Saturday, November 15, 2008



First, a little something for all you English teachers and wordsmiths. A Way with Words: public radio’s lively language show. Listen online or download as a podcast. Scripts included. Jeffrey Hill describes it in his blog here. While you’re visiting Jeffrey’s blog, do yourself a favour and subscribe, it’s a goldmine. Here’s another entry of his on Scholastic’s Word Wizard Dictionary.

You say Tom–ay–toe I say Tam-at-toe
Forvo
All the words in the world.
Pronounced.

Not sure how to pronounce flibbertigibbet? Type it into Forvo and have it read back to you. Forvo often includes more than one pronunciation as in the case of the word ‘data’. If you’re not happy with what you’re hearing you have the option of adding your own interpretation.

I was just watching the SimplyBox demo and I see it as another powerful tool for students to clip and organize information from the web, add comments and share/collaborate with others. Oh for a classroom with one-to-one laptops!

Enjoy!

Image credit to Victory of the People from flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/victory/6661524/sizes/s/

2 comments:

Joanie said...

Leslie,o guru

Haven't been able to sleep with visions of RSS feeds going through my head, so I was working on my blog post for the week and there was your wonderful comment on my blog. Thanks! This whole Web 2.0 stuff is feeling very overwhelming right now - so much to learn and then to become efficient enough to share the information. I was encouraged by your post where you said you worked with the class on iMovie and didn't really even know what you were doing. That's the whole thing, isn't it? Just getting past the angst and taking the first steps and trying. Back to figuring out my Google Reader which I set up so long ago I need to remember what I did! Thanks for answering all my questions and providing such great support on this technology journey.

Lesley Edwards said...

Thanks Joanie, for your kind words. I know that overwhelmed feeling so well. I did my web2.0 immersion during the summer of 2007. Self-inflicted but a wonderful experience. I was blown away by how much there is out there and how friendly and immensely helpful and encouraging the global community is. It still feels strange that I have communicated with so many wonderful people whom I will never meet face to face.
From time to time I take a breather however fearful I am that I will lose touch and forget what I've learned.
Web on! Lesley