I found this slide show and I thought it had some great ideas for writing activities in the class.  There are many clickable links for resources too.

I have been looking for a word cloud generator that you can use on iPad. The problem is that most use flash which is a no go for iPads. I tried wordle and tagxedo to no avail.

I just found http://worditout.com/ . Although it does not have the ability to choose the form of the word cloud like tagxedo, you still have color and font choice.

To make a word cloud for the iPad, I created a word cloud on the site, then I took a screen shot of it and cropped it in skitch. I was able to select a photo from my photo library for this blog--no need to "select a file" ( the death knell for iPad uploading because you can not choose a file in iPads). Voila word cloud for iPad!

Classroom uses:

1. Have students do an about me cloud - they need to type their name about 10 times for their name to be larger than the other words
2. Speech analysis
Have students copy and paste a speech into the word cloud to help them identify theme words.
3. Writing revision
Have students copy their own writing into the word cloud generator and see which words are most prevalent. They can then edit to eliminate high frequency words for meatier ones.

Here is a live binder with lots of other resources http://www.livebinders.com/play/play/3017

The Literacy Shed has a wealth of visual resources to use.  The curator has tons ( and I do mean tons) of short animations to use for lessons.  He also has lesson ideas to go with the animations.  The animations themselves are beautiful and I think there is a lot of potential for creative writing.
The site has many sheds with different genres of images and animations as well as teaching ideas for each of the areas. Here is an example from the Fantasy Shed.  Scroll down to "Once in a lifetime"  to view some gorgeous animation that students could write narration for. 

The images are ultra engaging!

Today I made my first  Blabberize.  It was relatively painless, but not exactly as easy as I thought it would be.  After downloading an image, I had to find a microphone that hooked up to my new computer. I don't imagine this would be an issue on a Mac, but I use a PC desktop at home that did not have an embedded microphone.  Then I had to figure out how to record the sound ( again I think this is a PC issue) Finally I had to convert the file I made (WMA) into an MP3.  I had to download a converter to do this.  Once I had everything I needed, it was really easy.   I think kids could have a blast with this.  Think how if fun it could be to have an animated picture deliver your presentation.  It would enhance script writing as well.  

 Just found this really interesting site that could be embedded into a website for kids. It offers a daily wondering and a searchable database. Fun for adults and kids to defined answers to questions like: what is a chick wagon, and who invented Lego. This is sponsored by Verizon's Thinkfinity and the National council for Family literacy.


http://wonderopolis.org/wonders/

nnAt the ISTE conference I learned about some great adaptive webtools for our struggling readers. One of those tools is http://www.textcompactor.com/

This tool allows students to copy and paste text into a box and then select the level of readability they want to read it in.

Today I found this great app called Algebra Touch.  Now I’m no math teacher, so take my critique with a grain of salt, butI thought it was engaging and I was able to practice algebraic thinking without having to do the computational part.  It has been a very long time since I have had to any  real math and this app allowed me to manipulate the problems and quickly solve them.

http://www.algebratouch.com/