On Sunday I do three things:
1) Play with my adorable daughter
2) Do laundry (ok, so that's an everyday thing...)
3) Geek out on Twitter, Pinterest, etc.

If you're not following #edchat on Twitter, you're missing out! There are billions of new tweets filled with fabulous info from educators all over the world. They post great things, nonstop, and we reap all the benefits.

Now, if you're extra amazing, like Vicki Davis, you post things like
62 Ideas, Lessons and Humor for English Teachers and everyone retweets your fabulousness all day long and lovely gals like myself stumble upon it and fall in to a deep academic love with you. My deep seeded academice crushes have yet to blossom into full blown collaboration...that is another post entirely...but I digress.

The ideas, lessons and humor found at the link above will take you weeks to fully explore, but nonetheless, I had to post these resources before they get lost in my extensive Pinterest boards. Enjoy the tips, and THANK YOU to Cool Cat Teacher !

Wordle and Ways to Use it

When I first saw a Wordle, I wasn't sure the purpose of this "word cloud", now that I've seen some amazing ways to use Wordle, the possibilities are limitless.  What is a word cloud? Glad you asked!  It is a collection of words that are about the same topic.  Words that appear more often are bigger than the other words.  Students can copy and paste text from a paper, they can copy and paste text from a website and see what are the common themes and word choices in the text.  

However, you can take a  Wordle  beyond just a word cloud to become an analyzable piece of text.   This is where  Wordle  can become interesting.  Students can create a  Wordle  about several dystopian society books they are reading in their lit circles.  Their classmates who have read different books can analyze, debate, and ask questions based on the words found in the  Wordle .  Another example would be to post two different inaugural speeches from various presidents.  Students can analyze the speeches:  Who gave each speech, when was the speech given, what was going on in the world?  I recently did this with President Bush's 1st Inaugural Speech and his second Inaugural Speech.  I was really interested by how the tone of the speeches seemed to change considering the timing.  

Here's a Wordle of this Blog Post. 

How would YOU use 

Wordle in your classroom?

Google Calendars/Docs

Communication with parents is essential in teaching. My favorite way to do this is through a Google calendar with attached documents. However, Google auto-defaults to a private document so you MUST make these documents public in order for students and parents to access them. View the video below to learn more...

If you'd like to see how to attach documents to your Google calendar, view the following screen cast.

Comment below if you need additional help/tips.