Omnivorous Surfer

Expresso is an online "tool to edit texts and improve your writing style." It is a work-in-progress by a graduate student, Mikhail Panko, and is very easy to use. Expresso seems to me to be an interesting way to examine writing in a different way from standard grammar editors. It could prove useful in a variety of situations. As stated on the site, however, it is not

The site is incredibly easy to use. Simply key in or paste your text, click Analyze text, and an extensive listing of metrics will be presented.
First is a list of metrics for editing. Clicking on any of those will highlight related entries in the text. For example, click on weak verbs and all of the weak verbs in the text will be highlighted. You may edit if you choose, and to make your work easier, mousing over a highlighted word gives you a list of synonyms to choose from. Clicking on weak verbs again will remove the highlights. A few of the metrics in this list are extra long and short sentences, frequent words (by stem), clustered words, filler words, and passive voice.

A second list is of general metrics, such as number of characters and words, syllables per word, readability grade, and percentage of parts of speech.

Edited work can be copied and pasted back into your word processor. This is facilitated by the ability to use Ctrl-A to select all your text, excluding other text on the page. If you wish to mark your changes before transferring, you could use standard hot-keys to bold and or italicize text before copying.

The site includes a description of what it does and how it can be used, a tutorial, and an explanation of each of the metrics. The designer makes it clear that it is not a "magic bullet," but that it should be used to identify weak areas and to get ideas for possible edits.

Wrds is an online vocabulary testing program that lets you enter your own wordlists. It's more than simple flashcards. Wait till you see what you can do on this site.

If your wordlists are in English, Dutch, Spanish, German, or French (or any pair of these), you can hear the pronunciation of the words. Other languages may be used, but there will be no audio. An online guide is displayed when adding or editing a wordlist to aid in entering foreign symbols.

Create your wordlist and you're ready to test. There you have many options: spelling only (see word briefly, then type it in), multiple choice, reacting (press space when you see the correct answer), puzzle (letters scrambled), consonants only, first letter only, in your mind (look and click to indicate if you were right), test (type the right answer). You can choose to ask all the words only once or keep asking until all answers are correct. Good way to learn and then practice vocabulary.

Wrds keeps a record for each wordlist giving the date, type, percentage, and time of each test. A wordlist is available only to the user who created it or someone with that individual's user name (email address) and password).

I have encountered and learned from the Interesting Ways series so many times and yet never thought about sharing it here. Then today I found this page by creator Tom Barrett where he includes links to all of them. This puts all the information he has put together at your fingertips

He has used Google presentations to create slides with uses and tips for using technology in the classroom, inviting others to add to the content. The result has been a rich resource of tested-in-the-classroom ideas for a wide range of topics. Examples of topics include using audio, the Wii, Twitter, Prezi, or Google Docs in the classroom; and  supporting spelling or writing in the classroom. This morning I was looking at Twelve Interesting Ways to Use an iPod Touch in the classroom,; I found things I had never considered and a piece of technology I did not know about, a way to share audio from a single iPod Touch with 5 students.

Note that since content may be added as teachers share their ideas, the number in the title may change. For example, the link I found and used to the iPod Touch presentation specified "Eleven," while the current count is up to twelve. By the time you look, it may be at thirteen!

MakeUseOf.com comes through again. One of the top articles of the week this week was 5 Best Sites to Help Students Prepare for the SATs, and some of these sites would be good for students' general use as well.

I particularly like two of the math sites, both of which are FREE. PurpleMath is an algebra help site which also includes coverage of "preliminary topics" and has good textual explanations.

For video presentations of mathematics lessons, TV Math has directions similar to those which would be given by a teacher in the classroom and includes material from both general math and algebra. Each topic is available from multiple presenters, so students have some choice.

I also like the FREE vocabulary site, Vocab Test. Vocabulary for individual grade levels is included, and students can choose to "learn" before the take the "test" part of a particular word/prefix/suffix section. In addition, the site allows the user to create his/her own quiz.

Check the MakeUseOf article for information about and links to the other two sites it mentions.