Learning Gems: iPad

My latest discovery…

I’m very excited about this one because many similar tools don’t work on the iPad.

Wordsift is a tool that allows you to visualise the words in a piece of writing.

Simply paste your writing into word sift:

An added bonus is the availability of other visualisation tools, including a visual thesaurus and image search. The thesaurus is clickable. Students can also highlight categories such as Science and Maths within the Wordsift

Wordsift and Visual Thesaurus

Wordsift and Visual Thesaurus

Wikisift: Some Teaching & Learning IDEAS:
Use when writing persuasive pieces to determine the most commonly used words. This could help students think about the power of particular words when writing persuasively. It might also help them evaluate the effectiveness of their argument based on language choices.

Use for a quick snapshot of the main ideas in any piece of writing. This might even help students summarise key ideas or determine the tone of the piece.

Use for etexts to help analyse and evaluate the writer’s technique and style.

Use the Visual Thesaurus function to explore vocabulary options.

The fact that the above activities can be completed on a mobile device is, of course, an added bonus for teachers and students alike.