Want to learn some amazing cool tools to help your grades improve and make your school-work easier? In this Quest, you will be exploring study tools that can help you summarize wordy text, create flash cards, and learn new vocabulary. Some of these sites will let you play games and compete against friends! Throw away the index cards and the notepads and streamline your learning and practice time online. In this Quest, you will experience several different types of tools that you will be able to use to support your learning. Let’s get started!
Summary: A summary is a brief statement or paragraph of the main points of something.
Annotating: Annotating is adding notes or comments.
Pick a topic you are studying, or are doing a report on, for one of your classes. Choose four or more (check with your teacher for exactly how many) of the six areas listed below to study and/or solve problems related to your topic.
Start by learning about Quizlet and all the things you can do on Quizlet.
Find a set of flashcards that go with one of the topics you are studying in school (English, math, science, or social studies). Select one with a minimum of 20 terms to try out.
In Quizlet use the different options of Learn, Test, Scatter, and SpaceRace to learn or review vocabulary for your topic. Take a screenshot of your flashcard terms.
Go to Vocabulary Spelling City and explore the resources available there for your topic.
On the home page, use the "To Start, Try This!" and enter 5-10 words that you need to learn to spell correctly for a class (math, science, social studies, language arts, or a specials class). Play a game to practice the spelling words.
Stuck on a problem, and your teacher isn't around to help you out?
Go to the Khan Academy and select the "Learn" tab at the top.
Consider a topic you are studying or would like to learn, and watch a short instructional video or explore a resource.
1. Wolfram Alpha will help you solve math and other curricular problems.
2. Go to Wolfram Alpha and start by clicking on examples.
3. Now locate some information that will help you with your topic.
Want to summarize articles quickly and easily to get the important idea?
Visit either one or both Text Compactor and Summarize This.
Go to the Student News Articles site and select a current news article.
Copy the information into either summarization site and have the site generate a summary.
Think about when it is appropriate to use one of these tools and reflect how it will make a difference in your writing.
Here is a list of two online highlighting/sticky note/web clipping tools that may be useful to help you interact with online text such as articles, research websites, etc. Some of them also have an iPad/Android app, and some require the addition of an extension to a toolbar that has to be downloaded. Most require an account to save your work.
Evernote: (iPad app, Android app, website/desktop download)--includes audio notes, clipping and annotating, and highlighting website clips.
Educlipper: a Pinterest-style way to clip from the web and share out to groups. This is an iPad app as well as a website. Also, don't forget about the highlighting features in Google Docs and Microsoft Word!
When finished provide the following information in your File Space.
Identify the topic that you chose to explore through these different tools. Give each tool a rating from one to five stars, where five is the highest rating. Use a few short sentences to explain why you rated them the way you did, and provide a summary of some of the types of information you found for your topic.
Think about your work in your other classes. Give three or more examples of specific ways you could use these interactives to help you with your school work (name the site/app, tell what subject area, and tell how you would use it). Share these examples with your screenshots in your File Space.