How do you teach vocabulary with technology? That's a question frequently posed by teachers. First, we need to look at how vocabulary should be taught in the 21st century. Gone are the days when teachers handed a list of vocabulary terms and a dictionary to their students. Vocabulary in the 21st century focuses on making meaning rather than memorizing.
However you might be developing vocabulary in your classroom, whether teaching specific terms related to content specific curriculum or recognizing and expanding on vocabulary in literature, Marzano suggests including non-linguistic representations as well as defining the word in the students' own words. One way to both utilize these suggested strategies with content area vocabulary and incorporate technology is to use a graphics program, like Inspiration or Kidspiration. Students can use both written text and visual images from the image bank to create a graphic representation of the word. Finished products can be exported as .jpg files and inserted into a website, wiki, or blog so that all students have access to the definitions and their pictorial representation. For an example, see what these third graders have created using Kidspiration and a wiki.
In addition to this strategy, there are many websites that can enhance vocabulary development. Visual Thesaurus is a great site that creates a web of color coded synonyms and antonyms that can be collapsed and expanded for teaching purposes.
Tagxedo and Wordle are two sites that work similarly. They are word clouds students can use to collect and display chosen words from literature. The sites randomize typed words and enlarge those that are used more frequently. To include the visual representation that Marzano suggests, colors and fonts can be changed to represent the meaning of the words, and in Tagxedo, various shapes of the clouds can be chosen for deeper meaning. In addition, both sites can be used in writing practices to identify overused words.
These small changes made to your existing practices to incorporate 21st Century Skills and 21st Century Literacy can make a big difference in the retention and comprehension of your students.
