Visual+Tools



** Voice Thread **VoiceThread is a subscription online site that combines images/photos, voice recordings, onscreen drawing, and allows recording and typing of comments by anyone who logs into the site and views your "thread".

 These VoiceThreads show a variety of subject areas and uses. The first three are links to actual VoiceThreads - one that summarizes main ideas and details from a biography, one that illustrates a new math concept, and one that summarizes a science unit's culminating project.The last one is just a screen shot of a class project using diamante poems.

 media type="custom" key="5495821" width="80" height="80" align="left"media type="custom" key="5495885" width="80" height="80" align="left" media type="custom" key="5495911" width="80" height="80" align="left"



Graphic Organizers
[|Webspiration]- This was created by Inspiration. Students can create their graphic organizers at home and others can contribute to it. $$  [|Inspiration software] from Tom Snyder Productions is a great tool. Students can add audio files and video files to their web in Inspiration. Inspiration can be used as a tool for planning, for researching, or as a final product. It has diagram views and outline views making it easy for students to turn the graphic organizer into writing.  There are several web 2.0 applications that can be used for graphic organizers at no cost. These are online tools so they require no software downloads but do require email. Here are a few choices:

 *Bubbl.us is a simple and free web application that lets you brainstorm online.  [|http://www.bubbl.us]


 * Create colorful mind maps online
 * Share and work with friends
 * Embed your mind map in your blog or website
 * Email and print your mind map
 * Save your mind map as an image

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;"> Mindmeister - online mind mapping tool. These can be exported as rich text, pdf's, or images. Another great feature is that students can collaborate with others. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;"> [|http://www.mindmeister.com/]

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;"> Mindomo - online mind mapping tool. This one also offers collaboration with peers. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;"> [] <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;"> Mind 42 - can add sticky notes and YouTube videos to this mind map. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;"> []

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;"> [|30 Mind Mapping Tools] is a collection of both free and for-purchase mapping tools.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> There are also other online resources for graphic organizers that are not interactive. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> Houghton Mifflin Education Place - there are many graphic organizers here. They are all in PDF's for download. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> []

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> Teacher Vision Graphic Organizers - these are printable. Many more resources are available through this site for a subscription fee. []

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> Teacher Printables - this site has graphic organizers and research organizers that are all printable. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> []

<span style="color: #008080; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> TimeLines <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> [|Timetoast Timeline] - this is a phenomenal tool. Now students can create a timeline and share it with others online. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> [|Capzles] - photo timeline. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> [|xTimeline] - another one! <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> [|Mnemograph] - and another one!

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> Charts/Graphs <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> This graph was created in Keynote. One thing that students enjoy about using Keynote for graphing is that they can change the intervals, the labeling system, and can make their graphs appear 3-D, or appear to have been created from various materials (wood, marble, metal, etc).

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> **Intel's Visual Ranking Tool** <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> Ordering & prioritizing items in a list. Really engages higher order thinking.

<span style="color: #008080; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> Keynotes <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> Keynotes are much like PowerPoints. These are incredible multi-taskers, perfect for creating a digital "book" format, sharing information, editing images and creating a collage affect to use in other media, and presenting reports. They also have graphing features, and are easily augmented with music and effects. This can be an incredibly engaging venue for students, since it provides so many options. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> This is an example of a Keynote being used as a book report. This is the basic digital template provided for each student. Each student would then individualize their own personal keynote by adding their information, changing fonts, adding images, adding backgrounds, adding transitions/builds to slides (actions),and adding music.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> This is another book report template example.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> This example shows a finished product after a student had added information, media, and personalization to a template.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> This example shows pages from a "cause and effect" book that was student created. The class created this as part of a language arts focus on cause and effect; small groups created cause & effect concepts for the photos, took the photos, and created the text. While this was created in Keynote, it was also printed and bound as a class book.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> Keynote can also be used as an image manipulation tool, particularly for elementary math concepts. The following example required students to rotate, flip, and stretch images using Keynote's tools.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> Another use for Keynote is as an introductory activity for a new unit. Introducing new concepts with visuals and embedded video, as well as text, is more engaging for our students. (We love embedding clips from Discovery Streaming or BrainPop into an introductory video.) The students love finding images from the internet to "teach the class" about new vocabulary. Another manner of using Keynote as an introduction is to find an image that is connected to your new topic and place it on a slide, cover it up with several rectangles, and then use the "build" feature to remove the rectangles one at a time, while using the image to provoke student conversation about the new topic.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%; text-align: left;"> [|Swivel] (Quickly create graphs with data)

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> Ten by Ten- Visual News

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> Newseum - see the front cover of newspapers all around the world.