Academic Vocabulary and Haiku Deck

What is 'Academic Vocabulary'?

Academic Vocabulary Frayer Example

Why should academic vocabulary be explicitly taught?

• to build students' background knowledge on a concept (not just for English learners)
• because some academic words have multiple meanings, depending on the context (ex: table, root, line...)
• to prepare students to read, hear or speak about a new concept
• because understanding important words related to a new concept can help students make connections to prior learning and/or the world around them

Here's some of the research behind academic vocabulary:

Source: Pennsylvania Department of Education,
"Effective Practices for Teaching Academic Vocabulary"

Marzano's Six Steps to Effective Vocabulary Instruction:

Source:
http://www.teachthought.com/teaching/vocabulary-instructiona-strategies-marzanos-6-step-process/

How can technology be used to facilitate and enhance academic vocabulary teaching and learning?

In my experience, a number of edtech apps and resources become powerful tools when partnered with Marzano's Six Steps (listed above).  

One of my new favorites that I'd like to highlight for you is Haiku Deck - a free iPad app that allows you to create powerful presentations using a few words and Creative Commons images.

My first experience using Haiku Deck with my English learners was when I created an illustrated WW2 vocabulary game to use with a group of 6th graders.  Each slide contains a vocabulary word and related image, and students went head-to-head in an around the world-type game to see who could be the first to provide the correct definition for a given word.  They loved it, and will be creating their own vocabulary games using Haiku Deck for a review next week.

Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad


My second experience with Haiku Deck was structured around homophones and the Frayer Model for vocabulary development.  A 4th grade teacher and I met this past week to plan for a new unit, and we realized how powerful it would be to have students extend and share their learning of homophones by creating Haiku Decks with Frayer Model squares for each slide.

Here's a sample Frayer Model:

And here's how we turned it into a Haiku Deck:



Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad

Check out the tutorial I made for this lesson on Sophia.org for the screencasted explanation of my Haiku Deck: Homophone Vocabulary: http://www.sophia.org/vocabulary-and-haiku-deck-tutorial

We are really looking forward to having our students create and share their own homophone vocabulary Haiku Decks this week!

How have you used Haiku Deck?

What are some other effective apps / resources you use to teach academic vocabulary?

Please share your ideas, comments and questions in the comments below!

Annotating with Skitch

I have always been a big (ok, huge) fan of sticky notes -- yes, the yellow squares of paper that you can write on and stick anywhere -- I love them.  Plain and simple.  I think it's because I tend to come up with random thoughts, questions, or connections and love to have a spot to jot them down and stick them so I can come back to them later.  Or, maybe it's because they're so small that you have to limit to-do lists to bare essentials and abbreviate notes with shorthand and symbols.

Therefore, it probably comes as no surprise that I also enjoy incorporating sticky notes into lessons I teach at school.  One of my favorite ways to use sticky notes with students has been to facilitate students' interaction with a text -- by taking notes / annotating what they read, and then sticking the notes to the text (or textbook) for easy reference at a later time.

This practice makes for quick note checks (did you get 5 notes on that topic?), formative assessments (turn in your most important note on this topic), reorganization of ideas (try flip-flopping your 2nd and 3rd sticky notes), recording collective brainstorming (write what you already know about this topic and stick it on the board), etc... (for more innovative and impressive uses of sticky notes in the classroom, check out this Edutopia blog post by Ben Johnson: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/sticky-note-teaching-tool-ben-johnson).

But, I have come across a few important limitations with sticky notes in the classroom --

1. sticky notes eventually loose their sticky-ness
2. sticky notes can be a great record of learning, but are difficult to share with those outside of our classroom

image: http://inthelifeofanerd.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/skitch.jpg

So, I did some checking and soon discovered...there's an app for that! (actually there are several great annotation apps out there!) 

Skitch happens to be my favorite iPad annotation app to use with students because it is very easy to pick up and use and is also very easy to share and save.

First step:
Students select the background image they would like to annotate.  They can use a photo, map, blank screen, or capture an image from the web.

Second step:
Students use the annotation tools (arrow, text, shapes, highlighter/marker, pen color, blur, crop) to take notes and annotate the text or photo to show thoughts, ideas, questions and / or connections.

From: Great Source ACCESS History - Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

From: National Geographic Explorer, Pioneer Edition. January, 2013

Third step:
Students save their annotation, either to the iPad to to their Evernote account.

Fourth step:
Students share their annotation:

• create a public link (post on blog, class website, Twitter, Facebook, etc)
• via AirPlay (project and display)
• send in an email (classmates, family, friends, teachers, etc)
• save to the iPad's camera roll

Skitch provides students with a meaningful way to annotate and interact with a photo or text, while also providing options for both saving and sharing the annotations on a grander scale.  Sorry, sticky notes....Skitch's got you beat this time!

How do you use Skitch with students?  Do you use a different annotation app?  Leave your ideas in the comments section!

My next app-y goal: use HaikuDeck with students as a medium for sharing their learning...looking forward to trying it out!