The Power of Words 

The best thing that ever happened to me in the whole wide world is being Grandma. (Special shout out to Suzanne who just recently join the Grandma Club with her sweet little Daphne.) My Frankie Bella is sleeping over tonight so I looked through some of the previous "tuesdays" to share and was excited that I wrote this one over 5 years ago. Forgive me for a repeat, but there's nothing more powerful than being a grandma.

The power of words is astounding. Just the right word at the right time can bring incredible results. Spewing the wrong word at the wrong time can cause results that are equally damaging. As teachers, choosing our words wisely is critical. No matter what subject we teach, vocabulary is an essential part of establishing understanding. Why not investigate the power of words using Web 2.0 tools? There are a plethora of new tools that I can only begin to examine with you in this issue of "tuesdays" but I hope that you will send in some of your findings so we can share.

I would like to encourage you to create a love of words in your students. They normally see vocabulary as a chore, but with the rich tools available to us online, we may just peak their interest. These are a small collection of dictionaries and thesauri that I have also placed in my del.icio.us account to share. Click the tags for dictionary or words and you will easily get to this list.

Dictionary.com

Your Dictionary

Merriam-Webster Online

Dr. Goodword's Dictionary

Oxford Dictionary

The American Heritage Dictionary

Webopedia

What are some of your favorite and little known words? Where do you think I came up with Ubiquitously Yours?

How do you study words in the classroom? There are so many ways. Today, I see Word Walls everywhere I go. One teacher was doing her Word Wall in PowerPoint with her kindergarten students as they sounded out the names of their classmates. One of my favorite activities when I taught 5^th grade was to bury overused words and use the thesaurus to find better descriptions. How I wish I had these online tools! We literally buried words like: nice, good, pretty, wonderful on tombstones. Although it sounds morbid, the tombstones were RIP (Rest in Peace) plaques decorated with our overused word and planted besides them were beautiful substitutes for these worn-out adjectives. How do you get your students interested in the vocabulary of your classroom?

"Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path."   

Psalm 119:105 - King David

This is a Visuword map made with the word collaboration. Some of the images that words create are quite attractive. 

ipadio   

LiveBinders 

Doceri 

NASA's Image Gallery 

Popplet 

Zoey's Room
Finance in the Classroom
Fotopedia 

The Common Good Forecaster  

Google Earth 

UJAM 

Symbaloo.edu 

Google Science Fair 

Stossel in the Classroom
Word Sift 

Lee Kolbert