New Tech Tool: Wall Wisher

Via my Twitter account, I came upon a cool new (or new to me) web tool that I’d like to start using in my class. It’s called Wall Wisher and can be used as an online posting board. Good for teachers: there are settings that you can use to make sure that the wall doesn’t get overrun with spam (I set mine to only post things that I approved as the wall manager).

I’ve created my own Wall and posted a question (please visit and respond!) and thought of a few ways to use this tool in class:

Ø Post a discussion question for a book you’re reading and have students add their comments or thoughts at home or on the class computers as a Do Now or Center activity.

Ø Post a math problem and have students post different ways of solving it.

Ø Have students post math problems for other students to solve, see who can post the most difficult problem (the catch, you can’t post a problem unless you can solve it yourself).

Ø As you’re planning lessons, have students post what they want to study or what they’re struggling with (anonymously) so you can plan to focus on what the want to learn, or what they need to review.

Ø Post a topic and have students post links to web sites, videos, and other information they find about that topic, creating an online research wall.

Ø Post the nightly homework online and encourage students to post questions about homework or other class assignments that other students and you can answer, creating a place for them to go first, before either calling, getting frustrated, or quitting their at-home work.

Reading and Writing Online

Recently, I've come across a few web sites that have books online to read or use in classroom instruction. Aside from the excitment of "turning pages" using a mouse, I think these web sites bring a few different benefits into reading instruction:

1. An opportunity to create a familiar project in a new way, like presenting student "inventions" (a common writing project) through a class online book. The My Little Book Project (www.mylittlebookproject.com) hosts a template for classes to use to make a book all about the inventions of class.

2. To allow kids to read books by a variety of general authors, from teachers to kids. Story Jumper (www.storyjumper.com) has books that other kids have written and that adults have written, all available for free online.

3. To encourage kids to write and think about writing in a new way. Kids can retell stories or write their own stories using Story Jumper (www.storyjumper.com), including making choices that authors make--which pictures and words to include, how to order a story, how much information and writing to include on each page.

I plan on using these tools in my classroom next year and would be interested to see books that have been made by students in the early elementary grades.

*Books on either site can be ordered for a fee, or read for free online.