with another way to learn and reinforce vocabulary words. Not only does it show definitions of the word as you mouse over and click on  other words you will see their devitions. It will also tell you the part of speech (noun, verb, adjective, adverb, etc.). The About section  on Word Sense states:

Search and explore word meanings and relationshipsInteractive figures connect related wordsFind more specific or less specific synonymsImprove your writing by discovering more descriptive wordsHyponymy and hypernymy exposed - look it up!Host thesaurus parties and use words to make new friends100% recycled word

Learn new words, see words in context, gain a better understanding of vocabulary, find new descriptive words...what do you think your students might do with this site? How might you use it within a lesson?

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Technology-Enhanced Social-Emotional Activities

Technology-Enhanced Social-Emotional Activities | Eclectic Technology | Scoop.it
From seltechnology.weebly.com - January 11, 2013 6:18 AM
Source:  http://www.projecthappiness.org/programs/social-emotional-learning/
Beth Dichter's insight:

This new website from Jackie Gerstein explores technology use in social and emotional learning. Quoting from the site "This website has been designed to describe technology activities that facilitate social emotional learing.The links in the menu lead to descriptions of the individual activities. They can be sued within formal and inforrmal educational setting. Even though the focus of the activities are on building and enhacing social emtional learning, many can be connected with content standards related to language arts, oral communication, media literacy, and ISTE's National Education Standards for Students."

The website is very easy to use. There is a menu that provides a list of 14 activities, including Conflict Management Strategies Posters, Book Trailers, and Teach Tech to Grandparents. Most have samples of projects. Not all are relevant to all ages but she does state that she has used some with both elementary and college students.

 

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Quill - Writing Worksheets Made Interactive

Quill - Writing Worksheets Made Interactive | Eclectic Technology | Scoop.it
From www.freetech4teachers.com - May 18, 2014 8:39 PM

"Quill is a service that provides an updated take on the old writing worksheets that most of us used in elementary school and middle school. The service offers more than just the writing practice activities, but that is its core feature."

Beth Dichter's insight:

Do your students need to practice with grammar and punctuation? Quill provides worksheets for students in Grades 1 - 8 that have spelling and grammar errors. Students have to correct the errors. Quill corrects the papers, showing students what they did correctly, or what needs to be corrected.

Create your own classroom, provide students a code to sign-in, and pick your assignments. Students work at their pace and you can view their work through the dashboard.

As Richard Byrne states in this post "Having the pre-made activities at your disposal and having the opportunity to quickly see how your students did on each activity will free up some of your time."

There is a video that explains the site in more detail, or you may go directly the the website: http://www.quill.org/

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StoryToolz: Story Idea Generator and More for Authors

StoryToolz: Story Idea Generator and More for Authors | Eclectic Technology | Scoop.it
From www.storytoolz.com - June 15, 2013 10:13 PM
Beth Dichter's insight:

StoryToolz provides seven resources to help authors. 

* The Story Idea Generator "picks a random conflict from each of the Internet Public Library's list of 7 plots, 20 plots, and 36 plots."

* Random Conflicts combines "the Internet Public Library's list of 7 plots, 20 plots, and 36 plots" and "randomly presents 10."

* Word Count Meters allows you to keep track of and share your progress.

* Readability - This tool analyzes your text. It will tell you the reading level (based on a number of different indexes); sentence information, including the number of characters, words, paragraphs and more; word usage; and sentence beginnings (type of word). 

* Half Title Generator - Select from a list of beginnings and then for ends of a title and see what comes up!

* Example Word Count Meters - show actual word counts of existing projects as well as the goal

* Cliche Buster - Reviews your text and lets you know if it finds any cliches.

This tool would most likely work best with students in middle school, high school and college. Students might also use it as a tool to check their story before having a peer edit the story.

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Corey Durward's curator insight, July 21, 2013 8:55 PM

StoryToolz is a nice ensemble of useful tools for writers. Writers who are struggling to come up with ideas for their prose will like the story starters - random idea generators for plots, conflicts and titles. StoryToolz also provides tools that will analyse your work, identify clichés in your writing, and evaluate its readability.
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