ZeroGravity

IS S UE

01
March
Ideas to Help You
Take Off with
Technology
2008

this issue
Poetry Online

Wiki of the Month Voki Stories

Voice Threads
Sally Shackelford
Read, Write, Think
Trace Crossings
Second Grade

Sally has been creating Voki Poetry Online– Create visual poems with just a
stories with her students. Voki’s
click of the mouse!
are animated characters that allow

you to record audio. You can

design your own character so it is Onsens, sounds crazy, but this website is a widget and choosing other html. Then just

great for having students animate neat way to have students create visual copy and paste the information that Onsens

and narrate their own stories. This poetry. Remember the refrigerator magnet gives you into the widget box on your wiki.

activity also helps with fluency as poems? This site allows you to type your If you would like to see how to do all this, click

the students must practice and poem, choose your background and drag the on this link for an interactive video tutorial that

read smoothly before recording “magnetic words” where you want them to be you are also welcome to use with your

their narration. Check out the Our on your background. You can choose your students in the lab.

Stories part of her wiki along with style of magnet as well as your background

the podcast portion. Way to go color. You can also set your poem to music,

Sally! Your wiki is a wonderful although I caution you on letting the students

resource for all. just search for music to add. You might want

sshackelford.wiki.hoover.k12.al.us/ to give them some parameters such as you

can search for only classical or jazz
instrumentals (that way you eliminate the
words in the songs that might be
inappropriate).
Once you are finished, you can save it or
share it. To save it requires a login, so you
An example of the poetry you can create using Onsens.
might want to consider using a class login if
you would like that option. To send it, have
the students send it to your email account.
Then you can forward it on to their parents.
An example of a Voki one of her
Lastly, they also give you the code to embed
students created. Hoover Tech
it into your wiki. This is done through adding a C o ac h e s
Free, Onl i ne
P rofes si onal
Dev el opment
Opp ortuni ti es i n Voice Thread– Transferring Media Into Powerful Conversations
L a n g u a g e A rt s
The most powerful, free online
Voice Thread is a powerful online Word document. Visit this link to see a
resource is Learner.org. great example of an Animal Habitat
tool for students to use pictures,
Brought to you by Annenburg
videos, PowerPoints, Word voice thread. Notice the pictures were
Media, this site offers hundreds
Documents, or basically anything created using Kid Pix and then saved
of videos that will help you as a .jpeg.
you would like to narrate. One of
develop in whatever area you
the best parts of Voice Thread are Also, make sure to check out the
would like. This month, check
the many options you have for What is a Voice Thread section of the
out the Language Arts section website or a tutorial we created for
adding the narration including
where you will find videos on :
phone. This would be a great way you to see wonderful examples of
Teaching Reading
for students to do projects on the what a voice thread can do. You can
Making Meaning in
Civil War or for teachers to use it find this by going to the main
Literature
to narrate instructions written in a homepage.
Inside Writing

Communities
Or the interactive tool for

students on the Elements

of a Story

READ, WRITE,
THINK
Read, Write, Think is a
wonderful website where
students can use the online
tools to help them become
better organizers of their
thoughts as well as writers.
Some of the wonderful
examples of tools they have
for students are:
Acrostic Poems
Character Trading
Essay Map Venn Diagram
Cards
Flip Books Timeline Creator
Comic Strip Creator
Graphic Organizers Word Family Sorters
Compare and Contrast
Notetaker
Map
Shape Poems Check out the lesson plan
Diamonte Poems
Story Map section for some good ideas!