Word.
This last week in our Language Arts classes we began teaching our students about using the Internet as a resource, how to paste graphics, and layout a page in MicrosoftWord. Oh, and they learned vocabulary, too!
The lesson is pretty simple. Take your vocab word and look it up on dictionary.com. Copy and paste into a word document. Type your vocab word into google images. Choose the best image for your definition. Copy and paste. Add a sentence of your own. Format the page using different fonts and colors. Arrange your text and graphics so it looks balanced. Print. Finally, present your word to the class as they write down the definition in your words, not the dictionary’s. Also, explain to the class why you chose your graphic and how it represents the word.
We found that classroom management was easy during this little lesson, and all students learned more vocabulary words when tested than from previous vocabulary lists. Word documents are put on the “Word Wall” for the duration of the unit, until the next unit’s vocabulary is added.
We believe that the use of the computers, student delivered content, and graphics all contributed to higher levels of comprehension and retention.
Jenny Ru Said,
September 23, 2007 @ 9:23 pm
Dawn, this is a beautiful project you have going. Great for teachers and students. Can this to be embedded in the PVUSD site itself? I’ve been trying to do such a thing with a blog site for our program (Migrant Ed Youth Advocacy program) Do tell!
Dan Said,
September 24, 2007 @ 9:24 am
Hey Dawn
This sounds like a great way to get students excited about working on Vocab. I have a neat trick to take this a step further. You can actually embed the image inside of a word, using word art. I just did this lesson with some students. They love it. You can also have them put their faces inside of their name. I’ll e-mail you an example of this. Then if you are interested I can tell you how to do it. It is pretty easy, I bet you could figure it out. -Dan
dawn_weathersbee Said,
September 24, 2007 @ 12:42 pm
Jenny - I’m not sure about embedding things in the district site - Dan?
Dan, I’m sure I could figure it out, but I’m more a fan of being shown! The image looked cool!