Elizabeth's English 3241 Blog

PicLits, Scratch, and Voki all have educational potential. They’re very different from one another, but all could be used in the classroom to enhance material.

For instance, PicLits definitely sparks creativity. It hands you the picture and you can choose from a list of words or type in your own. You can be as specific or generic as you want. All of the pictures are clearly chosen to spark thought. I think this would be a great to tie in with a book or a vocabulary assignment.

Scratch was probably my least favorite. The games and everything were slightly confusing because they didn’t exactly have instructions. It is defintely broad and could be used for either personal enjoyment or educational gain. Students would probably enjoy this site more just because it’s really interactive and doesn’t really feel like your typical educational website.

Voki was cool because it immediately reminded me of all the things we’re warned against in school. Online teaching personas are just as important in today’s classroom as your physical self. I could see Voki being used in place of a picture. It’s far less personal. You do get to choose what the avatar looks like as well as record your own voice, so there is a little bit of room for creativity.

Today in class Dr. Crovitz gave us some links to explore different programs online that we could use in our classroom. We were asked to explore them as well as decide on their usability for class.

My personal favorite was the site that featured word clouds. Ashley suggested that we could use them for vocabulary assignments. I loved the idea, but I also think that presenting the assignment in a visually pleasing way would be a great way to present it. Getting beyond the ordinary is something that I really want to do for my class.

The museum boxes were pretty cool and I can see their usage for things like an alternative book report or maybe a presentation on the history of a novel. I’m really glad I found about these two sites just because I see a clear way to incorporate them into my lesson plans.

As far as the other sites were concerned, they were interesting and have their uses, but the two previously discussed seemed a little easier to use.