PicLits

"PicLits.com is a creative writing site that matches beautiful images with carefully selected keywords in order to inspire you. The object is to put the right words in the right place and the right order to capture the essence, story, and meaning of the picture."

WordSift - Visualize Text

"WordSift is a tool that was created primarily for teachers. Mainly, think of it playfully - as a toy in a linguistic playground that is available to instantly capture and display the vocabulary structure of texts, and to help create an opportunity to talk and play with language.
For teachers, the tool offers a quick way of assessing the text that he or she is using for instruction. Teachers assess students, and the most successful teachers use this information to guide their teaching. So why not assess the text as well? By using WordSift, teachers get a heads up on key vocabulary appearing in the text, and can line instruction up with what might be challenging for students"

ReadWriteThink

"ReadWriteThink, established in April of 2002, is a partnership between the International Reading Association (IRA), the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), and the Verizon Foundation.
NCTE and IRA are working together to provide educators and students with access to the highest quality practices and resources in reading and language arts instruction through free, Internet-based content."

Webspiration

Webspiration™ is the new online visual thinking tool that helps you capture ideas, organize information, diagram processes and create clear, concise written documents whether working individually or collaboratively. With integrated diagram and outline views you can think visually, structure your work effectively and express your ideas in the ways that communicate best

Wordle

"Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like."

Think of the many ways you could use this with your SmartBoard!

Discovery Education

Looking for video to enhance your lessons? Sign up for a free 30 day trial with Discovery Education. Then let your administrator know how much you like it.

Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus

Learned of this site last year while completing CLAD program online. "The Visual Thesaurus is an interactive dictionary and thesaurus which creates word maps that blossom with meanings and branch to related words. Its innovative display encourages exploration and learning. You'll understand language in a powerful new way."
Visual Thesaurus

Organizing It All

Instead of putting a paper version under your document camera, try using the resources below and locate the perfect graphic organizer to use in a SmartNotebook page.

Graphic Organizers (from Teacher Vision)

Graphic Organizers (from Education Place)

Graphic Organizers (from ABC Teach)

Graphic Organizers (from Houghton Mifflin)