Simple Chat Room Service

A few years ago, I was teaching a graduate class and had to cancel a full day due to snow storms. I was looking for a way to have class virtually through a chat room. At the time, there weren't many free services out there. In fact, finding a service without paying an arm and a leg was virtually impossible.

I just recently came across a site called ChatFoo, which creates a temporary chat room for you to use. Simply go to the website and click on the "Start New Chat" icon, you will be able to create your own private room. This may be a helpful place to have study help available for your students. It could also be useful if you wanted to facilitate an online discussion with your students in a computer lab setting. It may also be useful if you wanted to chat with a guest speaker.

In order to get others to participate, they will need to have the link to the chat room. This appears in the top-right-hand corner of your screen under "Share this Room." You are also able to share this link through social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter.

Create Your Own Virtual Field Trip

Many of us are traveling all around the country / world this summer. Why not use your photos to provide your students with a virtual field trip? Mapwing is a site that allows you to take your photos and create an interactive virtual tour. You can add interactive maps, images and comments.

There are many examples of virtual tours in the Explore section. There are many different examples in this section. There are photos of Apple's Corporate Headquarters and even a tour of Australia's Great Barrier Reef. You could even use this for personal use. There are several virtual tours of homes that are for sale!

Creating your own tour is very simple. Just keep in mind that you do have to have a username and password to create your own personal tour. Even if you don't have your own photos, you may want to even consider using Google images to help your students.

K-W-L Charts Made Easy

KWL Charts are nothing new. In fact, many educators use them on a regular basis because they are excellent tools to recruit student interest and help students take responsibility in their learning. Like any classroom tool, the more "on the ball" the teacher is when monitoring its use, the more successful the learning outcome will be.

Engaging students in our classrooms is critical to their success. Sure, we can't make everything a "dog and pony show" or do a song and dance, but we can teach them how to develop as a learner. A KWL chart is a great way to help students organize their thoughts and summarize information.

If you are not familiar with what KWL means:

• K - What I already Know (about the topic)
• W - What I Want to Know/Learn (great questions to ask before learning / reading about the topic)
• L - What I Learned (a great post-assessment question to be completed after learning has taken place)

The low-tech way of creating a KWL chart is by using paper and folding it into a tri-fold, with each column representing each letter of the KWL chart. One of my favorite sites called Read Write Think, has a tool that teachers can use to create an electronic version of a KWL chart. Students can create a personalized KWL chart, save it, and come back to it at a later time! The application runs off of flash and is very easy to use! All you need is an Internet connection and no downloads are necessary! 

Power Paragraph Organizer

You either like it or you don't. What am I talking about? I am talking about writing. Many of our students struggle with writing prompts and writing assignments, due to the nature that they do not like or understand how to write a paragraph. I was listening to a Wall Street Journal podcast the other day and they had mentioned that many employers are concerned about the deterioration of writing in the workplace.

We live in the era of texting, emails, and tweeting. How in the world do we get our students to write a simple paragraph? Here is a modification that you could make for ALL students in your classroom. I have modified the original document to better fit students within my classroom. I call it the Power Paragraph Organizer. It is a color coded sheet of paper that ALL students could use, not just our learning support students. It is divided into 3 different sections:

• Red = where students write the main idea
• Green = where students write the details of the paragraph 
• Blue = where students write the conclusion 

I am planning on using it for writing prompts this fall, so that my students have flexible options on how they write a paragraph. They still have to respond to a writing prompt, but they have a choice on how to do it. 

For example, I may ask students to write 5 - 7 sentences on a particular topic. They may use a piece of regular notebook paper or the Power Paragraph Organizer. This is what UDL is all about, providing the supports necessary for ALL students to access the curriculum. 

Online Crossword Puzzles

Crossword puzzles are a great way to have our students interact with content in different ways. Not only does it provide another way of representing materials, it also provides another means of engaging students with content.

A really great online crossword puzzle maker that I found is Armored Penguin's Crossword Puzzle generator. Not only does it give teachers a chance to make an online version of a crossword puzzle, but there are literally hundreds of other crossword puzzles to choose from.

Depending on your computer lab situation, students can solve online or your can create a PDF or HTML text copy of the puzzle. This may be a great tool to use over the summer, when you are preparing those lesson plans for the fall!

Safe Ways of Sharing YouTube Videos

Are you looking for a way to show YouTube clips without all of the suggestive video suggestions, comments, or advertisements? Here are some good tools that you may want to consider using to block out these inappropriate suggestions:

• Safe Share TV provides you with a unique link that you can watch you video from. It's very simple to use. All you need to do is provide the YouTube link and it will generate a unique URL for your video.

• YouTube XL is a way for you to watch the big screen version of your YouTube clip from YouTube. There is no clutter from comments, advertisements, etc. 

• Clean Video Search is powered by YouTube and allows you to search YouTube without advertisements, comments, and inappropriate video suggestions. 

Supporting Students with a Readability Search Engine

Part of creating expert learners involves providing supports that help students learn material. With the proper supports in place, students can better understand material and comprehend its meaning. Just this morning, I was reading something about the importance of vocabulary and how it unlocks learning. Without a proper understanding of vocabulary, our students can be lost!

Readability is an important piece of understanding vocabulary, content, and material. In the past, I have told you about the Google Advanced Search feature, which allows you to search according to readability level. Here is another resource for you called Twurdy, which is short for "Too Wurdy (or wordy)."

I was introduced to this search engine this morning and really enjoy its features. Simply type in a term and it will generate a list of different options for you. The list is color coded according to its readability level (easy to hard). Each item has a number that is generated to show its readability level. There is also a feature that allows you to show approximate ages that the articles are intended for.

I really like this search engine because it is simple to use and the color-coding allows students to understand which material is the most appropriate for their reading level. Give Twurdy a try today!