Technology Community Research Artifacts

Tech Community Research Sharing #1:

This week, the technology I found for the classroom is a website called, “Tagxedo.” The URL for this website is, http://www.tagxedo.com (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. Tagxedo is a website that is similar to one you may have already heard of before called, “Wordle.” Both of these websites allow you to put many different words into a word cloud to visually show a thought. The only thing that Tagxedo has that Wordle does not, is that Tagxedo allows you to pick the shape of the word could you create. These websites have other cool features as well. One unique feature they both have is that in the word cloud, however many times you have a specific word listed will change the size of it. For instance if I have the word, “cat,” listed four times in my word cloud, it will be much larger than a word I have listed once. You can also edit your word clouds after they are created by altering the colors, fonts, layouts and the shape.

I think this website could be helpful for both students and teachers to use when creating word clouds or graphic organizers. The reason I like this website more than Wordle, even though they are very similar is because I feel like you get more choice in Tagxedo. My pedagogical rational of using this website is that you get to chose the shape of the cloud the words get put into and it makes the website better to use in any situation. One way I would use this website in my classroom would be to have students use it to create a word cloud when summarizing books we read in class. I feel like this would be a great tool to use in synthesizing large ideas into graphic organizers. The learning outcome it would help my students meet is summarizing books by synthesizing the ideas into a picture/graphic organizer. Another way I would use this in my classroom would be to have the class help me create a word cloud on this website that would act as an anchor chart to us. It would be something I would hang around the room so the kids could constantly refer back to it. The learning outcome this would help my students to meet would be collectively combining ideas to create one large idea as a class. I feel as though this website could be very helpful within the classroom.

Colorado Academic Standards:

Grade: Third

Content Area: Reading, Writing, and Communicating

Evidence Outcome:

c. Use Integration of Knowledge and Ideas to:

ii. Summarize central ideas and important details from literary text

ISTE Standards:

6. Creative Communicator

Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the platforms, tools, styles, formats and digital media appropriate to their goals.

6c.

Students communicate complex ideas clearly and effectively by creating or using a variety of digital objects such as visualizations, models or simulations

My Artifact:

The artifact I created was a word cloud on the website Tagxedo.com. I created one that could potentially be made by a third grader who just read Charlotte’s Web. The word cloud is meant to be a visual representation of words that represent the book or that were used often or having large meaning in the story.

Tech Community Research Sharing #2

Hey guys! The technology I chose this week is a website that lets you type in a date and then shows you headlines, songs, prices, and other information for that day in history! The name of this website is: dMarie time capsule, on this day in history. You can find this website at http://dmarie.com/timecap/. (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.The really cool part about this website is that you can enter an exact date, a month or a year and it will show you information pertaining to that date. You can also find a link at the top to a printable version. There are also options of Quick Page and Advanced Page, that give you different options about what kind information you displayed. I feel like this website would be a great tool to use in classrooms. One way I could see students using it would be to have students look up their birthday and share the headlines or songs that came out on the day they were born. Another way I could see teachers and students using it in the classroom would be to look up the prices on the birthday of a student and the birthday of the teacher and to compare the prices and talk about why they are so different.

I really like this website and think that it could be very helpful in the future within the classroom. My pedagogical rational of using this website is that I could find this website very useful for fun activities but also helpful in subjects such as math or social studies. One way I would use this website in the classroom would be during a social studies activity. I would have students look up very important date in history and record the newspaper headlines from those days. I would then ask the students how these headlines relate to what was happening on this day, and if they accurately represented them or not. The learning outcome that this activity would help students to meet would be to understand how historical events influence and impact us. Another way I would use this website in the classroom would be during a math activity. I would have the students’ type in dates from a week in time, and record the prices of a certain item during that week. For example I would have them look up the prices of bread during the week of the Great Depression. I would then have students chart the price of bread over the span of that week and calculate the rate at which is changed. The learning outcome that this activity would help students to meet would be to calculate the rate of change over time.

Colorado Academic Standards:

Grade: second

Content area: Social studies

Evidence outcome: d. Identify history as the story of the past preserved in various sources (DOK 1)

ISTE Standards:

7 Global Collaborators:

Students use digital tools to broaden their perspectives and enrich their learning by collaborating with others and working effectively in teams locally and globally.

Artifact:

Day in history:

September 1,1939

Significance of day:

Start of world war two

Newspaper headline on that day:

“WW II starts, Germany invades Poland, takes Danzig”

Headline you have created for that day:

“The Germans decide to take control over the Polish. This is the next World War”

This is my artifact. The top part is the information I would have the students create before making the artifact. The picture is a screen shot from the website I used to create the artifact. The website not only included important news headlines from that day but also prices, presidents and award winners.

Remington Landis