Wordle Review

Post a letter, number, and operation (example: "changing a percent to a decimal")

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Wordle Wordle is a free tool for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text.

Using a Webcam as a Document Camera: Update

I got a chance to set up a cheap Creative webcam as a document camera in my class today, with mixed results. The images autofocused (conveniently) but with poor image resolution. It does seem promising as a in-class tool, though. Kids were interested, and by 8th period, I started to interact with the images using the Smartboard pens. So I think I can use this tool to replace/use in conjunction with the overhead projector. Hopefully I can work around the limitations of my current setup successfully.

Chat/IM widget for a class blog

I've added a widget to my class blog for Google Chat. This is an instant messaging service, and you can chat with me without being registered with Google. I was hoping to make myself available for an hour in the evening, once or twice a week. I am a little wary offering this online option for students, but I think I can set some hours, guidelines, and boundaries for students and maybe encourage some online interaction. I have thought about the comments of another student in my professional development class and his concerns about the separation of a teacher's "school and 'private' life." This would be an important issue to reflect upon and address with students *before* using a chat or IM application.