Study Tools - 8/11/12

http://www.tagxedo.com/image/87b0e184efb04112

http://www.tagxedo.com/artful/304eb0f5d4754329



REFLECTION - TAGXEDO:

I had such high hopes for this activity, but it turned out more complex than I had hoped.  I saw Wordle posters on sale for the two common verbs for, "to be," in Spanish and I thought I could do this myself.  My plan was to make a Tagxedo and repeat the words ser and estar over and over again so those words would appear larger than the other words and use an image (rather than a random shape) to link the concepts with the word.  As cool as Tagxedo is, I found it difficult to navigate and get the desired result I had wanted.  The shapes were limited and I ended up just using a simple star.

Also, there doesn't seem to be a way to save the images and then search for them, so I ended up recreating one of my Tagzedos so I could link it here.  Overall, more work than I had thought at first, but I think I could see my students using this activity as a fun writing activity or for higher levels, to describe a famous Spanish-speaking person with his/her own image.

I'll post the second activity later...

http://www.studyblue.com/#search/notes/AUTHOR:1106275

REFLECTION - STUDY BLUE:

I had already tried Study Blue before and was not at all excited about recreating flashcards that my book already has created for each lesson.  Why reinvent the wheel when time is so limited?

What I found out was that I probably didn't really need to recreate anything (but I did anyway) because someone else probably had already created a full list of vocabulary to study.  It was easy to search and since I actually did the activity as intended, I was pleasantly surprised that other examples of the flashcards came up on the right hand side that I could click on easily to add to my collection.  That led me to discover I could add a photo, which my book already does, but I could personalize it with pictures of local places/people/things.  I was also glad I could add sound so pronunciation could be practiced, but that is also already include with my book's website.  What I'm not sure of is if I can ad a picture AND sound.  Something my book also does and is helpful for multiple intelligences.

I really liked the fact that Study Blue kept track of your progress, something my book's website didn't do (with flashcards).  I'll have to see if I can keep track of my student's progress as well once school starts.

I'm a little concerned with the link I posted above because you could edit the list and delete or edit cards and I'm not sure if that would affect my cards directly because you don't have an account and are not logged in, so don't try it please.

I doubt I'll create that much in Study Blue since I already have a tool that does most of what want, but I may assign it for students to do so that they could be more involved in their learning.  They would add their own pictures/images to make it more personal for themselves.  They can log in through Facebook, Twitter and Google, something my students already use a lot.  Overall, I liked the tool.