Thing #2: Wordle, Wordsift, Glogster, Animoto, Bookr

Wordle: This is a great way to introduce biology topics. Students can create a wordle picture for a book or notebook cover using terms from their textbook table of contents. They can also create wordles as a way to review key terms in the the topics that we cover.

Wordsift: This also can be used as a review tool. I copied and pasted the list of topics that I entered into Wordle to create a basic biology wordsift. I like how the student can use this tool as a way to explore images and videos instantly for each different term in the wordsift image. Reivewing mages and videos are very helpful in studying biology and reinforcing vocabulary.

Voki: This is a cute way to personalize internet communication with students.

Get a Voki now!

Glogster: Students can use this site to create posters that illustrate a topic. This is a neat way to differentiate instruction and engage very creative and artistic learners.

Animoto: Students can create interesting visual displays set to music to review a topic. For example, students could present information on a topic and use this as an opening attention getter or as a close to a presentation. Or, students might find images for a biology review song and present that to the class. For example, Dr. Art creates fun biology review songs for a variety of life science topics. They could download and use some of his songs for this project.

Bookr: Students might use this site as a different way to review vocabulary pr review for a quiz. Or the students might create a children's book to explain a difficult biology topic such as cell respiration. However, the fact that all photos are from the flikr commons means that my students will have a difficult time finding the pictures or diagrams that they need. I tried searching for "cell" for example and found no appropriate pictures.